Studies in the Vernon Manuscript ed. by Derek Pearsall (review)

REVIEWS worth pursuing, this brief book may not have been the proper place to pursue it. Finally, there is no clear principle determining which of the secondary studies cited in the notes are also cited in the bibliography (pp. 346--48). None of these matters will seriously mislead, much less distress, the intended readership of this book, but since that readership is certain to be large, such mistakes and misprints should be corrected in future printings. Recently experience and authoriry have combined to show us that there cannot be a "definitive" biography of any author, and Pearsall neither ex­ plicitly nor implicitly makes claim to such status for this critical biogra­ phy. But The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer, as an acute, scholarly, well-written, informed work, will persuade readers to intelligent agreement and provoke in them fruitful disagreement. SUMNER FERRIS California Universiry of Pennsylvania DEREK PEARSALL, ed. Studies in the Vernon Manuscript. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1990. Pp. xi, 238. $70.00. Of alle pe vertues pat per beone To suffre, hit is a ping of prys. (Vernon 118.7-8] A. I. Doyle's excellent facsimile edition makes the Vernon manuscript available to scholars around the world and should stimulate renewed study of it and of its companion manuscript, theSimeon.1 With Studies, Derek Pearsall provides essays on several important features of the Vernon. Studies is in two main sections. The first, "General Essays," begins with Doyle's "TheShaping of the Vernon andSimeon Manuscripts," a reprint­ ing, with additions and corrections, ofhis essay of 1974 ofthe same title.2 Then follow P. R. Robinson's "The Vernon Manuscript as a 'Coucher Book,"' Thorlac Turville-Petre's "The Relationship of the Vernon and 1 The Vernon Manuscript: A Facsimile of Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS. Eng. Poet.a.], intro. by A. I. Doyle (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1987). 2 Originally published in Beryl Rowland, ed., Chaucer and Middle English Studies in Honour ofRossell Hope Robbim (London: Allen & Unwin, 1974) pp. 328-41. 241 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER Clopton Manuscripts," N. F. Blake's "Vernon Manuscript: Contents and Organisation," and S. S. Hussey's "Implications of Choice and Arrange­ ment of Texts in Part 4." The second section, "Essays on Individual Texts or Groups ofTexts," has three subsections. The first, "Religious Texts," contains Thomas J. Heffer­ nan's, "Orthodoxies' Redux: The Northern Homily Cycle in the Vernon Manuscript and Its Textual Affiliations," Avril Henry's "'The Pater Noster in a table ypeynted' and Some Other Presentations of Doctrine in the Vernon Manuscript," Carol M. Meale's, "The Miracles of Our Lady: Con­ text and Interpretation," and C. W Marx's "The Middle English Verse 'lamentation of Mary to Saint Bernard' and the 'Quis Dabit."' While leading up to his main subject, Heffernan briefly introduces a topic worth further discussion: the "tumultuous" and "volatile" political, social, and religious world in which Vernon came to be and from whose threats and temptations its compiler(s) may have intended it to provide safe refuge. Henry shows that the Vernon's elaborately contrived Paternoster page, though "rigid and unimaginative" in its elements, leaves an effect that is "fluid, complex, and interesting." Since the fine colorplate that reproduces the page is not easy to read, a transcription would have been useful. The remaining subsections have just two essays each. "The 'Romances"' contains A. S. G. Edwards's "The Contexts of the Vernon Romances" and Karl Reichl's "The King o/Tars: Language and Textual Transmission." "The Vernon Refrain-Lyrics" contains John Burrow's "The Shape of the Vernon Refrain Lyrics" and John J. Thompson's "The Textual Background and Reputation of the Vernon Lyrics." Uncomfortable with the conventional classification ofRobert ofSicily, The King ofTars, andJoseph ofArimathea as "romances," Edwards explains how "in all three works the narrative exists wholly as a means of Christian edification." Without disputing that con­ clusion, Reichl--as his title promises--concentrates on traditional philo­ logical issues. Burrow notes in passing "the iqtellectualiry which distin­ guishes at least some of the Vernon poems." Rereading them while preparing this review reminded me that the dreary banaliry that had seemed to me characteristic of the Vernon lyrics does not extend to every poem. Still...