The Illustrations of the Pauline Epistles in French and English Bibles of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries by Luba Eleen (review)

516 LETTERS IN CANADA 1983 work of the editors seems to occur in the two-page preface, in which they acknowledge their surrender of the editorial role to Perrault himself. The result is then a book which forces the reader into reflection upon the theme and variations of Perrault's formulation of a cultural philosophy . The argument proceeds along these lines. The dominant forms of cultural expression in Quebec are currently occupied by outsiders or are fixed in museum-like rigidity. To gain access to autochthonous forms of cultural expression, the dominant forms must be avoided. Where language is concerned, the pantheon of written literature must be abandoned in favour of the simple soil of the spoken word. For cinema, the exotic comforts of fiction must yield not to the picturesque of folklore but to the authenticity of the familiar, accessible only to the principles of cinema direct. Speech is viewed as non-international, non-standardized. It is not learnt in the schools of the state. It is the vehicle for cultural transmission corresponding to a simple society in which division of labour has not produced a hierarchy of classes, wage-slavery, and alienation. Speech is integrated into a celebration of the organic relationship between individual and collective, between man and beast, between humanity and nature, between living forces and the soil which nourishes them. Such is Perrault's vision, a Romantic dream whose ideals consist in rustic simplicity, rediscovery of an exemplary past, indissoluble harmony, and the fusion ofsubject-object relationships in the act ofcreationas revelation. This vision is harnessed to the cause of Quebec sovereignty and independence from a power whose chief tools are seen as linguistic assimilation, cultural domination, and wage-slavery: the surrender of the axe of the defricheur or the canoe-maker's knife for a factory-worker's boite alunch, filled with Kraft cheese and Molson's beer. Perrault's writings are not just for those who seek alternatives to the dominant cinema. They are essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand the complexities and ironies of cultural nationalism in Quebec. (DAVID CLANDFIELD) Luba Eleen. The Illustrations of the Pauline Epistles in French and English Bibles of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries Clarendon Press '982. 205, iUus. $113.95 Medieval illustrations of the life and writings of St Paul have been relatively little studied. It therefore comes as somewhat of a surprise to discover that in the High Middle Ages not only did the Pauline Epistles share first place with the Psalter as the subject of theological COmmentaries , but they also received illustrations of considerable variety, richness, and complexity. In many cases these were based on the account of Paul's life in the book of Acts or apocryphal accounts of his martyrdom, HUMANITIES 517 reflecting the medieval view of the apostle's life and writings as a unified historical and doctrinal entity. In others, the illustrations were symbolic, presenting allegorical interpretations of the theological content of the letters. Even the simplest form of text illustration, the author-portrait, in the case of the Pauline epistles was often modified to encompass the idea of Paul as letter-writer, penning and dispatching, sometimes via a messenger, documents of personalimport addressed to specific recipients. This study of twelfth- and thirteenth-century illustrations of the Pauline epistles in Bibles was made possible - even suggested - by the University of Toronto Corpus of Bible Illustrations, begun in the 1950S by Professors Peter H. Brieger and G.S. Vickers. It is an excellent example of the new discoveries and innovative scholarship which that treasury of little-known pictorial and textual information may facilitate. The book's scope is actually considerably broader than its title suggests, since the author introduces the subject with a chapter-long summary of surviving monuments in Eastern and Western art from late antiquity onwards, in which events from the life of St Paul are pictured, and examines their biblical and apocryphal sources. In subsequent chapters she charts the development of Pauline imagery in the Bibles themselves, first in its simplest form, the author portrait, and then in more complex scenes of narrative or symbolic content. Eleen's analysis of these scenes is both subtle and...