The Book Unbound: Editing and Reading Medieval Manuscripts and Texts by Siân Echard, Stephen Partridge

500 Reviews With a handful of exceptions, this finally disappointing capharnauim or glory-hole partakes of that curse of academia: the parading of the bleeding obvious. Perhaps inevitably, we hear much more on the objects than the subject of fear, its quiddity. Fear, after all, has always kept humanity alive. What is the alternative to punctual quaking? To be so laid-back with ataraxia as to be supine? Perhaps, as Roosevelt boomed, we have nothing to fear but fear itself. The follow-up compendium is on fear of theOther (already reviewed in MLR, IOO(2005), I073-74), especially women. There amore focused compass concentrates the minds of the conspectusslers. UNIVERSITY OF READING WALTER REDFERN The Book Unbound: Editing and Reading Medieval Manuscripts and Texts. Ed. by SIAN ECHARD and STEPHEN PARTRIDGE. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 2004. XXi+236 pp. ?32. ISBN o-8020-8756-6. This collection of essays grew out of the twenty-ninth University of British Columbia Medieval Workshop held in i999. The editors comment that one of the aims of the workshop was to discuss codicology and its role as evidence for reception, although this appears secondary to the focus on the principles and practice of editing medieval texts. Recognition of the social and historical nature of the editing process links all ten essays, with contributors arguing that editors cannot fail to be influenced by ideologies and that texts are only one part of thematerial artefact requiring attention. The volume contains amix of criticism of past editorial practice and suggestions for new directions. It begins with an essay by Anne L. Klinck comparing two different editorial approaches to theMiddle English biblical paraphrase Cursor mundi. This serves as an excellent opening because it highlights one of the central concerns in medieval editorial practice which is confronted head-on in these essays, namely the tendency to question traditional practice without suggesting 'new'and 'better' ways to edit. Julia Marvin's solution is to offer as amodel the pragmatic and transparent approach of a nineteenth-century editor, F W. Maitland. While Marvin is primar ily concerned with editing Anglo-Norman texts, Meg Roland reviews the editorial wrangling over the authority of theWinchester manuscript and Caxton's edition of Malory's Le Morte Darthur. Roland makes a convincing case for a parallel-text edi tion of a section of Malory's text as an answer to the problem, arguing that this is 'strong historicism' rather than a refusal to edit. Carol Symes effectively illustrates how ignoring or misrepresenting essential paratexts can completely change the em phasis of amedieval play, and even alter whether or not it is categorized as a play. Unlike other essays in this volume, the focus here is firmly on critiquing history rather than explicitly offering an alternative editorial policy. The remaining contributors respond to the call for transparent editing by citing the advantages of electronic editions. Peter Diehl suggests how a fourteenth-century inquistorial manual should be presented in a critical electronic edition, although his description of how the edition would work is rather generic. Andrew Taylor is hopeful that the electronic medium may be able to help with the representation of sound. He acknowledges that attempting performances of medieval texts, such as the Song of Roland, inevitably opens the way to criticism, but argues that this is preferable to silence, which leads only to their covert classification. William Robins's theory of editing, which he calls a 'disjunctive philology', relies on the juxtaposition of contrasting editorial methods and is ideally suited to exploit the possibilities offered by electronic editions. The remaining three essays contain the most technical detail. William Schipper describes how he has successfully used digital photography and editing software to recover previously unreadable portions of manuscripts. Stephen MLR, IOI.2, 2oo6 50I R. Reimer argues that a hypertextual edition of a hagiographical poem by Lydgate, which reunites the text with images and music, as well as contextualizing itwith a sacred geography, will restore its popularity. Joan Grenier-Winther concludes the volume with a justification and description of her electronic edition of La Belle Dame qui eut mercy. The volume successfully brings together essays from a variety of disciplines to discuss a topic that...

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