Traductions et traducteurs de l'antiquité tardive au XIVe siècle. Actes du Colloque international de Cassino 15-17 juin 1989 (review)

Reviews 207 Renaissance (or any other) drama. Many of their readings of 'beats', and even more so of 'sequences' ('observing', 'meditating', 'reporting', 'intenogating', 'persuading', 'disputing', or 'commanding' sequences) are simply old-fashioned practical criticism. It is no revelation to be told, for instance, of Othello, III.3, that the reversal at the end of this sequence also marks a reversal in Othello's attitude toward Iago. The initial suspicion has been dispelled, and the two who were at odds when, racked by the pain of uncertainty! Othello cried, "Villain, be sure thou prove m y love a whore," are now as one: Iago's "truth" has become OtheUo's truth, (p. 171) This is an example chosen at random from the Hallett's dogged dissection of a small number of favoured scenes. But why, for instance, do they not deal with Henry V s speech before Harfleur, with the Duke's proposal to Isabella at the end of Measure for measure, with Hermione's begging Polixenes to stay at the end of The winter's tale! I take these examples at random also, but the answer is implicit in them: they are scenes of which the effect the 'meaning', may vary enormously according to the performance choices of the actors. Only the broadest of outlines of the significance of any scene or sequence can ever be fixed. W e may say that Shylock exits defeated from Act IV of The merchant of Venice, but does he exit a despised villain or a tragic hero? Time, place, theatre design and ambience, actors' bodies and costumes, audience expectations, all create the meaning of any moment in the theatre, and no careful diagram of 'sequence frames' (p. 200) can fix the dramatic experience. Furthermore, to assume that these play-texts have a unified author 'Shakespeare', whose intentions may be deduced at the minutest level of detail, is to ignore both m o d e m textual criticism (which version of Hamlet or King Lear are they talking about and why?) and post-modem critical theory. Penny Gay Department of English University of Sydney Hamesse, Jacqueline and Marta Fattori, eds. , Traductions et tradudeurs de I'antiquite" tardive au XlVe siecle. Actes du Colloque international de Cassino 15-17 juin 1989 (Rencontres de cultures dans la philosophic m6di6vale), Louvain/Cassino, Brepols, 1990; paper; pp. viii, 402; 8 plates; R.R.P. BF1856.00 As is indicated on thetitlepage, this book claims to be two things at once: volume eleven of Textes, etudes,congres and volume one of a new series, Recontres de philosophic midiivale. The nineteen articles included, of varying length and interest examine the ways in which "meetings of cultures" were effected in the Middle Ages, mainly through the labours of translators, although 208 Reviews various commentaries on importanttextsand their influence are also studied. G. CavaUo's contribution on the circulation of Greektextsin the High Middle Ages in Europe is a case in point. Meetings of cultures? Yes. Greek and Latin, Arabic and Hebrew, Arabic and Latin. All these encounters are documented to some extent in the pages of this book. M a n y sorts of translations are included, but the emphasis is on philosophical and medical texts. Many of the articles deal with the way Aristotle's texts were transmitted to the West and thus the name of WilUam of Moerbeke (also known as 'Willielmus Flemingus') crops up everywhere, not just in J. Brams useful 'GuiUaume de Moerbeke et Aristote', one of several 'itat prisent' type of studies to be found in this volume. As with several other contributions, Brams's article includes some suggestions for further research needed on the topic. In this particular case, it is pointed out that we still do not know how Roger Bacon learned of Moerbeke's project to translate all of Aristode, or what the translator's motivation in undertaking such a daunting task really was (p. 336). Other names tofigureprominently in several articles are Adelard of Bath, in Ch. Burnett's piece 'Adelard of Bath and the Arabs' and Robert Grosseteste, in A.C. Dionisotti's 'Robert Grosseteste and the Greek encyclopaedia'. Some of the contributions are general survey articles, valuable in their summaries...