The Cloud of Unknowing ed. by Patrick J. Gallacher (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS Ayenbyte oflnwyt, introducing a story which seems to us to offer the grossest material incentive to charitable giving. Foster also over-glosses. It is a difficult balance to strike, and it is not always easy to imagine what, in particular, students might find difficult, if not everything, but there arc dangers in providing too many glosses. Students may grow impatient at being told repeatedly that a duk is a 'duke' (ducks do not play a latge part in medieval romance) or told that clepyd means 'named' two lines after being told that ycleped means the same. It is best, aftet some fairly heavy glossing in the opening stanzas, to leave the reader to get on with the poem and pick up sense, where it is not obvious, from the context. It is then that the editor needs to be alert to what might be misleading or deceptively comprehensible rather than the unfamiliar words that by now should be in the reader's memory-bank. But these are minor quibbles with what is on the whole an excellent edition, and a worthy addition to the TEAMS series. One comment that might be made about editions such as this has to do with spelling. It is difficult to know what exactly is the justification for following scrupulously in every detail the anomalous and eccentric spelling of some of the manuscripts in which these romance-texts are contained. Many such spellings, including random doublings of consonants and random additions of final -c that have nothing to do with either grammar or metre, make comprehension unnecessarily difficult (e.g.: 'one' for 'on'). Robert Thornton, the scribe ofthe manuscript that is used for the text of Octavian here, is a notorious offender: he scatters final -e's around like confetti and doubles consonants as if suffering from a nervous tic. It is hard to say, also, what would be lost if, say, ofioffand the/theev/erc to be distinguished according to modem usage. The argument is not for modernised spelling, nor even for regularised medieval spelling, but for the removal of oddities and nuisances. The common objection to such a procedure—that it would give a false impression of such texts, making them more regular and therefore more modern-looking—is an objection that might be raised to every modern form of text presentation othet than facsimile. Another possible objection—that regularised spelling obscures possible phonological or other linguistic developments (e.g., that trowghthe reveals how gh has become a mere graph)—is not one that seems relevant to student editions ofthe kind under review. The real objection—that it would take more time, and demand a greater degree oflinguistic skill from the editor to know what was significant in spelling and what was not—is difficult to counter DEREK PEARSAI.L Harvard University PATRiCKj. Gallacher, ed. The CloudofUnknowing. Kalamazoo MI: Western Michigan University, 1997.teams: Middle English Texts. Pp. ix, 132. Introduction, Bibliography, Text with Textual Gloss, Notes, Glossaty. isbn: 1-879288-89-3. The Middle English Texts Series is designed for classroom use, making available texts adjacent to the more frequently published classics by Chaucer, Langland, the Pearl Poet and Malory. The Cloudof Unknowingls already available in an edition by Phyllis 112arthuriana Hodgson for the Early English Text Society, Original Series, 218, and thus available in most academic libraries. But the present edition has an excellent introduction placing the Middle English text in the context of mystical theological writings, Augustine, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, the Victorine Thomas Gellus and the Carthusian Hugh of Balma; it has an up-to-date, though brief, bibliography; and its text, presented without the Middle English manuscripts' thorns, yoghs, and italicized contractions, makes for easier reading for the undergraduate student. It is pleasing that the editor chose to boldface the chapter headings, which the EETS editot had not done. Medieval manuscript scribes took care to differentiate their scripts by engrossing, holding or rubricating in this manner. Phyllis Hodgson consulted all manuscripts but chose as base text one that did not reflect East Anglian/Scandinavian characteristics. Similarly the three manuscripts Gallacher consulted do not come from those families. Those manuscript families tend also to include 'doctrine schewyde ofgod...