Scolar Press Research Articles

Reviews and other notices

Medieval Westminster 1200–1540 Gervase Rosser Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989 xx + 425 pp. illus. £40 Manual of Law French, 2nd edition J.H. Baker Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1990 219 pp. £39.50 Essex Wills: The Archdeaconry Courts 1583–1592 Abstracted and edited by F. G. Emmison Chelmsford: Essex Record Office and The Friends of Historic Essex, Essex Wills Series Volume 5, 1989 xviii + 401 pp. £14.95 The Directories of London, 1677–1977 P.J.Atkins Mansell: London and New York, 1990 xii + 732 pp., illus. £60 Discovering Parish Boundaries Angus Winchester Princes Risborough: Shire Publications, 1990 88 pp. 10 black and white plates, 26 maps. £2.50 The Diaries of Jeffery Whitaker, Schoolmaster of Bratton, 1739–1741 Edited by Marjorie Reeves and Jean Morrison Trowbridge: Wiltshire Record Society, Volume XLIV, 1989 for 1988 lxiv +117 pp., illus. £15 to non‐members (available from M. J. Lansdown, 53 Clarendon Road, Trowbridge, Wiltshire BAH 7BS) Lord Grenville 1759–1834. A Bibliography A. D. Harvey London and Westport, Connecticut: Meckler, 1989 vi + 94 pp. £28 Making Sense of the Census: The Manuscript Returns for England and Wales, 1801–1901 Edward Higgs London: H.M.S.O. for the Public Record Office, 1989 x + 146 pp., illus. £9.95 History and Computing II Edited by Peter Denley, Stefan Fogelvik and Charles Harvey Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1989 xiv + 290pp. £29.95 hardback, £9.95 paper How to Use a Research Library by David Beasley (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. 174 pp. £19.50). Cambridge University Archives: A Classified List D.M.Owen Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989 xiii + 231 pp. £35 A Guide to Manuscripts and Documents in the British Isles Relating to South and South‐East Asia. Volume 1, London, Volume 2, British Isles (Excluding London) Compiled by J. D. Pearson London: Mansell, 1989–90 vii + 319 pp; xiii + 337 pp. £60, £70 Government Archives Division General Inventory Series: Records of Federal Royal Commissions (RG 33), Volume 1 James Murray Whalen Ottawa: National Archives of Canada, 1990 xliv + 362 pp. NEWSPLAN: Report of the NEWSPLAN project in the North Western Region September 1989 ‐January 1990 Ruth Cowley London: The British Library, 1990 xxxviii + 306 pp. £30 Accessions PGI Documentation Centre No 1/2 ‐ 1989 (Paris: UNESCO, 1990. 52 pp. PGI.90/WS.1) Traditional restoration techniques: a RAMP study Prepared by V. Vinas and R. Vinas (Paris,UNESCO,1988: PGI‐88/WS/17) Impact of environmental pollution on the preservation of archives and records: a RAMP study Prepared by M. W. Pascoe (Paris, UNESCO, 1988: PGI‐88/WS/18) Study on mass‐conservation techniques for treatment of library and archival material Prepared by Wolfgang Wächter under the supervision of Helmuth Rötzsch (Paris, UNESCO, 1989: PGI‐89/WS/14) Review of training needs in preservation and conservation Prepared by D. W. G. Clements, J. M. Mcllwaine, A. C. Thurston and S. A. Rudd (Paris, UNESCO, 1989: PGI‐89/WS/15) Archival principles and practice: a guide for archives management Jeanette White Ford Jefferson, North Carolina, and London: McFarland, 1990 vi + 154 pp., illus. £12.30

BOOK REVIEWS

Journal Article BOOK REVIEWS Get access Alfred Orage and the Leeds Arts Club 1893–1923. by TOM STEELE, Scolar Press, Gower Publishing. 1990. pp. 284 . £35.00. DAVID THISTLEWOOD DAVID THISTLEWOOD University of Liverpool Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The British Journal of Aesthetics, Volume 31, Issue 4, October 1991, Pages 382–384, https://doi.org/10.1093/bjaesthetics/31.4.382 Published: 01 October 1991

Leslie T. Morton and Robert J. Moore, A bibliography of medical and biomedical biography, Aldershot, Hants, Scolar Press, 1989, 8vo, pp. ix, 208, £37.50.

