By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘Mon in the Mone’ (i.e. ‘Man in the Moon’) is a medieval poem dating from the early fourteenth century, a good half a century before Geoffrey Chaucer, the Pearl poet, John Gower, and the Gawain poet all arrived on the scene and English poetry really came into its own. ‘Man in the Moon’ is a baffling and mysterious little lyric, so a brief summary and analysis are provided below. First, though, the poem: