Antonina harbus and russell poole (edd.). Verbal Encounters: Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse Studies for Roberta Frank. Pp. xii+298 (Toronto Old English Series 13). Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005. £48.

Abstract

Verbal Encounters is a Festschrift for Roberta Frank; its contents are intended to reflect her academic interests, and its contributors are all her former doctoral students at Toronto; but however generous in its conception, this is a project that is flawed in its execution. Some of the essays are careful pieces of work. Pauline Head, ‘Cennan, “to cause to be born”/“to cause to know”: Incarnation as Revelation in Old English Literature’, explores how Old English authors use the polysemy of cennan to convey the mystery of the Incarnation. In ‘Desipere in loco: Style, Memory and the Teachable Moment’, Carin Ruff looks at grammarians’ occasional verbal playfulness as a didactic device. Dorothy Haines, ‘Courtroom Drama and the Homiletic Monologues of the Vercelli Book’, examines the metaphor of the court of law for the Last Judgement. Karin Olsen, ‘“Him þæs grim lean becom”: The Theme of Infertility in Genesis A ’, is a workmanlike account, but to claim that Noah's drunkenness ‘illustrates that even the virtuous can submit to luxuria’ (p. 135 n. 27) is to confuse the Old English text with patristic tradition: the poet is faithful to the biblical account (ll. 1555–97), as he is again in his treatment of the story of Lot and his daughters (ll. 2600–9), where he appears simply to accept that the daughters’ motive is fear of dying without issue. Intriguingly, the poet describes Lot, a middle-aged man, as blondenfeax: is this a disturbing suggestion of youthful vigour? Robert diNapoli, ‘Odd Characters: Runes in Old English Poetry’, discusses the artistic and cultural implications of Anglo-Saxon poets’ use of runes. In ‘Beardless Wonders: “Gaman vas Sqxu” (The Sex was Great)’ Oren Falk expends much learning and ingenuity to find sexual innuendo of an alarmingly violent and misogynist nature in the exchange of skaldic verses between Gísli and Skeggi in Gísla Saga; if he is right, I have to concede that a squeamish, short-sighted woman working in her study in Oxford is not Gísla Saga's ideal reader. Bernadine McCreesh, ‘Prophetic Dreams and Visions in the Sagas of the Early Icelandic Saints’ shows how the visions and dreams in hagiography are adapted in Icelandic literature. Russell Poole, ‘Claiming Kin Skaldic-Style’, shows how two skalds of the Conversion period, Hallfreðr Óttarsson vandræðaskáld and Sigvatr þórðarson, utilize the parallels between the Christian relationship of godfather to godson or goddaughter and the ancient Scandinavian connection of foster-father and foster-son.