Editing Poetry from Spenser to Dryden: Papers Given at the Sixteenth Annual Conference on Editorial Problems, University of Toronto, 31 October–1 November 1980 ed. by A.H. de Quehen (review)

410 LETTERS IN CANADA 1981 female faithfulness and passive resistance, though the heroine uses such grotesque means that no real courtlylady could possibly have imitated her actions. Whether or not militant feminists would appreciate the comparison of Vienne to Milton's Samson, the artistic weaknesses of this curious romance are only thrown into sharper relief by such an unlikely match. 'Lewte' and 'trawpe' are vital touchstones for the Gawain-Poet, but the essay included here speaks only of an honour/shame code, a term taken from social anthropology, to which frequent reference is made. Not surprisingly, therefore, the author sees Gawain's downfall essentially as an exposure of what ought to have remained private (p 89) and does not corne to grips with the poem either on its deeper levels or on its primary playful one. Professor Leyede's in-depth essay, the last in the book, surveys the ground covered by the preceding papers, analysing the links between them, and providing further insights. In view of the somewhat disparate material, part of this conclusion might have been helpful as an introduction . Instead, Caxton's 'Exhortation to the Knights of England' serves as preface and highlights the problems inherent in the whole thesis. Like statistics subject to varied interpretations, Caxton's famous lament on the decline of chivalry may reflect a vital contemporary concern, but might equally well be an attempt to revive a dying form. Leyede, following Maurice Keen, suggests that this lament is merely a standard late medieval topos, but admits that it might also have been a useful ploy for advertising one's wares - and fifteenth-century printers, no less than modem scholars, need patrons to support their projects! If the overall thesis of the present project and the assumptions on which it rests are not really proven here, much light is thrown on the way late medieval aristocratic society wanted to see itself. (E.M. ORSTEN) A.H. de Quehen, editor. Editing Poetry from Spenser to Dryden: Papers Given at the Sixteenth Annual Conference on Editorial Problems, University of Toronto, 3' October-1 November 1980 Garland Publishing. '74. $18.50 The five expert papers collected here show the enduring power of these poets to elicit the closest attention. Ranging from scrutiny and analysis of manuscript readings to the philosophy of reading and commentary, aU bearon the humanist recovery of the meaning of words from a former age. All attest, in varying ways, to the frustrations and pleasures of this work. The first two papers examine manuscripts. Mark Roberts returns to 'Problems in Editing Donne's Songs and Sonets: threading his way skilfully through the labyrinth of manuscript readings. He supports the HUMANITIES 411 view that the 1633 edition can reasonably stand as copy-text but that it must be corrected from the manuscripts. This work must be guided by a coherent theory of the text, derived from empirical study of the evidence, and consistently applied. Roberts tests his present theory, slightly revised, in readings for 'The Good-Morrow,' 'The Flea,' and'A Valediction Forbidding Mourning,' a welcome foretaste of his promised edition. Allan Pritchard, reporting on his work in 'Editing from Manuscript: Cowley and the Cowper Papers,' gives a vivid sense of the 'textual and biographical information' preserved in seventeenth-century collections of manuscripts and deserving further investigation. His account of discovering in the Cowper collection frrst one and then another manuscript of The Civil War, together with other unpublished Restoration verse and evidence of how the collection came to be, strongly supports his plea that such collections be kept intact. As an illustration of the abundance of material awaiting publication Pritchard gives the complete text from John Evelyn's papers of one of his two poems to Cowley. William Frostalsobringsout the human significanceofminute historical detail in 'On Editing Dryden's Virgil.' Frost illustrates Dryden's lively response to his specific political, religious, and personal context in the details of his translation, introduction, notes, and plate adaptations (four ofwhich are reproduced), then places Dryden's work in the larger context of Virgil translation. Frost can thus reverse the strictures of Robert Graves and suggest that Virgilian classicismis evidence not ofsterile time-serving but of active and...