The Ellesmere Chaucer: Essays in Interpretation ed. by Martin M. Stevens and Daniel Woodward

Abstract

REVIEWS transition in her life from wife to mother, did social practice sanction the rep­ resentation of women as possessing power over men, acknowledging their real power in matters of sexuality and reproduction, power that is institutionally contained and controlled within the patriarchal family structure. (pp. 183-84) Smith shows a solid and strong command of the literary and visual material in its social contexts as well as the relevant scholarship. Written with little hype and self-congratulation, the book is filled with useful facts and information and perceptive observations. For the most part, the prose is precise and clear. Occasionally, particularly in the review of the rhetorical tradition, there are passages that are overly jargon-ridden and infelicitous, but as soon as the author picks up mo­ mentum that obstacle vanishes. The solid and interesting endnotes fur­ nish a substantial scholarly supplement to an already learned text. The conclusion, a short chapter on the topos in the fifteenth century and be­ yond, presents a view of the future of the medieval topos in the Renaissance rather than a summing up of what has already been cov­ ered. For the medievalist-reader such a chapter holds less interest than the bulk of this otherwise masterful study. GALE SIGAL Wake Forest University MARTIN M. STEVENS and DANIEL WOODWARD, eds. The Ellesmere Chaucer: Essays in Interpretation. San Marino, Ca.: Huntington Library Press, 1995. Pp. xvi, 363. $75.00. This lavishly produced volume is, in format, elegance of layout, and in range and depth of contents, a worthy companion to the New Ellesmere Chaucer Facsimile (Tokyo and San Marino: Huntington Library and Yushudo Publishing, 1995) it is designed to accompany. Like the fac­ simile itself, it is an exemplar of the publisher's art. It is appropriate therefore that it should begin with a detailed account, by Daniel Woodward, ofthe making ofthe facsimile. This introduction should be required reading for anyone who still believes that the making ofa fac­ simile, of any kind, is a purely objective and "scientific" activity, re­ moved from any editorial judgment. No doubt the makers ofthe 1911 315 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER Manchester Press facsimile thought they were achieving an exactly faithful facsimile: in the hindsight of eighty years, their decisions tell us more about their own editorial values (as Ralph Hanna's excellent in­ troduction to the 1989 Brewer reprint shows) than they do about the manuscript itself. Similarly, one can expect that a scholar ofthe next century might ex­ amine the facsimile, and this volume, for insight into the editorial val­ ues of the last decade of this century. On page 8, Woodward declares that a principal aim ofthe facsimile was to achieve "some ofthe overall effect of the manuscript" (his emphasis). As the later pages make clear, the emphasis is on physical effect: on the presentation in the facsimile ofthe manuscript as physical artifact. Thus, the facsimile is printed on sheets of paper in the same quiring as the original, with some copies having pages trimmed to the edges of each sheet. So, too, Woodward asserts that the facsimile is much better presented in printed hard copy than on a computer screen. The Ellesmere manuscript is a codex, and best understood as a physical artifact. This emphasis on the manuscript as object is in harmony with the movement in medieval textual studies in the last decades toward the study ofmanuscripts as objects ofcultural history in their own right: as the product ofthe workshops that prepare the parchment and bind the finished folios, ofthe teams ofscribes, illustrators, and supervisors who write and ornament the pages; and as the possession ofthose who com­ mission, sell, keep, and reuse the finished manuscript. (Outside me­ dieval studies, Jerome McGann's work on "bibliographic codes" has re­ minded textual critics ofthe importance ofthe physical instantiation of the text.) Fundamental advances have been made in this work by many ofthe contributors to this volume, and the essays by Parkes on the plan­ ning and construction of Ellesmere, by Doyle on its scribe, by Scott on itsillumination, and by David on its owners, are both timely summaries ofyears ofwork and contributions ofnew knowledge. One regrets here that the editors were...