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• The Transmission of Medieval Romance: Metres, Manuscripts and Early Prints ed. by Ad Putter and Judith A. Jefferson
• Janet Hadley Williams

These essays examine the transmission of medieval romances through investigation of their material (codicological) and verse forms. Introducing them, editors Ad Putter and Judith A. Jefferson review the history of romance studies (including the various prejudices attached to the genre), then mark up what the [End Page 244] dual approach has amply exposed, that there is much more to learn about an area considered well-studied.

Rhiannon Purdie’s ‘King Orphius and Sir Orfeo, Scotland and England, Memory and Manuscript’, examines transmission by memorization, based on study of extant manuscript copies of the Orpheus romance—three of the ME Orfeo (on which see also Minkova, and De Groot, in this volume); one of the OSc Orphius (NRS MS RH13/35); and David Laing’s transcription of a 1586 fragment, ‘Orpheus king of Portingaill’ (La.IV.27(54)). She argues, from a variety of evidence types and a deep understanding of the critical literature, that Orphius ‘not only evolved from Orfeo, but continued to evolve and change gradually as it passed through memorial transmission’ (p. 21).

Derek Pearsall, in ‘The Metre of the Tale of Gamelyn’, uses his vast knowledge to test whether significant differentiations can be made between metrical forms that have in the past been described loosely as ‘the old septenary/alexandrine couplet’ (p. 33). The journey is fascinating; the conclusions carefully tentative.

‘Rhyme Royal and Romance’ is Elizabeth Robertson’s valuable contribution on the way in which romance is, and is not, transmitted. She argues that rhyme royal, introduced into English by Chaucer, is rarely chosen for romance because, as her close analysis then demonstrates, this form, by expanding, then binding the thought, ‘mitigates against some of the aims and purposes of romance’ (p. 50).

Ad Putter addresses the non-literate (memorial, melodic) forms of romance transmission in ‘The Singing of Middle English Romance: Stanza Forms and Contrafacta’. He focuses on verse forms in Sir Tristrem (pp. 72–84), Horn (pp. 84–86), and Bevis of Hampton (pp. 86–90), building on the work of earlier scholars interested in musical performance. Putter eruditely makes the case for sung/orally performed romances, his attentive exploration of the terms, forms, memory slips, and possible music enjoyably compelling.

A study of material transmissions, Carol Meale’s ‘Deluxe Copies of Middle English Romance: Scribes and Book Artists’, asks, of four of the five illustrated Middle English manuscripts containing romances, where they were made, for whom, and why so few survive. On Auchinleck (pp. 92–98, 114), Meale’s essay has interesting links to Putter’s.

Thorlac Turville Petre asks, ‘Is Cheuelere Assigne an Alliterative Poem?’ He compares Cheuelere Assigne with other alliterative romances, expertly considering syntax, metrics, possible emendations and rewriting, presence and absence of characteristic alliterative vocabulary, the defining accentual rhythm of balanced half-lines, and audience.

Attention to the finer details of transmission characterizes Donka Minkova’s ‘Language Tests for the Identification of Middle English Genre’. She reports early findings of attempts ‘to quantify the behaviour of adjectives in Middle English verse that relate frequency in the ambient language to metrical placement and possibly text type’ (p. 144). [End Page 245]

In ‘The Problem of John Metham’s Prosody’, Nicholas Myklebust studies how the transmission of Chaucer’s metrical line has been interpreted, engaging with Amoryus and Cleopes, and other Lancastrian poets (Bockenham, Ashby). He shows the importance of Metham’s metre, because of ‘the pressure it places not only on literary traditions of romance and metre but also on critical traditions of contextualization and reconstruction’ (p. 169).

With Jordi Sánchez-Marti’s ‘The Printed Transmission of Medieval Romance from William Caxton to Wynkyn de Worde, 1473–1535’, interest moves to the marketing approaches of these printers, his findings especially useful on the different kinds of romance readers each printer sought.

Contextual matters...