Leslie T. Morton and Robert J. Moore, A bibliography of medical and biomedical biography, Aldershot, Hants, Scolar Press, 1989, 8vo, pp. ix, 208, £37.50.

R. McLEAN and A. McLEAN. Benjamin Fawcett, engraver and colour printer with a list of his books and plates. Scolar Press (Gower Publishing Co. Ltd), Aldershot: 1988. Pp 196; illustrated. Price: £47.50. ISBN 0-58967-789-3. (Limited edition of 750 copies of which nos. 21–750 are for sale: the review copy was no. 66).

R. McLEAN and A. McLEAN. <i>Benjamin Fawcett, engraver and colour printer with a list of his books and plates</i>. Scolar Press (Gower Publishing Co. Ltd), Aldershot: 1988. Pp 196; illustrated. Price: £47.50. ISBN 0-58967-789-3. (Limited edition of 750 copies of which nos. 21–750 are for sale: the review copy was no. 66).

NEW ADDITIONS TO THE NEW EDITION

In 1958 Creswell's Short Account of Early Muslim Architecture first appeared in print. Almost exactly thirty years later, in 1989, the revised and expanded edition was published by Scolar Press.' The primary aim of the new edition was that it should be as comprehensive as possible. Naturally it could not include all the information that the great tomes contained, nor one-tenth of the plates. It did seem appropriate, however, to try and give brief coverage to every monument, so that students could appreciate and have at their disposal the full scope of the larger work. As a result, brief summaries of selected buildings were added, based on Creswell's own accounts. From the two volumes of the first edition of

A Short Account of Early Muslim Architecture, by K. A. C. Creswell. Revised and supplemented by James W. Allan. Scolar Press, Aldershot1989. IBSN 0-85967-368-5.

A Short Account of Early Muslim Architecture, by K. A. C. Creswell. Revised and supplemented by James W. Allan. Scolar Press, Aldershot1989. IBSN 0-85967-368-5.

GWENDOLEN MARY JOHN (1876–1939)

Gwen John by Cecily Langdale, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1987, 251 pp., 180 colour plates, 199 b. and w. ills., £29.95Gwen John by Mary Taubman, London: Scolar Press, 1985, 136 pp., 28 colour plates, 44 b. and w. ills., £20

Reviews

Journal Article Reviews Get access R. Gagnier , Idylls of the Marketplace: Oscar Wilde and the Victorian Public . Pp. 266 . Aldershot : Scolar Press , 1987 . £27.50. NICHOLAS GRENE NICHOLAS GRENE Trinity CollegeDublin Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Notes and Queries, Volume 35, Issue 2, June 1988, Pages 257–258, https://doi.org/10.1093/nq/35-2-257 Published: 01 June 1988

