Uncategorized

The Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library sets out to do for medieval literature what Loeb did for the classics: to put affordable, reliable editions and translations of key medieval texts into the hands of a wide variety of English-speaking readers. Robert Bjork’s edition and translation of The Poems of Cynewulf is a welcome addition to this effort. The volume gathers together five texts that are scattered across the Exeter Book and the Vercelli Book and that have previously been treated mostly in standalone editions, giving readers the rare opportunity to appreciate them side-by-side. Its affordability alone makes it a valuable teaching text, especially for those of us whose choices for a medieval literature syllabus are frequently dictated not by what we would like to teach, but rather by what we can reasonably ask our students to pay for their books.

Renée R. Trilling
The Medieval Review

Read Full Article >>

One of the most infamous characters from the Middle Ages was Vlad III Dracula, the prince of Wallachia. Here is the story of how he gained the nickname of ‘the Impaler’.

The Histories, by Laonikos Chalkokondyles, which has been recently translated by Anthony Kaldellis, describes the fall of the Byzantine empire and rise of the Ottomans. Written sometime between 1464 and 1468, it centres around the capture of Constantinople in 1453. However, it also covers many events that were happening in Eastern Europe, where the Ottomans, Hungarians and other states were vying with each other.

Read Full Article >>

The poems gathered in this volume complement one another on the basis of their shared interest in New Testament, apocryphal, and hagiographical narratives: Advent (sometimes known as Christ I), Christ in Judgment (sometimes known as Christ III), Guthlac A, The Descent into Hell, The Vision of the Cross (elsewhere known by the title The Dream of the Rood), The Ruthwell Cross Crucifixion Poem, The Brussels Cross Inscription, Andreas, Christ and Satan, and a Distich on Kenelm.

I found much to admire and enjoy in Clayton’s prose translations. With the Old English text readily available on the facing page, the Modern English rendition need not imitate it by way of archaizing diction and strained syntax. Instead, Clayton uses spare, unpretentious language that captures the tone of each poem while communicating its subject matter with terrific clarity. This is no small feat since the tone varies widely among these poems, from the exultant prayers of Advent and The Descent into Hell and the understated humor of Andreas to the dire admonitions of Christ in Judgment and the surreal psychological turmoil that dominates The Dream of the Rood.

Leslie Lockett
The Medieval Review

Read Full Article >>

The Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library, which Adam Kirsch has called “the best introduction the general reader has ever had to the ‘mother’ of Western Christian civilization,” presents both classics of the medieval canon and lesser-known works in their original languages alongside new English translations. Launched in 2010 and numbering now three dozen volumes, the series spans genres as diverse as biography, travelogues, scientific treatises, and epic and lyric poetry. As rising Harvard junior Jude Russo explains below, this spring’s additions to the series include a volume that’s about as timely as a medieval publication could be.

—–

“Nam quid respectu Francisci Iulius aut quid
gessit Alexander memorabile? Iulius hostem
uicit, Alexander mundum, Franciscus utrumque,
nec solum uicit mundum Franciscus et hostem,
set sese, bello uincens et uictus eodem.”

“For in comparison with Francis, what did Caesar or Alexander do that was worthy of memory? Caesar conquered the foe and Alexander the world, but Francis both. Nor did Francis conquer only the world and the foe, but also himself, conqueror and conquered in the selfsame battle.”

(Henry of Avranches, Life of Francis, 11-15, Trans. David Townsend, DOML 30)

A recent addition to the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library (DOML), the Saints’ Lives of Henry of Avranches, begins with a life of Francis of Assisi. Written just a few years after Francis’s death, the biography elevates the saint to the company of the great conquerors of the classical world, and even beyond their company, as the saint subdued in himself the concupiscent passions that so famously consumed the ancient rulers. In fourteen books dedicated to Pope Gregory IX, Henry describes these struggles of the saint against the world, the foe, and himself.

Read Full Article >>

Between the years 1010 and 1026, Egbert, a cleric who taught in the town of Liege (now part of Belgium) decided to make a book for the young students in his classroom. The work he created is called The Well-Laden Ship, and is a poem that retells various proverbs, fables and folktales. It was designed to teach grammatical rules and give moral lessons to the students.

Egbert explains that he wrote it “not for those who are already perfected to manly strength by careful attentive reading, but for those timid little boys still subject to discipline in school; so that, when their teachers are absent, while that band of youths is babbling to one to one another certain ditties (though none of them to any purpose) in order to sharpen somewhat their meager talent by practicing and frequently chanting those little verses, at such times they might rather use these.”

Read Full Article >>

The Dumbarton Oaks edition of the Old English Boethius is, in its presentation and major editorial choices, true to the series’ mission, shared by the long-running Loeb Classical series, to make available important texts from the ancient world to a wide English-speaking audience. The present volume presents the prosimetrical reworking of the all-prose Old English translation of the De consolatione philosophiae in a facing-page format with a readable Modern English translation and limited apparatus.

Printed after the prosimetrical text are verse prologues and epilogues associated with King Alfred and his translation scheme: the prologue to the Old English Dialogues of Gregory the Great, the prologue and epilogue to the Old English Pastoral Care (also of Gregory the Great), and the epilogue to the Old English Bede. These materials are of definite interest in relation to the Old English Boethius, as they provide more insight into how the various translations were framed by translators or compilers and thus placed within the larger project of Old English translation. They shed light on the attitudes of the Anglo-Saxons toward their Latin materials and toward the process of translation itself.

Tiffany Beechy
The Medieval Review

Read Full Article >>