Anglo-Saxon Styles by Catherine E. Karkov , George Hardin Brown (review)

Abstract

MLR, 100.3, 2005 757 book invites us to watch two video testimonials, Tongues Untied and Black Is, Black Ain't, of Essex Hemphill, a Black, gay, HIV-positivepoet, with the parting sentence: 'Try to look at them sometime. Try to look, in order to see.' Timely reading. Nottingham Trent University Jean-Pierre Boule Anglo-Saxon Styles. Ed. by Catherine E. Karkov and George Hardin Brown. (SUNY Medieval Studies) Albany: State University of New York Press. 2003. viii + 32opp. $71.5o(pbk$23.95). ISBN0-7914-5869-5(pbk0-7914-5870-9). This multidisciplinary volume of essays on Anglo-Saxon style is defmitely a good idea, even when read from cover to cover, notwithstanding the disparate nature of the various contributions: roughly a third concentrate on art history (Leslie Webster on small-scale artefacts, Fred Orton on sculpture, Jane Hawkes on stone constructions , and Perette E. Michelli on ivories), several on manuscript production (Carol Farr on illumination, Michelle P. Brown on 'house style', and William Schipper on page layout); the remainder are on literary style (Nicholas Howe on its limitations, Sarah Larratt Keefer on The Dream of the Rood, Jonathan Wilcox on humour in Andreas, Carin Ruffon Aldhelmian colour terms, Roberta Frank on weak adjectives, Haruko Momma on rhythm,and Andy Orchard on shared formulas). Whereas some contributors make do with theory and intensive self-reflection (Webster, Howe, Farr, Keefer), others examine a more technical aspect which then has a stylistic argument superimposed (Hawkes, Ruff, Orchard); various others again combine theory and practice more evenly (Orton, Michelle P. Brown, Frank). The personal styles of the contributors themselves thus successfully complement each other, elegantly brought together under this simple title (thankfully without a subtitle this time), and following an interesting and appropriately light introduction (Catherine E. Karkov and George Hardin Brown). One of the theoretical themes used recurrently in this volume is a definition of 'style' by Meyer Schapiro ('Style', in Anthropology Today: An Encyclo? pedie Inventory, ed. by A. L. Kroeber (Chicago, 1953), pp. 287-312), 'the constant form?and sometimes the constant elements, qualities, and expression?in the art of an individual or group', paraphrased as 'the ordering of form, both verbal and visual' (p. 3). Some readers may object to the fact that no more recent theory on aesthetics or stylistics was preferred here (see the dates of the reading cited on pp. 9-10), or that none of the voluminous theory on the medieval understanding of beauty fea? tures either, or that the more obvious Anglo-Saxon handbooks on 'verbal ordering', such as Bede's De schematibus et tropis and De arte metrica, are mentioned only to be specifically excluded. Nevertheless, what is offered here instead has clearly stood the test of time and indeed seems to work, at least when applied to a period and genres which have proved difficultto subdivide stylistically. Concepts such as Epochenstil or ekphrasis do remain elusive within Anglo-Saxon culture, a problem for which this volume cannot be held responsible. 'Is there anything that we can identify as characteristically Anglo-Saxon about the ways in which Anglo-Saxon artists and authors chose and ordered form?' (p. 3). Notwithstanding this thematic question, not all of the following contributions are comparative, and those that are use a variety of comparanda : Carolingian, Celtic, Scandinavian style, bad taste, chaos? Often what seems to be implied is comparison with modern style: 'we can say that Anglo-Saxon styles in general are characterised by (1) ambiguity and (2) a love of complex pattern and surface ornament. These are interrelated phenomena' (p. 3). Riddlingand problems of taxonomy feature prominently in several contributions, as does Katherine O'Brien O'Keeffe's Visible Song, Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England, 4 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). One noticeable strength of this anthology lies in 758 Reviews its generously unifying idea, which will indeed open the door to further interdisci? plinary exchange, while also offeringsomething of use on a disciplinary level. There is, for instance, some very welcome creative discussion of personal authorial style in Momma's and Orchard's examinations of ^lfric and Cynewulf, which should with luck make a difference in a discipline replete with anonymous and misattributed texts...