Coleridge and the Inspired Word by Anthony John Harding

the dance, with a similar sensitivity to the particular atmosphere of each play. He resists calling the conclusions of the festive comedies golden or magic resolutions. Instead, the presence of recalcitrant outsiders, like Jaques and Malvolio, and the very fragility and irony accompanying these celebrations require a certain double vision which the design of the plays themselves contains. The needed expansiveness and humanity of an intelli­ gent response to the comedies can be modelled, Berry suggests, on the examples of Beatrice, Portia, Julia, Viola, Rosalind, and Helena: “To respond to the whole of Shakespeare’s comic experience is to align ourselves with the comic heroines, whose maturity enables them to love with ‘parted eye’ ” (197). Shakespeare’s Comic Rites is an admirable and a rewarding attempt to explicate the truism that the romantic comedies are at once “unique, Eliza­ bethan, and universal” (200). NOTES 1 Laurence Vaux, A Catechisme or Christian Doctrine 155g, in English Recusant Literature, ed. D. M. Rogers (Menston: The Scolar Press, 1969), p. 89. 2 Linda Woodbridge, Women and the English Renaissance; Literature and the Nature of Womankind, 1540-1620 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984), p. 141. 3 Whitney’s ‘Choice of Emblemes’, ed. H. Green (London: Lovell & Reeve Go., 1866), p. 38. Pa t r ic ia d e m e r s ¡ T h e University of Alberta Anthony John Harding, Coleridge and the Inspired Word (Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1985). xiv, 187. $27.50 The title of this book is something of a misnomer, for while Coleridge’s views on biblical and poetic inspiration are the focus of the first three chapters, Coleridge almost disappears from the last three, being glimpsed only occasionally for the purpose of establishing influence or drawing com­ parison. I state this at the outset, not to belittle the real achievements of this study, but to warn readers that its scope is both wider and narrower than anticipated, which will be welcome news to some, a disappointment to others. It will be welcome news to those interested in a very specialized aspect of Coleridge’s thought — the inspired word of the title — and how subsequent writers — mainly theologians — treated the same topic; it will be a disappointment to those expecting an examination of the effect of these ideas on the poetry. 215 The Coleridge presented here is the theologian/philosopher rather than the poet, although Harding does link the two roles early in the study through the claim that Coleridge saw himself primarily as a poet-prophet, speaking with the inspired voice of biblical predecessors. In fact, Harding extends this to the claim that prophetic inspiration is “close to the core of Romanticism” ( 18), an overstatement similar to those often found in studies with fairly narrow focuses. But he also points up an interesting and vital qualification to the view of poet as prophet when he states that Romantic poets are conscious of “interpreting, constructing their own normative tra­ ditions, at the same time as they assume the prophet’s stance and the seer’s fervour” (18). He returns to and expands on this point in his discussion of Emerson, who recognized that “inspired utterance could no longer be taken on trust; the poet was obliged to weigh his words before the critics did” (152). This led Emerson to the understanding that any truth is momentary, shaped by the self-conscious artistry of the poet, so that the onus of formulat­ ing any message from these fragments is thrust onto the reader. As these astute observations make clear, Harding comes to his study familiar with contemporary literary theory; his is not an historical approach that dismisses theory out of ignorance, although he is wary of — and skil­ fully avoids — the obscurantism and pyrotechnics of many theoretical approaches. His observations are thus well balanced, his scholarship careful (almost, one is tempted to say, too careful), as he tries ostensibly to steer between the Scylla of traditional historicism and the Charybdis of post­ structuralism. In the introduction he claims that we cannot judge Romantic views of inspiration from our contemporary perspective (e.g., psychoanaly­ sis) which inevitably distorts Romantic views based on biblical prophetic tradition; at the...

A Sermon in a Frame: Holman Hunt and The Light of the World

A Sermon in a Frame: Holman Hunt and The Light of the World Get access Holman Hunt and the Light of the World by Jeremy Maas. Scolar Press. £12.50. Alan Woods Alan Woods Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Cambridge Quarterly, Volume XV, Issue 3, 1986, Pages 246–260, https://doi.org/10.1093/camqtly/XV.3.246 Published: 01 March 1986

REVIEWS

REVIEWS Get access Mediaeval Theory of Authorship. By A. J. MINNIS. Pp. xviii+324. London: Scolar Press, 1984. £35 net. G. R. EVANS G. R. EVANS Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Review of English Studies, Volume XXXVII, Issue 145, February 1986, Pages 76–77, https://doi.org/10.1093/res/XXXVII.145.76 Published: 01 February 1986

The Birth of Purgatory by Jacques Le Goff (Translated by A. Goldhammer) Scolar Press London 1984 pp. ix + 430 £25.60.

The Birth of Purgatory by Jacques Le Goff (Translated by A. Goldhammer) Scolar Press London 1984 pp. ix + 430 £25.60.

