Reviewed by:

• Etymology and Wordplay in Medieval Literature ed. by Mikael Males
• Roderick McDonald

To the modern reader, the relationship between etymology and wordplay may appear neither necessary nor natural, but for medieval textual analysis and exegesis, this book reveals these two seemingly divergent literary and cultural activities are closely related. Mikael Males explains that the aim of the volume is ‘to investigate […] how the functions of etymology and wordplay may contribute to our understanding of medieval textual culture and cognitive perceptions’ (p. 2). [End Page 229] The book achieves this through an examination of a range of medieval examples of wordplay and etymologies, exploring what these might reveal about the cultural practices from which they originate. Moreover, wordplay is shown to have been an important intellectual and scholastic pursuit, not just a witty activity for its own sake. As Males notes, ‘the nexus of wordplay and etymology, and the flexibility inherent to it, has resulted in a staggering array of strategies for producing and retrieving meaning in texts’ (p. 7).

The book contains nine contributions, starting with Males’s broad genealogy of the Latinate origins of the field, in which he notes tensions between the phonological and semantic arbitrariness of philosophical discourse on the one hand, and the non-arbitrary nature of medieval textual practice, particularly biblical exegeses. Wim Verbaal’s erudite analysis of the writings of Alan of Lille follows next, and he takes particular interest in the learning needed for reading Alan’s ‘deliberately difficult’ (p. 79) texts and the relevance of wordplay for Alan’s works. Next comes Keith Busby’s analysis of moral and ethical medieval paranomasia (wordplay derived from phonetic similarity) in the thirteenth-century Old French works of Gautier de Coinci, and this is followed by Stephen Michael Carey’s analysis of soteriological macaronic texts, in which heteroglossic paranomasia is used for emphasizing semantic ambiguities, where debased and highly sexualized readings sit alongside the moral reading. Paolo Borsa’s contribution is next, looking at wordplay in both the metrics and the materiality of thirteenth-century Italian poetic manuscripts, and he explores ways in which the mise en page underpins playful options for the reader, and identifies the influence of vernacularity in the wordplay itself. The sixth chapter, from Jan Erik Rekdal, turns to the medieval Irish textual tradition, and the use of polysemy, etymology, and wordplay in cognitive and exegetical writings, whether glosses, legal texts, or tales. Eric Weiskott’s contribution in the following chapter focuses on one particular text, the Old English poetic Exodus. He explores the extensive (and difficult) wordplay as an index of the tastes and aims of a long-lost interpretive community, with exegesis facilitated through layering of puns, kennings, and poetic variations. The editor, Mikael Males, then contributes a chapter on wordplay, etymology, and poetry in the interpretation of dreams in Icelandic literature. He finds that Icelandic dream interpretation developed into a native activity that diverged from the Latin tradition, likely due to the strong poetic tradition in wordplay that was already in place in Iceland. The final chapter, by Julia Verkholantsev, turns to the use of etymologies in medieval origin narratives of the Slavic peoples, discussing the ways in which etymologia is used as a multivalenced interpretive tool, contrary to etymology’s modern scientific use as a tool of logic. More broadly, Verkholantsev argues that, taken in the context of historical narrative, etymologia is more than linguistics, and must be ‘taken seriously as a medieval historiographical structure and epistemological method’ (p. 264).

Throughout the book, the value of medieval etymologies is shown to be both in the clues they hold to modes of medieval reading and thought, and clues [End Page 230] to medieval views on interpretation and the acquisition of knowledge. Likewise, for wordplay: all the contributions in this volume emphasize the importance of recognizing wordplay in all its forms as a serious method for moral, ethical, and intellectual pursuits, far from the place that wordplay occupies in modern culture. Indeed, as this volume reveals, the very...

审核人：

• 中世纪文学中的词源和文字游戏。由Mikael Males
• 罗德里克·麦克唐纳

对于现代读者来说，词源学和文字游戏之间的关系似乎既不是必需的也不是自然的，但是对于中世纪的文本分析和释经来说，这本书揭示了这两种看似不同的文学和文化活动是密切相关的。Mikael Males解释说，该书的目的是“研究[…]词源和文字游戏的功能如何有助于我们对中世纪文本文化和认知观念的理解”（第2页）。[结束页229]该书通过考察一系列中世纪的文字游戏和词源学实例，探索了这些实例可能揭示出其起源的文化习俗，从而实现了这一目标。此外，文字游戏已被证明是一种重要的智力和学业追求，而不仅仅是出于其自身的机智活动。正如马勒斯所指出的那样，“文字游戏和词源学的联系以及其固有的灵活性已经导致了产生和检索文本含义的一系列令人震惊的策略”（第7页）。

该书包含九篇著作，从马累斯对拉丁裔起源的广泛家谱开始，他指出了一方面哲学话语的语音学和语义专断性与中世纪文本实践的非任意性之间的紧张关系，特别是圣经中的存在。接下来是Wim Verbaal对里尔的Alan著作的博学分析，他对阅读Alan的“故意困难的”文本（第79页）所需要的学习以及文字游戏与Alan作品的相关性特别感兴趣。接下来是基思·布斯比（Keith Busby）对13世纪古法语（Gautier de Coinci）作品中的道德和伦理中世纪偏执狂（源自音素相似性的文字游戏）的分析，然后是斯蒂芬·迈克尔·凯里（Stephen Michael Carey）对社会学通俗性文本的分析，其中，杂语的偏执狂被用来强调语义上的歧义，贬义和高度性别化的读物与道德读物并列。接下来是保罗·​​博尔萨（Paolo Borsa）的贡献，着眼于13世纪意大利诗意手稿的度量标准和实质性方面的文字游戏，他探索了如何用这种方式来英文网页为读者提供了许多有趣的选择，并确定了文字游戏本身对白话语的影响。第六章，来自扬·埃里克·雷克达尔（Jan Erik Rekdal）的内容，转向中世纪的爱尔兰文字传统，并在认知和训ege著作中使用多义，词源和文字游戏，无论是掩盖文字，法律文字还是故事。埃里克·维斯柯特（Eric Weiskott）在下一章中的贡献集中于一种特定的文本，即古英语诗意的出埃及记。他探索了广泛（且困难）的文字游戏，将其作为长期失散的解释社区的口味和目标的指标，并通过双关语，肯宁语和诗意变奏的分层促进了释经。然后，编辑Mikael Males在有关冰岛文学中的梦的诠释上撰写了有关文字游戏，词源学和诗歌的一章。他发现冰岛梦的诠释发展成为一种与拉丁传统不同的本土活动，这可能是由于冰岛早已在文字游戏中运用了强烈的诗意传统。朱莉娅·韦克霍兰采夫（Julia Verkholantsev）的最后一章探讨了词源学在斯拉夫民族的中世纪起源叙事中的使用，讨论了词源学的方式与词源学作为逻辑工具的现代科学用法相反，它被用作多价值的解释工具。更广泛地说，Verkholantsev认为，在历史叙述的范围内采取，etymologia比语言学以上，并且必须为“重视作为中世纪史学渊结构和认识论方法”（第264页）。

在整本书中，中世纪词源的价值既体现在他们掌握中世纪阅读和思想模式的线索中，也涉及在解释和获取知识方面的中世纪观点的线索[End Page 230]。同样，对于文字游戏：本卷中的所有贡献都强调了认识所有形式的文字游戏作为道德，道德和智力追求的一种严肃方法的重要性，而远非文字游戏在现代文化中所占的位置。确实，正如本卷所揭示的，非常...