This article examines the poems of James Ryman (fl. 1492), a Franciscan friar at Canterbury.
With reference to their mise-en-page in the sole surviving manuscript, the partial holograph
Cambridge, University Library, MS Ee.1.12, it focusses on Ryman’s habit of repeating both
Scriptural and liturgical quotations and word-blocks of his own composition across multiple
poems, arguing that such repetitions are not failures of technical skill, but traces of his
writing process. First, it contrasts Ryman’s repetitions with those of a number of his
contemporaries, positing that his have been experienced as problematic because they do not
necessarily respond to attempts to link form with content. Second, by demonstrating how he
builds on established mnemonic techniques, it shows that his repeated words and phrases
serve as mental building blocks which not only facilitate composition, but constitute his
subject-matter. It thus sets out a new way of reading Ryman, with a focus on praxis rather
than product; finally, it considers what such an approach contributes to recent debates around
the critical usefulness of “lyric” as a genre.
