Harry Carter
I work on songs and lyrics, mainly those of Song dynasty China (960–1279 CE), Greek and Roman antiquity, and medieval Western Europe. By examining song lyrics from different traditions in a comparative framework, I try to clarify aspects of how they work that remain blurry or invisible when they are considered in isolation. I have recently given papers on comparative song-lyric poetics at the International Medieval Congress (Leeds, June 2022), at the ACLA (Montreal, March 2024), and at Princeton University (April 2024). In winter 2025 I will be co-teaching a class on 'Song and Lyric in Greece and China' with Anastasia-Erasmia Peponi.
I am also interested in the permeable and productive border between song lyrics and poetry. In March 2023 I gave a paper at the ACLA (Chicago), arguing that medieval European fin’amor song lyrics and ci 詞 song lyrics departed radically and self-consciously from the poetic ideals of their times. In an article of mine published in Manuscript and Text Cultures, I argue that Geoffrey Chaucer (1343–1400) brings his songwriting expertise to bear on his approach to writing narrative poetry. In Spring 2024, I co-designed and co-taught a class called 'Song and Poetry from Sappho to Taylor Swift', with Marisa Galvez. We were interviewed about the class by The Stanford Daily. For autumn 2024, I have designed a class called 'Bob Dylan and the History of Song as Literature'.
In the academic year 2021–2022 I was Vice Chair of the Early Text Cultures research collective, which organises seminars, conferences and workshops to enable interdisciplinary dialogue among scholars of premodern literature. In 2024-25, I am one of the organisers of a new DLCL research unit called 'Comparative Methodologies', which seeks to encourage dialogue among a diversity of scholars who work 'comparatively', in one sense or another. Details of our events will be circulated soon!
I am a member of The Unheard Melodies Project, a musical collaboration with Nigel Smith and Timothy Hampton. The project tries to give new life to old lyrics, through settings, translations and reimaginings. Our most recent performance was at the 'Troubadours and Sonneteers' conference at Princeton University, in April 2024.