Reviewed by:

• Epistolary Acts: Anglo-Saxon Letters and Early English Media by Jordan Zweck
• Emma Knowles

Jordan Zweck’s study of ‘epistolary acts’ in early medieval England argues that there is more to understanding vernacular epistolary culture in the period than studying the limited surviving letters written in Old English. Zweck broadens her discussion to include letters and other epistolary moments incorporated into Old English texts, both poetry and prose. In doing so she argues that these examples provide further insight into how not just the content of letters, but their materiality, delivery, and reception were translated into Anglo-Saxon vernacular culture.

Zweck’s introduction establishes several paradigms for her study, including, most importantly, her working definition of ‘epistolary acts’. This term incorporates ‘all the elements that make up protocols of letter writing, delivery, reception, and storage’ (p. 7). By deeming these ‘acts’ Zweck aims to highlight not just the content of letters but the physical activity involved in their construction and delivery, as well as their material qualities, which also create some physical connection between letter and scribe, messenger and recipient (p. 7). With this awareness of an epistolary culture broader than just the letters themselves Zweck demonstrates a useful point of engagement between medieval studies and media theory (p. 10). This link is utilized successfully throughout the book in her readings of various textually embedded ‘epistolary acts’. Another important aspect of Zweck’s definition of these acts is the focus on the vernacular; a significant thread throughout the book is the consideration of how specifically Old English representations of these ‘epistolary acts’ translate these from a Latinate language and culture into the vernacular. [End Page 258]

A series of case studies offering close readings of several Old English texts structures Epistolary Acts. The introduction, as well as establishing the wider framework of the argument and its relationship to media studies, offers a reading of The Husband’s Message. This is a helpful springboard for the rest of the book’s discussion of epistolary communication. It highlights important features of letters, including the role of the messenger, by drawing attention to distance between sender and receiver, and identifies the ways in which the material of a letter can give a sense of its ‘hypermediacy’. This is an example of the successful incorporation of media studies theory into the book, as hypermediacy is ‘a condition which forces a viewer to confront its nature as medium’ (p. 18). Zweck’s reading also emphasizes the ‘asynchronicity’ of letters and how this influences the temporality of the poem itself. It is an interesting and innovative approach to The Husband’s Message, which lays important groundwork for her close engagement with texts throughout the rest of the book.

Following the introduction, the first chapter establishes the early medieval English conception of epistolarity, including forms, features, and expectations about letters as well as the specific vocabulary associated with them. The discussion of vocabulary is particularly useful for the chapters that follow. The next chapters focus on one or several Old English texts in detail: the Old English Sunday Letter in Chapter 2; Apollonius of Tyre and the Letter of Christ to Abgar found in Ælfric of Eynsham’s Lives of Saints in Chapter 3; and the anonymous Life of Saint Mary of Egypt, Ælfric’s Life of Saint Basil and the anonymous Legend of the Seven Sleepers in Chapter 4. The discussion of each text highlights that representations privilege different aspects of engagement with letters, such as the retention of memory and the role of messengers. The discussion of the Sunday Letter in its various Old English forms is especially compelling, as Zweck demonstrates the relevance of an under-studied text and uses its various recensions to comment on the importance of transmission. The readings in each of these chapters are interesting and well-supported by close reading of the texts in question, but they can leave unanswered questions about the role of translation in shaping the sources that Zweck chooses to focus...

审核人：

• 书面行为：盎格鲁撒克逊信件和约旦·泽克（Jordan Zweck）早期的英语媒体
• 艾玛·诺尔斯（Emma Knowles）

约旦·泽克（Jordan Zweck）对中世纪早期英格兰的“书信行为”的研究认为，要理解这段时期的白话书信文化，比研究用旧英语写的有限的尚存书信要多得多。Zweck扩大了她的讨论范围，将字母和其他书信片刻包括在古英语文本中，包括诗歌和散文。她认为这样做的目的是，这些例子进一步揭示了不仅信件的内容如何，​​而且其物质性，传递性和接受性如何被翻译成盎格鲁-撒克逊人的本土文化。

Zweck的引言为她的研究建立了几种范例，其中最重要的是她对“书信行为”的定义。该术语结合了“构成信件撰写，交付，接收和存储协议的所有要素”（第7页）。通过认为这些``行为''，Zweck不仅着重强调了信件的内容，而且着重强调了信件的构造和交付所涉及的身体活动以及其物质素质，这也使信件与抄写员，信使和收件人之间建立了某种物理联系（p 7）Zweck不仅对字母本身有更广泛的认识，而且认识到这种认识，这证明了中世纪研究与媒体理论之间互动的有用点（第10页）。她在阅读各种文字嵌入的“书信行为”时成功地利用了该链接。Zweck对这些行为的定义的另一个重要方面是对白话的关注。这本书的一个重要主题是考虑这些“书信行为”的古英语表达是如何将这些语言从拉丁语言和文化转化为本土语言的。[结束第258页]

一系列案例研究提供了一些古老的英语文本结构阅读行为的仔细阅读。引言，以及建立更广泛的论证框架及其与媒体研究的关系，提供了对《丈夫的话》的阅读。这是本书余下的书信传播讨论的有益跳板。它通过引起人们对发送者和接收者之间距离的关注，突出了信件的重要特征，包括信使的作用，并确定了信件的材料可以给人“超中介”感的方式。这是成功将媒体研究理论整合到本书中的一个例子，因为超媒体性是“一种迫使观看者面对其作为媒体的本质的条件”（第18页）。Zweck的阅读还强调了字母的“异步性”，以及这如何影响诗歌本身的时间性。这是一种有趣且创新的方法，用于传达“丈夫的信息”，这为她在整本书的其余部分中密切参与文本打下了重要基础。

引言之后，第一章建立了中世纪早期英语对公义性的概念，包括形式，特征和对字母以及与之相关的特定词汇的期望。词汇的讨论对于随后的章节特别有用。下一章详细讨论一个或几个旧英语文本：第2章中的“旧英语星期日字母”；第2章中的“旧英语星期日字母”。轮胎的阿波罗尼乌斯（Apollonius of Tyre）和基督写给阿布（Abgar）的信，见于第三章的《艾恩舍姆的圣徒生平》。以及埃及的圣玛丽的匿名生活，Æ尔夫里克的《圣罗勒的生活》和匿名的《七个沉睡者传说》在第4章中，对每种文本的讨论都强调，表示法具有与字母互动的不同方面的特权，例如记忆力的保持和信使的作用。以Zweck证明未充分研究的文本的相关性，并使用其各种注释来评论传播的重要性，对以各种旧英语形式撰写的《星期日信》的讨论尤其引人注目。这些章节中的每一章的阅读都很有趣，并且通过仔细阅读所讨论的文本得到很好的支持，但是对于翻译在塑造Zweck选择重点关注的源中的作用方面，它们可能会留下未解之谜。