Die erste französische Aeneis. Untersuchungen zu Octovien de Saint-Gelais' Übersetzung Mit einer kritischen Edition des VI Buches (review)

Reviews 187 believes, would demonstrate both a cultural unity and the distinctiveness of EngUsh, and no doubt other, national dramatic modes. This challenge is partly met by Lynette Muir who examines the English-French connection and offers the torch to others to continue the search. John C. Coldewey extends the context to socio-economics. Here we can see a need to look at the broader economic situation, not just the drama related expenditure in the Records of Early English drama publications. Lawrence M . Clopper asks us to look at the socio-political context of civic government and the difference between drama based on the civic authority and that under clerical control. Alan H. Nelson suggests a close scrutiny of a possible link between the academic and the professional theatre. Marianne G. Briscoe advocates further social andtextualstudy of the relationship between the sermon tradition and the drama which strove to reach the same popular audience. Pamela Sheingorn puts forward the study of perception theory and style in medieval art as a way into interpreting written text and reconstructing staging. Richard Rastall offers invaluable information on medieval music and suggests the consideration of plays in conjunction with the music that accompanied them. The editors and the contributors are to be congratulated on their consistent advocacy of a search for new materials, both documentary and textual and of the application of methods from other disciplines to the study of the early drama. In this way, the collection has created its own framing context and set up intellectual challenges. Margaret Rogerson Department of English University of Sydney Bruckner, Thomas, Die erste franzOsische Aeneis. Untersuchungen zu Octovien de Saint-Gelais' Ubersetzung Mit einer kritischen Edition des VI Buches (Studia humaniora 9) Dusseldorf, Droste Verlag, 1987; paper; pp. 395; R.R.P. DM72.00. This book is based directiy on a doctoral thesis presented at the University of Dusseldorf in 1985. In his preface, the author mentions the aid and encouragement given by such world-renowned romance scholars as Peter Wunderli and Jacques Monfrin, so the reader approaches the text with high expectations. It would, however, have been better to condense the thesis for publication. Certainly the attempt to include illustrations of the illuminations in B.N. Ms Fr. 861 was a mistake because, as seems to be the case, insufficient funds were available to reproduce coloured plates. The reproductions of pages from early printed editions of Octovien de Saint-Gelais' translation of the Aeneid are also, unfortunately, badly done, sometimes smudged and quite unreadable. 188 Reviews However, in its avowed aims, to shed more light on the reception of Vergil in France in the early sixteenth century and to look at the history of translations into French during this period, the book is indeed a success Bruckner begins with an oudine of Octovien's life and works, relying here on H.-J. Molinier's Essai biographique et littiraire sur Octovien de Saint-Gelais, iveque d'Angouleme (1468-1502) first published at Rodez in 1910. He has nothing new to add here, but it is useful to have a synopsis of the translator's life and accomplishments before the more technical aspects of the book are approached. Then follows a review of recent work on Octovien in a section 'Forschungsstand. The renewed interest in the translator and others of the socalled 'grand rheioriqueurs', dating from the 1970s, is recalled, then most of the important work on Octovien done since this period is noted and analysed. Bruckner's own contribution begins at page 27 where he gives detailed accounts of all the extant manuscripts and early printed editions of Octovien de Saint-Gelais' translation of the Aeneid. Here Molinier's work is conected where necessary, and newly identified copies of Octovien's text (notably two manuscripts, one in The Hague and the other in Philadelphia) are noted. A careful analysis of changes to Octovien's text effected in Jean d'lvry's printed edition is contained in section three, before Bruckner considers which of the various manuscripts and editions give the best text and what relation they have to each other. Lists of graphies characteristic of each text (illustrated always with examples from Book 6) form a...