Rereading Middle English Romance: Manuscript Layout, Decoration, and the Rhetoric of Composite Structure by Murray J. Evans

Abstract

appreciative comments on actions and heroes, focussed on “worship,” but this does not quite amount to a satisfactory “knitting up of a great matter.” This collection achieves to a high degree a homogeneous assembly of great scholarly competence, lucid general informativeness, and intelligent readings. It almost persuaded this reviewer that Malory may really have known what he was doing. Jo h n f i n l a y s o n / Queen’s University Murray J. Evans, Rereading Middle English Romance: Manuscript Layout, Decoration, and the Rhetoric of Composite Structure (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1995). xvii, 203. $44.95 cloth. As Murray Evans points out in his preface, this examination of medieval English manuscript collections containing romances responds to an increas­ ing interest in manuscript studies in general. The work of scholars such as Derek Pearsall, A.S.G. Edwards, Sylvia Huot, Alastair Minnis, and many others, has brought manuscript format and book production to the forefront of reading medieval literature. Textual criticism is no longer confined to the establishing of the “best” text for the creation of an apparently definitive critical edition. At the very least, modern readers are becoming aware of the constructed nature of such editions as the famous Riverside Chaucer or Vinaver’s edition of Malory. As a result, more and more literary critics are turning to manuscript evidence to discover the cultural context of a lit­ erary work and possible readings by its original contemporary audience or audiences. These efforts have been facilitated by the greater availability of facsimile editions, either in book form, c d - r o m , or on the Internet, and by the ap­ plication of computer technology to the analysis of complex physical data. Evans’ book exemplifies the “new” manuscript studies both by its pioneering use of computer analysis and by its focus on the structure of manuscripts to determine issues of genre and reader response. The first chapter begins with a brief but clear overview of compilatio (the arrangement of a manuscript codex) as it affects interpretation of a com­ posite manuscript’s contents. Evans shows how investigation of the physical layout of a manuscript can provide increased understanding of such a ba­ sic question as to whether one is dealing with a single narrative or three independent narratives. Having introduced his basic methodology, Evans proceeds in the next chapter to a painstaking identification of distinguish­ ing features present in a “representative sample” of fifteen Middle English romance manuscripts. Four manuscripts contain the majority of surviving ME romances; the rest have fewer romances, including three that have one romance each. The manuscripts date from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century. Each feature is defined and the number of its occurrences in each manuscript compared across the whole database. For example, the use of ini­ tials to punctuate new items in the manuscripts is compared in terms of size and the presence of colour. We find that in 166 (47.6%) instances no initials are used whereas in 80 instances (14.6%) some display script and/or decora­ tion is present. Such technical “bean counting” is not very exciting to read (although the pie charts and graphs do help), unless one is looking for spe­ cific information about a particular manuscript. It is an essential corrective, however, to generalisations about manuscripts that are often made on the basis of broad and somewhat vague “impressions.” One can have more confi­ dence in Evans’s conclusion “that romances are generally decorated and laid out more generously than, and thus distinctively from, nonromance items” (43). The sheer convenience of such detailed descriptions of the manuscripts should not be discounted either, because obtaining such information usually requires an expensive visit to a manuscript library in Europe or a lengthy correspondence with a curator. The appendix continues this very practical aspect of the study by summarising features and contents of each manuscript in tabular form. The remaining chapters of the book address themselves to the applica­ tion of such data to the interpretation of specific romances in terms of two subgenres: homiletic romance and the Middle English lay. Manuscripts con­ taining the romance Sir Isumbras would seem to complicate a simple reading...