审核人：

• 《中世纪浪漫史的传播：米特，手抄本和早期印刷品》。通过Ad Putter和Judith A. Jefferson
• 珍妮特·哈德利·威廉姆斯

这些论文通过研究中世纪浪漫史的材料（医学）和诗歌形式来考察其传播。介绍他们的编辑Ad Putter和Judith A. Jefferson回顾了浪漫史研究的历史（包括与该类型有关的各种偏见），然后标记了[End Page 244]对偶方法充分暴露的内容，还有更多内容可供参考。了解被认为是经过充分研究的领域。

雷亚农Purdie的“国王Orphius和奥菲欧爵士，苏格兰和英格兰，记忆和手稿”，通过死记硬背检传输的基础上，奥菲斯浪漫三ME的的现存手抄本的研究奥菲欧（上也看到Minkova和德格鲁特，在此卷中）；OSc Orphius之一（NRS MS RH13 / 35）；和大卫·莱因（David Laing）抄录的1586年片段《 Portingaill的奥菲斯国王》（La.IV.27（54））。她从各种证据类型和对批判文学的深刻理解中认为，奥菲斯“不仅是从奥菲欧演变而来，而且随着它通过纪念传递而不断发展和变化”（第21页）。

德里克·皮萨尔（Derek Pearsall）在《Gamelyn的故事计》（The Meter of the Tale of Gamelyn）中，运用他丰富的知识来检验是否可以对过去被宽松地描述为“旧的九十年代/亚历山二酸对联”的公制形式之间进行显着的区分（第33页） ）。旅程令人着迷；结论仔细地暂定。

伊丽莎白·罗伯逊（Elizabeth Robertson）对浪漫的传递和不传播的方式做出了宝贵的贡献。她辩称，乔uc（Chaucer）引入英语的皇家押韵（Royal royal）很少被选作浪漫小说，因为正如她的仔细分析所证明的那样，这种形式是通过扩大，然后绑定思想，``减轻浪漫史的某些目的和宗旨来实现的''（第50页）。

Ad Putter在“中古英语浪漫史的歌唱：节节形式与对立”中解决了非文盲（记忆，旋律）形式的浪漫主义传播。他以早期对音乐表演感兴趣的学者的作品为基础，专注于Tristrem爵士（第72-84页），Horn（第84-86页）和汉普顿的Bevis（第86-90页）中的诗歌形式。帕特博学多闻，可以演唱/口头表演的浪漫史，他对术语，形式，记忆单和可能的音乐的细致探索令人信服。

Carol Meale的《中古英语浪漫史的豪华抄本：抄写员和书画家》对物质传播进行了研究，它询问了五本插图中包含浪漫史的中古英语手抄本中的四本，这些抄写本是在哪里制作的，为谁创作的，以及为什么如此少的幸存者。在Auchinleck（第92–98页，第114页）上，Meale的文章与Putter的文章有有趣的联系。

索拉克·特维尔·彼得（Thorlac Turville Petre）问：“ Cheuelere是否分配了代诗？” 他将Cheuelere Assigne与其他寓言式浪漫作了比较，专业地考虑了语法，度量标准，可能的修订和改写，特征性的专有词汇的存在与否，平衡的半线的定义重音韵律以及听众。

多娜·敏科娃（Donka Minkova）的“识别中级英语类型的语言测试”是对传输细节的关注。她报告了早期尝试的发现，即“量化中古英语经文中形容词的行为，这种形容词将周围语言的频率与量度位置和可能的文本类型相关联”（第144页）。[结束页245]

Nicholas Myklebust在“约翰·米瑟姆的韵律问题”中研究了乔uc的格律线的传播方式，并与阿莫里乌斯和克利奥佩斯以及其他兰开斯特派诗人（博肯汉姆，阿什比）合作。他指出了梅瑟姆（Metham）身高的重要性，因为“它不仅给浪漫主义和节制的文学传统带来压力，也给情境化和重建的批评传统带来压力”（第169页）。

乔迪·桑切斯·马蒂（JordiSánchez-Marti）撰写的《从威廉·卡克斯顿到温妮·德·沃德的中世纪浪漫小说的印刷版，1473-1535年》引起了人们对这些打印机的营销方式的兴趣，他的发现对于每个打印机寻求的不同浪漫史读者特别有用。

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