Monteverdi’s place in the history of music has long had its roots in text music relations; he has been seen as a faithful interpreter of Italian poetry and a master of matching musical technique to poetic gesture. Scholars have perhaps been too quick to explain perceived tensions or inconsistencies between text and music in Monteverdi’s madrigals as youthful emulations of his forebears, begrudging concessions to new poetic trends, or simply as mistakes. What is more is that these very same tensions, or lack thereof, have occasionally been taken as proof of Monteverdi’s own literary allegiances: Petrarchan, Marinist, or otherwise. Nevertheless, Monteverdi seems to have been less concerned with matching poet to poetics as he was with exploring the representational potential of musical technique and poetic voice. This introduction reconsiders the poetics of the marvellous in scholarly perceptions of Monteverdi’s approach to the interpretation of poetry.