Le Jeu d’Adam édition critique et traduction par Geneviève Hasenohr et Jean-Pierre Bordier (review)

Although the Jeu d’Adam enjoyed only a very modest coeval transmission, surviving in a single manuscript (Tours, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 927) as a fragment of fewer than a thousand verses, modern scholarship could certainly not be accused of failing to recognize the text’s importance to the history of vernacular theatre. Despite the many virtues of the editions by Paul Aebischer (Geneva: Droz, 1963), Leif Sletsjöe (Paris: Klincksieck, 1968), Willem Noomen (Paris: Honoré Champion, 1971), and Wolfgang van Emden (Edinburgh: Société Rencesvals, British Branch, 1996), the present decade has already seen new editions (with translations) by Sonia Maura Barillari (Rome: Carocci, 2010), Véronique Dominguez (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2012), and Christophe Chaguinian (Orléans: Paradigme, 2014), a smorgasbord which inevitably raises the question of how much justification there is for another one. Geneviève Hasenohr addresses this question directly (pp. viii–ix), clarifying that her work, begun some time before the recent spate of editions, is based on an intensive and systematic philological approach not found in the rival publications—and it soon becomes apparent that this is no idle boast, but a statement of fact: never before has the Jeu been examined with such rigour, with every page, crafted with Hasenohr’s characteristic eloquence, offering exciting and thought-provoking new insights. The Introduction devotes a full seventy pages to the manuscript, in a painstaking codicological, palaeographical, and liturgical analysis which, in placing the Jeu squarely within the context of the whole anthology and in situating the anthology within a broader West European framework, argues convincingly for its use by a cathedral or college chapter at Easter and, especially given the anticipation of Christ’s coming in the Jeu, Christmas. A remarkably detailed reconsideration of the language of the text—the single admixture criator : dur occasions a four-page examination of the evolution of /y/—refutes the traditional arguments in favour of Anglo-Norman origin, arguing for composition by ‘un clerc d’origine “poitevine”, d’un côté ou de l’autre de la Manche, recopié ensuite par des clercs d’origine insulaire (en Angleterre ou sur le continent)’ (p. xcvi). A concluding contribution by Jean-Pierre Bordier offers invaluable insights into the performance of the Jeu and its position in the development of medieval theatre. The critical text, as the detailed statement of editing policy explains, distinguishes itself from previous Bédieriste editions, which have preserved even patently untenable readings, through a reconstructionist approach predicated on modern philological principles. The vast majority of the interventions are convincing and defensible, and are supported by a two-level apparatus recording all emendations to the Latin stage directions and all rejected readings from the French text, including reference to the decisions taken by recent editors. Further justifications are provided in over a hundred pages of richly informative textual notes, such as the ten pages devoted to the onstage representation of Figura. The traditional glossary is replaced by a lexical index pointing to relevant notes and by the elegant translation, which strikes a commendable balance between fidelity and fluency. In short, this is anything but a mundane addition to the extensive list of editions of the Jeu: it is a philological tour de force holding endless delight and stimulation for its readers.