En amer e douce vie is attributed to the fourteenth-century French poet and composer Guillaume de Machaut. It is written in the genre known as the ballade, which was originally a dance form on the subject of love, but had, in the fourteenth century, become a more formal polyphonic form probably performed mainly for the intelligentsia and nobility. This particular ballade is unusual in form, comprising a structure which may be notated as AABB, instead of the more usual AAB.

This work is included in Machaut's long narrative poem "Remede de Fortune". Manuscripts of this work contain notated examples of each of the main secular genres in which he wrote: the ballade, lai, rondeau and virelai.

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