VICTORIAN VALUES

Victorian Sculpture by Benedict Read, London and New Haven, Yale University Press, 1982, 414pp., 476 ills, 4 colour pls, £30The New Sculpture by Susan Beattie, London and New Haven, Yale University Press, 1983, 272 pp., 240 ills, 2 colour pls, £30The Albert Memorial: The Monument in its Social and Historical Context by Stephen Bayley, London, Scolar Press, 1981, 160pp., 101 ills, £18.50Marble and Bronze: the Art and Life of Hamo Thornycroft by Elfrida Manning, London and New Jersey, Trefoil Books (in association with The Henry Moore Centre for the Study of Sculpture, Leeds City Art Gallery), 216pp., 140 ills, £14.95The Work of Augustus Saint‐Gaudens by John H. Dryfhout, Hanover and London, University Press of New England, 1982, 356 pp., circa 500 ills, £40

Nicolas Barker and John Collins. A Sequel to An Enquiry into the Nature of Certain Nineteenth Century Pamphlets by John Carter and Graham Pollard. The Forgeries of H. Buxton Forman &amp; T.J. Wise Re-examined. Berkeley Calif.: Scolar Press. 1983. Pp. 394. $70.00

Nicolas Barker and John Collins. A Sequel to An Enquiry into the Nature of Certain Nineteenth Century Pamphlets by John Carter and Graham Pollard. The Forgeries of H. Buxton Forman &amp; T.J. Wise Re-examined. Berkeley Calif.: Scolar Press. 1983. Pp. 394. $70.00 - Volume 16 Issue 3

Reviews

Journal Article Reviews Get access JOHN CARTER and GRAHAM POLLARD, An Enquiry into the Nature of Certain Nineteenth Century Pamphlets. Second edition, with an epilogue by John Carter and Graham Pollard. Edited by Nicolas Barker and John Collins. Scolar Press, London & Berkeley [ 1983]. 10 + xii + 400 + 41 pp. [With:] NICOLAS BARKER and JOHN COLLINS, A Sequel to An Enquiry into the Nature of Certain Nineteenth Century Pamphlets by John Carter and Graham Pollard: The Forgeries of H. Buxton Forman & T. J. Wise re-examined. Scolar Press, London & Berkeley ( 1983). 394 pp. Two-volume set, £65.00. ARTHUR FREEMAN ARTHUR FREEMAN London Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Library, Volume s6-VI, Issue 4, December 1984, Pages 415–418, https://doi.org/10.1093/library/s6-VI.4.415 Published: 01 December 1984

