Reviews81 Raimon Vidal de Bezaudun, Abrils issi' e mays mirava, Ensenhament aujongleur. Édition du texte critique de Wilhelm Bohs 1904; présentationnouvelle de RogerTeulatetd'AnnickPuygrenier. Cournon d'Auvergne: Éditions Orionis, 1988. Pp. 251. FF 180. The standard edition ofRaimon Vidal's ensenhamen was for many years that of Wilhelm Bohs, published in Romanische Forschungen. It was a typical-perhaps rather above-averagespecimen of the German scholarship of its day: solid, conscientious ,unimaginative,farfromuser-friendly. Itisthismonumentto the virtues and the limitations of the universities of Wihelmine Germany that Roger Teulat and Annick Puygrenier have chosen to refurbish for the benefit of French readers of today. Their object is to "réactualiser la vision, maintenant très vieillie, de l'érudit allemand, [to provide] que première approche destinée à la fois au public cultivé et aux spécialistes qui n'entendent pas l'allemand" (3). The scholarly utility of their work, however, is seriouslydiminished, ifnotentirelyvitiated, bythe existence ofW. H.W.Field'sedition,whichissuperiorineverywaytothatofBohs. Field's volume is mentioned only once here, with the laconic comment "édition introuvable chez nous" (3): Teulat has, therefore , been unable~or unwilling?~to make any use of it. The constitution of the present volume is as follows (cf. 8). Puygrenier,a Germanspecialist, translated Bohs'extensive introduction , his prose rendering ofAbrils andhis notes and subsidiary matter; Teulatwasresponsible forfiveprefatorypages, seventeen pagesofadditional notes, a supplementarybibliographyintended to bring that of Bohs up to date, and an index of "key-words," as wellas"lavérification du texte critique": this lastoperation,which did not involve collation with the single MS (chansonnierR), has not managed to ensure a text free from misprints. One virtue of the German edition was Bohs' attempt to arrive at a general definition of the ensenhamen (here 10-33). An updating of this, such as is attempted in the present volume (231-3), is potentially useful. Unfortunately, Teulat makes no mention of the fundamental book on the genre by Don Monson, nor is he aware ofan 82REVIEWS excellent editon of a number of the ensenhamens by Giuseppe Sansone. These bibliographical deficiencies make further comment unnecessary. We are left, in effect, with Puygrenier's renderingofBohs. The latter's Germanis farfrombeing amodel of clarity, and the translator was evidently unfamiliar with the matters under discussion. Butwhen all due allowances are made, howcan one excuse "mêmesi l'onpourrait" (37), "à unereprise" (40), "le document E", "le dossier C" (41: the reference is to the chansonniersE and C) or "Ce troubadourne semble simplement êtreconnu quedanscevers" (213)? Theattentive reader, startled by references (12, 13) to "t. 9" ofLevy's Supplement-Wörterbuch (whatismeantis"fascicle9",i.e.theopeningsectionofvolume3), may well conclude that the collaboration between Teulat and Puygrenier was less than ideally close. Scholars will read this volume~if they read it at all-in search of material relevant to the elucidation of the Occitan text. The search is quite a complicated one. Bohs already offered, not merely extensive notes to the text, but an appendix of additional textual and interpretative notes by Emil Levy (here 229-30). To theseTeulat nowadds (237-47) his own comments on the text, on Bohs'notesandevenonLevy'scomments onBohs'notes. Though he is able to rectify a number ofeditorial or interpretative errors, Teulat does not really add a great deal to his predecessor. He makes no attempt to incorporate material from the substantial reviewstowhichBohs'editiongaverise, notablybyA.Jeanroyand E. Herzog, nor can it be said that he offers much new linguistic information. He seemspreoccupied above allby a desire to score pointsoffBohsand/orLevy. Intheprocess,matterswhichitwould have been useful to raise are passed over in silence. Three examples maysuffice. Atlines 190-2, the translation "J'appris[. . .] commentvers la Lombardie le preux marquis parcourait deux ou trois pays [. . .]" is allowed to pass without comment, though it is evident that the sense must be "I learnt [. . .] how he [my father] usedto gooffto Lombardytoseek theworthymarquis, andto two orthree otherlands [. . .]" (Field interprets this correctly). Atline REVIEWS83 615,whereBohsofferedtheemendedtexXEaneim'en tantostjazer (theMS readsEanemnon),Teulat failstoraise aneyebrowatthe emendation, thoughitoughttobe obviousthatEanemno ? [-nos en] "and we went off needed no editorial interference (even the conservativeField "corrects"non tonos). Atline 618,whereBohs boldlyemendedtheMSreadingcanutzto//[sic]dutz("cethomme expérimenté" in the translation), Teulat can do no more than query the emendation and note...