Although the song is often the subject of monographs one of its forms remains insufficiently
researched: the vocalised song communicated to the spectator through performance. The study of
the song takes one back to the study of vocal practices from aesthetic objects to forms and to
plural styles. To conceive a song means approaching it in its different instances of creation
as well as its linguistic diversity. Jean Nicolas De Surmont proposes ways of research and
analysis useful to musicians musicologists and literary critics alike. In his book he takes
up the issue of vocal poetry in addition to examining the theoretic aspects of song objects.
Rather than offering an autonomous model of analysis De Surmont extends the research fields
and suggests responses to debates that have involved everyone interested in vocal poetic forms.
