The Anglo-Norman lyric, an anthology: edited from the manuscripts with translations and commentary (review)

Reviews jg5 Malti-Douglas must be given credit for a pioneering work on a dominant cultural discourse in Arabic-Islamic writings. Samar Attar Department of Semitic Studies University of Sydney Jeffrey, David L. and Brian J. Levy, The Anglo-Norman lyric, an anthology: edited from the manuscripts with translations and commentary (Studies and Texts 93), Toronto, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1990; paper; pp. xiv, 285; R.R.P. CAN$31.50. Fifty-twotextsare edited, each from a single manuscript. Variant readings from other copies are supplied in three cases (nos 29,31, 52). Each composition is furnished with a m o d e m English translation, a bibliography, a commentary, notes ontextualand metric matters. The Introduction contains two well-founded utilitarian sections on dialectal and scribal forms and on Anglo-Norman versification. The editors' threefold aim is to offer students 'arepresentativecollection of surviving poetry in this genre'; to provide 'Anglo-Norman lyrics to set beside Middle English lyrics of the same era and locale'; to make the book 'accessible and useful to a wider range of those interested in medieval culture' (p. xi). It is in the first of these endeavours that the work comes unstuck. The term lyric is ill-defined, the references are not cunent, and the translations are at times unsatisfactory. The editors have labelled 26textsdevotional and liturgical, 13 homiletical, 4 social and domestic commentary and 9 love and friendship. These are all branded lyrical. The arguments for this term are set forth on pp. 6-12 but Anglo-Norman specialists are not persuaded. I cannot accept as lyrical effusions such pieces as the Pater Noster, Ave Maria, Penitential Psalms, select proverbs, and short sermons on religious or didactic themes. These amount to nearly half thetotalpresentation. A less misleadingtitlefor the collection would be: An anthology ofAnglo-Norman devotional, liturgical, homiletical, didactic and lyric compositions. One may enquire about the grounds for considering no. 46 Anglo-Norman, when Vising, p. 48, no. 52 wrote circumspectiy 'The only A.N . trait is the ^regularity of the versification'. A n edition should be cited (p. 22), when Bozon's Plainte d'amour is discussed, as it is not included in the chrestomathie. The no. 50 with identicaltitleis anonymous. Many of the pieces here edited have been annotated, several with additional manuscripts, in three books which are not even mentioned. Ireferto P. R6zeau, Les prieres aux saints en francais, 2 vols (Geneva, 1982-83); K. V. Sinclair, Prieres-suppliment (Townsville, 1987) (=PS) and French devotional texts ofthe Middle Ages, 3 vols (Westport and London, 1979, 1982, 1988) (=FDTMA). 136 Reviews Thetitleof Edith Brayer's important paper 'Catalogue destextesliturgiques et des petits genresreligeux'is omitted on p. 39 and in the bibliography. The reader may evaluate the omissions: no. 1, add FDTMA, 1, no. 3473 and III, p. 10 (3 other mss. and the A.N. origin cast into doubt); 2, PS, pp. 98-9 (new light by Ruth Dean on this poem); 4, Ker, Facsimile; 6, PS, p. 33 (another ms.); 8, ed. by R6zeau, II, pp. 321-2; 9, PS, p. 98 (new mss., varied prosody weakens comments on structure); 10, FDTMA, I, no. 2470 (3 new mss.); 19, the eds do not refer to the scribe's tide turris sapientie, cf. PS, p. 119, how is a Pater Noster accommodated in such an edifice?; 23, the commentary on the rarity of the hymn Veni creator spiritus (p. 115) needs revising in the light of the discovery of ten other renderings (FDTMA, I, nos 3567, 3569, 3838, II, nos 5057, 5318-21; III, nos 5677, 6317, 6811-13; 24, PS, p. 41 (Baltimore codex); 33, D. A. Trotter, Medieval French literature and the Crusades (1100-1300), Geneva 1987, p. 205-6; 34, FDTMA, I, no. 3489; 35, PS, p. 29, it is important to state that this text is derived from a Latin original occurring in Books of Hours; 37, Sonet, no. 1732; 39, Sonet no. 373 and J. C. Russell, Dictionary of 13th C. Writers, London 1936, p. 148; 43, Ker, Facsimile. In the matter of translations, the proverb selection (no. 42) has been rendered notionally, e.g. 'Life teaches more than the book' is far off the...