literaryfigureswhose fame and influence went far beyond the boundaries of their native Poitiers. UNIVERSITY OFEXETER KEITHCAMERON Fifty MoreFablesof La Fontaine. Trans. by NORMANR. SHAPIRO. Urbana and Chicago: Universityof IllinoisPress. I998. xx + 166pp. $39.95 (paperbound $24.95). The obstacles facing the translatorof poetry loom large indeed in the case of the Fables of La Fontaine.In those poems, facilityon the surfacehides layersof allusion and implication.Constant shiftsof tone and perspectivearemirroredin thevarying rangesof languageemployed. All sortsof turnskeeptheversificationat once natural and surprising.'Kids' stuff',it is not. Recently, the challenge of La Fontaine'spoetry has stimulateda spate of English translations,presented in rhymed verse. Norman Spector's Complete Fables(1989) was followed by Selected Fables, firstfrom ChristopherWood (1995, with IIo fables) and then by Stanley Applebaum (1997). As for Norman Shapiro, he had already published FiftyFablesin 1988 and then went on to reproduce ten of them in his award-winning anthology TheFabulists French.Verse FablesofNine Centuries (I992). The celebration in 1995 of La Fontaine's tercentenary inspired Shapiro to focus again on the supremefabulistand renderFiftyMoreFables. Now trulyenthused, the translatoreven dares in his brief introduction to celebrate in verse (though not in fableform)the characteristicqualitiesof La Fontaine'swriting.He eschewsa simple line-for-linecorrespondencewith his poetic source in orderto focus particularlyon the expression in English of its tone. Consequently certain details or some memorable turns of phrase in the French fables are lost. Such losses find their compensation in the attractively chatty style of these versions, which hold the reader's attention by witty tricks of language and rhyme. Shapiro perhaps takes more liberties here than in his previous translation of fifty fables. He does not hesitate to transform a French 'hare' into an English 'rabbit' (Fable v, 19) and 'Martinthe stick'now comes to life as 'Martinthe miller'(Fableiv, 5). Nevertheless, as La Fontainemight have wished, Shapiro'sfablesdemand to be read out aloud, to be declaimed. That direct appeal of the English text contrasts with the scholarly look of the French text in its original spelling: welcome to purists but sometimes taxing the averagereader'sknowledge. In addition thisvolume featuresthe workof David Schorr, whose spikywoodcuts had earlier decorated Shapiro's TheFabulists French. His pen-and-wash designs now exploit the two-page spread to great effect. They mix realism, caricature,and allusivenessin a way that correspondsperfectly to the text and the spiritof La Fontaine. AMERSHAM TERENCE ALLOTT La tragedie dusangd'Auguste: Politique et intertextualite dans'Britannicus'.By VOLKER SCHRODER. (Collection BibliI 7, II9) Tubingen: GunterNarrVerlag. I999. 327 PP. This study of Britannicus and its textual sources makes an eloquent case, both theoreticalandpractical,forthe usefulnessof an intertextualapproachin recreating the culturalhorizons of the play's firstpublic, the better to reactivate 'le potentiel semantique de l'ceuvre, a raviver les sens que le passage du temps a engourdis' (p. 35). In discussing the text Schroder displays an impressive familiarity with literaryfigureswhose fame and influence went far beyond the boundaries of their native Poitiers. UNIVERSITY OFEXETER KEITHCAMERON Fifty MoreFablesof La Fontaine. Trans. by NORMANR. SHAPIRO. Urbana and Chicago: Universityof IllinoisPress. I998. xx + 166pp. $39.95 (paperbound $24.95). The obstacles facing the translatorof poetry loom large indeed in the case of the Fables of La Fontaine.In those poems, facilityon the surfacehides layersof allusion and implication.Constant shiftsof tone and perspectivearemirroredin thevarying rangesof languageemployed. All sortsof turnskeeptheversificationat once natural and surprising.'Kids' stuff',it is not. Recently, the challenge of La Fontaine'spoetry has stimulateda spate of English translations,presented in rhymed verse. Norman Spector's Complete Fables(1989) was followed by Selected Fables, firstfrom ChristopherWood (1995, with IIo fables) and then by Stanley Applebaum (1997). As for Norman Shapiro, he had already published FiftyFablesin 1988 and then went on to reproduce ten of them in his award-winning anthology TheFabulists French.Verse FablesofNine Centuries (I992). The celebration in 1995 of La Fontaine's tercentenary inspired Shapiro to focus again on the supremefabulistand renderFiftyMoreFables. Now trulyenthused, the translatoreven dares in his brief introduction to celebrate in verse (though not in fableform)the characteristicqualitiesof La Fontaine'swriting.He eschewsa simple line-for-linecorrespondencewith his poetic source in orderto focus particularlyon the expression in English of its tone. Consequently certain details or some memorable turns of phrase in the...