The Earliest English Poetry. A Critical Survey of the Poetry Written before the Norman Conquest with Illustrative Translations. By Charles W. Kennedy (review)

REVIEWS 105 commentators and to establish thereby a universal Christian synthesis receptive of all truths which the philosophers had to teach. William of Auvergne, St. Bonaventure, St. Albert, Roge'r Bacon, and Siger of Brabant were all occupied with this problem. The point of difference between them an·d St. Thomas lies in his unwillingness to accept either Avicenna or Averroes as the official interpreter of Aristotle and also in his refusal to regard Aristotle himself as the official spokesman of philosophy. As Professor Pegis intimates, the achievement of St. Thomas, considered in its broad outlines, thus assumes the character of a liberation. In the very process of assimilating the newly discovered ideas into the bosom of Christian thought, he was promoting a philosophical revolution "by freeing philosophy from the philosophers and by reading the history of phiJosophy from the absolute point of view of philosophy." For St. Thom_ as, the philosophical issues confronting the thirteenth century were reducible to the two fundamentally different, though philosophically possible, approaches to reality represen ted by the Platonic and Aristotelian traditions. St. Thomas's repeated criticism of Plato for patterning reality as it is, on reality as it is thought, is evidence enough of h is own attitude. Professor Pegis has clearly indicated this. Yet it often happens that when emphasis is laid upon basic issues separating two doctrines, minor points held in common become overshadowed and even forgotten. After reading Professor Pegis's excellent introduction, it may not be out of place to keep this possibility in mind. The Aristotelianism of St. Thomas is not·the Aristotelianism of history. His aim to construct a uniyersal Christian synthesis, open to all truth, has enabled him to enrich his thought in many details by doctrines of Platonic inspiration also. What else could be expected from one whose constant counsel was to consider, not who said a thing, but the truth of what is said? St. Thomas, like his great predecessor St. Augustine, had also an eye for the spoils of the . Egyptians. .SHORTER NOTICE TheEtlrliest English Poetry. A Critical Suroey of the Poetry Written before the Norman Conquest with Illustratioe Translations. By CHARLES W. KENNEDY. London, New York, [Toronto]: Oxford University Press. 1943. Pp. viii, 375. ($4.00) IN this attractive volume Professor Kennedy performs a useful task in reappraising the whole corpus of Old English poetry in the light of recent historical and critical research. The poems are reviewed in topical and chronological order, with a s\lmmary of each and an alliterative translation of significant passages. Information is clearly presented as to manuscripts, problems of authorship, historical and social backgrounds, and literary influences; and the poetic worth of each text is estimated with critical :: 106 · THE UNIVERSITY. OF TORONTO QUARTERLY discrimination_ Professor Kennedy's opinion of this poetry is favourable; sometimes enthusiastic; but he does not allow a specialist's partiality to blur his critical j\ldgmenL His general position is that Old English poetry 1s noc "the primiti\re and nai've product of untutored bards", but rhe work of skilful and·sensit!ve artists. who blencl.ed the pagan beliefs and ideal~ of their nat}ve tradition with Christi.an doctrines and classical cult~re. In a final estimate he says of this poetry: "Much is excellent, some is timeless and immorral. The heartbreak of the elegies, the stout-spirited fortitude of che battle poems, the antique grace and energy of th.e Christian allegories, the ge.nt\e and lo'nely accents ,o( Cynewulf; ·the ·terror and awe of the Judgment poems, th.e lyric. adoration of the Drca~1 Dj the Rood, such poetry is memorable in any 1tgc:.'' Above Dll the rest he places the Btowulj, as most nearly achieving a fusion of the Germanic, the Classical, and the Christian spirit. . As to classical influ~nce on the BeDwu/jJ Professor Kennedy makes i.t very probable that three passages 1n Hrothgar's famous d~:scription of the haunted mere are reminiscences of three passages all found within 92 line~ of the Seventh Book o( tht /.leneid.1 Grendel'5 mountain torrent·, shadowed by gloomy trees, resembles the Virgilian Vale o( AmsancClls, where the·Fury (like Grendel...