The Culture of Translation in Anglo-Saxon England (review)

Reviews 239 Parergon 20.2 (2003) not draw conclusions about the medieval itself. Even the form under discussion, the equestrian portrait, has no particular connection with the Middle Ages, except for the tail end in Italy. Bowden’s research will fascinate students of Blake, but one might reasonably wonder about its role in medieval studies. Shippey, in his editorial note, himself raises the vexed question of relevancy, when he says it is ‘sometimes heard that medieval studies (and medievalism) need to acquire contemporary relevance.’ Readers will have their own opinions on the merits of contemporary relevance. Some may ignore it, or oppose it. Shippey is quick to embrace it by saying that relevancy is already there, only people have failed to notice how often and how much it has existed. The relevancy argument is then combined with the relativity principle. Shippey suggests that because the medieval has been recalled so often across the years, it must be relevant across the years. That, however, is no argument for its particular relevance to our own age. The examples given by the contributors, while fascinating, do not combine to give an understanding of how the allure of the medieval has worked. Max Staples School of Humanities and Social Sciences Charles Sturt University Stanton, Robert, The Culture of Translation in Anglo-Saxon England, Cambridge, D. S. Brewer, 2002; cloth; pp. ix, 198; 9 b/w illustrations; RRP£40.00; ISBN 085991643X. Translation theories have proliferated in the past few decades, though they rarely take cognisance of the uniquely interesting, essentially bilingual, situation in Anglo-Saxon England, and in turn Old English specialists tend not to take a global, fully theorised view on such matters, or do not treat them at length. Developed from the author’s 1993 Toronto doctoral dissertation, this book addresses the need to combine these two methodologies. It examines attitudes expressed in Anglo-Saxon England towards translation from Latin into Old English in both theoretical and practical contexts. Stanton discovers a deeply ingrained interpretive motivation arising from the insular deployment of inherited rhetorical traditions in largely pedagogical contexts. Examining translation as a cultural practice, this study focuses on the 240 Reviews Parergon 20.2 (2003) increasing respectability of English for a variety of purposes, tracing the influences which came to bear on its increasing flexibility, authority, and status. Its organisation is chronological, concentrating first on glosses, then moving to Alfredian translation, biblical translation, and finally to Ælfric, concluding that in Anglo-Saxon England, translation was a powerful idea, influencing every aspect of literary culture in its fundamental reliance upon interpretation. Starting with the origins of vernacular translation in glossing, Stanton argues that glosses acted as far more than reading cribs for non-readers of Latin; they were in themselves interpretive texts which, in the case of interlinear gospel glossing, became ‘like a domestic servant imitating his master in his own language’ (p. 53). Calling them ‘a kind of “proto-translation” phenomenon’, Stanton treats glosses as the start of a long and durable ‘hermeneutic habit’ (p. 4) among the Anglo-Saxons. Glosses more generally link Old English terms with Latin equivalents, analyse Latin vocabulary and syntax, and eventually challenging the exclusive domain of Latin textuality as a rival in that they initiate the process of fuller and discrete textual translation. Perhaps as importantly, Stanton argues, glosses encourage a different sort of reading process than other sorts of translations, and their physical presence in the layout of elaborate manuscripts, especially those which manifest a system of script hierarchies, depicts a literal intrusion into the space occupied by Latin (p. 53). The first chapter on glossing and what it implies about attitudes to linguistic authority and textual interpretation and transmission is perhaps the most interesting section of the book, as it sets the groundwork for the following, very selective discussion of canonical Anglo-Saxon translations. Stanton does not treat poetic ‘adaptations’ of Latin originals, as too remote from his central interest in close translation, nor pays much attention to translation activities between the times of Alfred and Ælfric (most notably omitting the translations produced during the earlier stages of the Benedictine reform, such as Æthelwold’s translation of The Benedictine Rule), claiming that in...