ABSTRACT
Early Modern poeticians provide the literary pendant of Morley in pinpointing the particular affinity of some poetic genres with the subject of love. Ayre and madrigal lyrics use figurative speech to lift language to a loftier style; while analogously, composers use figures in music to enhance its style and thus its persuasiveness. The rhetorical basis of song lyrics was emphasized by madrigal and ayre composers, who transformed the text in order to suit it to the intended musical setting. The erotic ambivalence of music is also debated through the issue of vocal performance. The action of both sacred and secular music has the same basis: its power to move the heart and soul relies on the erotic appeal of the voice. Renaissance texts emphasize the superiority of vocal over instrumental music in the expression of passions, on the grounds that they combine semantic contents and musical expressivity.