Chaucer, Lollius, and the Medieval Theory of Authorship

Chaucer, Lollius, and the Medieval Theory of Authorship Bella Millett University ofSouthampton In the smoll wodd ofEnglish stud;e, fr;, d;flicult to escape the cunent preoccupation with literary theory; even the medievalists, traditionally slower than their colleagues in responding to new developments, are beginning to show a greater concern with theoretical issues. 1 One result of this tendency has been a widespread sense ofcritical insecurity. Caught up in the struggle between conflicting theoretical approaches, literary scholars are finding themselves obliged-often reluctantly-to spend an increasing amount oftime simply defending the assumptions underlying their own critical positions. Recent research, however, has offered Chaucer critics one possible way around this problem. In the last few years there have been major advances in our knowledge oflate-medieval literary theory and in particular scholas­ tic literary theory. Since 1982, Alastair Minnis has published two impor­ tant books on the subject, Medieval Theory ofAuthorship and Chaucer and Pagan Antiquity,2 in which he emphasizes its relevance to Chaucer studies. He disapproves ofthe "fashionable" tendency to apply concepts from modern literary theory to late-medieval literature- "concepts which have no historical validity as far as medieval literature is concerned"-and sees this as a "tacit admission ofdefeat" by scholars unable to find satisfac­ tory critical tools in the medieval sources they have consulted so far, the arts of preaching and poetry. As an alternative he offers the "substantial corpus" ofliterary theory to be found in late-medieval scholastic commen­ taries. This body of theory, he argues, offers the critic of late-medieval 1 See, for instance, the articles on medieval literature and contemporary theory in NLH10 (1979); and in Donald M. Rose, ed., New Perspectives in Chaucer Criticism (Norman, Okla.: Pilgrim Books, 1981). 2 Alastair Minnis, Chaucer and Pagan Antiquity (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1982); Alastair Minnis, Medieval Theory ofAuthorship (London: Scolar Press, 1984). 93 RECONSTRUCTING CHAUCER literature "a conceptual equipment which is at once historically valid and theoretically adequate."3 In the present state of critical disarray this claim has obvious attractions. A theory of literature which was actually current in Chaucer's time has an inbuilt historical advantage over any twentieth­ century approach; it seems to offer an intellectually respectable way of bypassing altogether the ideological battlefield of modern critical theory. But how far is scholastic literary theory really "historically valid and the­ oretically adequate" for the study of Chaucer? Judson Boyce Allen, who in his Ethical Poetic of the Middle Ages explores much the same territory as Minnis, takes it as axiomatic that scholastic literary theory corresponds to the literary practice of its time and that "Chaucer's intellectual and creative modus agendi" would have been "that which his contemporaries who wrote commentaries defined as nor­ mal for literary works."4 Minnis does not take his claims so far, and in his review of Allen's book he explicitly dissociates himself from Allen's use of scholastic literary theory as a master key to medieval literature in general. His own position is that "what in the hands of medieval commentators was an interpretative programme became in the hands of certain practising poets a possible literary strategy, ...a certain well-defined procedure which medieval poets could use but did not feel obliged to use";5 and, unlike Allen, he is prepared to concede that "Chaucer often reacted against the literary theory ofhis day, or exploited it in a very unusual way."6 But in practice his concentration on the links between scholastic literary theory and Chaucer's works sometimes has the effect of flattening out the dif­ ferences between them,7 and even when he points out apparent discrepan­ cies,8 he seems reluctant to explore their full implications.His conclusions on the nature ofChaucer's debt to the scholastic tradition ofcompilation, for instance, are surprisingly tentative: "So deliberate was [Chaucer] in presenting himself as a compiler that one is led to suspect the presence of a 3 Minnis, Medieval Theory ofAuthorship, pp. 1, 144. 4 Judson Boyce Allen, The EthicalPoetic ofthe Middle Ages: A Decorum ofConvenient Distinction (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982), p. 105. 'Speculum 59 (1984):365. 6 Minnis, Medieval Theory ofAuthorship, p. 7. 7 E.g., Chaucer's...

REVIEWS

REVIEWS Get access Image and Text. Studies in the Illustration of English Literature. By EDWARD HODNETT. Pp. viii+272. London: Scolar Press, 1982. £17.50 net. Charles Dickens and his Original Illustrators. By JANE R. COHEN. Pp. xxvi+296. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1980. $32.50. Illustration and the Novels of Thomas Hardy. By ARLENE M. JACKSON. Pp. xiv+152. London: Macmillan, 1982. £15 net. NICHOLAS PICKWOAD NICHOLAS PICKWOAD Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Review of English Studies, Volume XXXV, Issue 138, May 1984, Pages 272–275, https://doi.org/10.1093/res/XXXV.138.272 Published: 01 May 1984

LITERARY IMAGE‐MAKING

Illustration and the Novels of Thomas Hardy by Arlene M. Jackson, London: Macmillan, 1981, 151 pp., 73 ills, £15Image and Text by Edward Hodnett, London: Scolar Press, 1982, 271 pp., 42 ills, £17.50

Reviews

Journal Article Reviews Get access Montague Rhodes James . By RICHARD WILLIAM PFAFF . Pp. xv+461 . London : Scolar Press , 1980 . £18.50. A. V. C. SCHMIDT A. V. C. SCHMIDT Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Notes and Queries, Volume 30, Issue 3, June 1983, Pages 263–264, https://doi.org/10.1093/nq/30-3-263 Published: 01 June 1983

REVIEWS

Journal Article REVIEWS Get access Possessed with Greatness: The Heroic Tragedies of Shakespeare and Chapman. By RICHARD S. IDE. Pp. xvi+254. London: Scolar Press, 1980. £12.50 net. Othello as Tragedy: Some Problems of Judgement and Feeling. By JANE ADAMSON. Pp. x+302. Cambridge: University Press, 1980. Cloth, £15; paper, £4.95 net. PETER BEMENT PETER BEMENT Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Review of English Studies, Volume XXXIV, Issue 136, November 1983, Pages 498–500, https://doi.org/10.1093/res/XXXIV.136.498 Published: 01 November 1983