An Old Norse Biblical compilation: studies in Stjórn (review)

Reviews Astas, Reidar, An Old Norse Biblical compilation: studies in Stjdrn (American University Studies, Series VII: theology and religion, Vol. 109) N e w York and Bern, Peter Lang Publishing; 1991; pp. ix, 251; R.R.P. US$59.80. One of the great events in thefieldof religious letters and literature of medieval Scandinavia was the appearance of Bible translations. The present textual investigation examines the origin and sources of a West-Scandinavian translation of large parts of Genesis and Exodus made in the first decades of the fourteenth century. It shows how various sources were used and how scholastic theology may have influenced the translations of the Biblical message into the vernacular. Thus Stjdrn I is studied against the background of the cultural and religious life of Norway towards the end of the reign of King Hakon V Magnusson (12991319 ), under the influence of that powerful and prestigiousfigure.There is also a tracing of the textual imitations of the French Bible historiale of the 1290s, and of the physical resemblance to manuscripts of the Speculum Historiale. On various grounds it is shown to be likely that Stjdrn I was compiled by one person from Latin source materials translated into Old Norse and adapted to Norwegian/Icelandic listeners/readers. The compiler's additions are fascinating, a popular exposition of the mass of Lent an excursus on geography and nature, and various sermon fragments. He is not thought to have been a uniquely gifted scholar but rather 'an able, wellread theologian of a normal medium standard', who assumes in his audience a fairly reasonably knowledge of Iceland. He is also shown to have had a domestic educational purpose, that of inculcating good morals in his audience. Other aspects of his style include the tendency to emphasize the humanity of Jesus and to relegate to the background miraculous and dogmatic features as well as to attempt particular expositions, warnings against heresy, a primer-like stress on details of the liturgical year, and an histographer's emphasis on the temporal relations of events. The compiler is also fond of the standard mediaeval modes of variatio sermonis, and indicates that he is pleased with is own achievements. Equally interesting is his concern for personal morality, and his belief that that was the purpose of the Old Testament The text also has debts to both contemporary European historiography and to vernacular traditions of teaching and entertaining. Thus viewed, the resultanttextand the modern response alike—indicate the important role of mendicant preachers, clear traces of Aristotelian Thomism, and a very engaging pastoral care. In short, Astas has made a painstaking examination of the vernacular text to resolve the problems of adaptation and style faced by the unknown translator who may, perhaps, have been a priest of the style of Jon Halldorsson (1270-1339), who was Bishop of Skalholt from 132 Reviews 1322-1339. This volume must be placed alongside E. O. G. Turville-Petre's Origins ofIcelandic Literature (1953), not least since it complements the latter's attention to the religious literature of the early period, to the Sagas of the Bishops, and to the synoptic histories. But perhaps the greatest achievement of the Astas study is to show us one of the sequential prose modes following upon the classicaltextsof the thirteenth century. J. S. Ryan Department of English University of N e w England Bar roll, Leads, Politics, plague and Shakespeare's theater: the Stuart years, lihaca & London, Cornell University Press, 1991; cloth; pp. xiv, 249; R.R.P. US$34.95. As Leeds Barroll points out in the opening chapter of Politics, plague and Shakespeare's theater, Shakespeare's biography has remained remarkably untouched by the new methodologies which have refashioned our view of early modern England and its drama. The privileged 'lives' of the dramatist which explicitly or implicitly posit a narrative of progress and read the life in tandem with the plays and vice versa have not been substantially challenged by the new historicisms of literary studies, nor by the historical revisionism which has prompted considerable debate on the nature of biography itself. Barroll's study promises just such a challenge: an essay in Shakespearean biography which is partial but whose narratives...