The Southern Version of Cursor mundi. Vol. 4, lines 17289–21346 ed. by Peter H. J. Mous (review)

REVIEWS than his predecessors. Ingenium has lost its "vatic imaginative powers," and we seeJean as a "transitional figure to the fourteenth century" (p. 144). Dante, however, does not exhibit this insecurity (chapter 5): Both Dante and Jean ... use the spiritual vision's marginality-its liminality-to formulate anew the terms upon which nature and grace could meet. And both make that liminalityas well a way ofcommentingon the role ofpoetry in effecting and representing this meeting. But Jean's approach, significantly, is negative and satiric, whereas Dante's is clear and sure. (P. 162] Viewed as subgenre as well as poetic Summa theo!ogiae, the Commedia (here the Purgatorio) becomes a powerfuladvocate for ingenium as vatic or anagogic visionandforpoetryas themosteffectivemodeofspeaking about that vision. In her final chapter Lynch examinesJohn Gower, who, akin to Jean de Meun, is a transitional figure looking forward to the skeptical fideism ofhis friendChaucer while still accommodating the phenomena he perceives within the realist paradigm. Kathryn Lynch has given us a learned, wise study of four important works. More significantly, she has given us a clear sense of an important subgenre and a model of balanced critical methodology, historical in the best sense. Read with care, this book will be as much a stimulus to fruitful scholarship as Barbara Nolan's The Gothic Visionary Perspective. WillIAM F. POllARD Kentucky State University PETER H.J. Mous, ed. The Southern version a/Cursor mundi. Vol. 4, Jines 17289-21346. Ottawa Mediaeval Texts and Studies, vol. 14. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1986. Pp. xix, 170. $25.00 paper. The present volume of The Southern version ofCursor mundi was origi­ nally intended as part of a final volume of three, but (as explained in the general editor's introduction) it has now been published as the fourth ofa five-volume series. Volume 4 contains lines 17289-21346 of the poem; volume 2 (as yet unpublished) will contain lines 9229-12712. Volume 5 (last in the publication sequence) will contain lines 21347-23898 and a general introduction and glossary to the poem. 265 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER This edition follows general editorial practice in announcing the copy text being edited (College of Arms manuscript Arundel LVII), in listing nine other manuscript versions of the poem, and in noting variant readings from these manuscripts at the foot of each page of the edited text. Further, contracted readings inthe text are indicated with italicized letters; foliation and column notation are appropriately indicated in the right margin. And an appendix notes the textual errors in Morris's EETS edition ofthe poem. Other editorial principles are difficult to determine exactly since these are outlined in volume 1 (which has been unavailable to me for study). Yet from a cursory survey of the volume it becomes evident that the volume does not afford a complete study for the Middle English textual scholar or dialectologist. Mous mainly records morphological and lexical variants of his text; he alsonotes any word and lineomissions or additions. One can see examples of the first practice in the note for line 17299 (variant reading euer for manuscript Arundel's ouer) or in the variant reading of hym noted for manuscript Arundel's reading of hem in line 17301. Many exact orthographic variants, however, seem not to have been noted. This omission of orthographic information is doubtless an editorial convenience; the collating of variants for this 2057-line section of Cursor mundi would have involved much labor and time if exact orthographic variations had been noted. But this omission is an inconvenience to those scholars interested in determining the genetic relationships of the ten manuscripts, to those studying composite layers of linguistic data in the nine secondary manuscripts, or to those determining the possible scribal dialects of the manuscripts. Doubtless, the dialects of these manuscripts have been presented in another volume. If not, McIntosh, Benskin, and Samuels's recent Lin­ guistic Atlas ofLate Medieval English has probably identified the exact Southern provenances of the Cursor mundi copyists. Interested dialec­ tologists should consult the Linguistic Profiles volume ofthe Atlas for such information. The primary strengths of this volume are its brief, introductory list of sources for the Cursor mundi, its highly useful...