The Complete Works

"Parkinson's Complete Works of Henryson . . . opens with an introudctory essay detailing the fourteen manuscript and early printed-edition witnesses he uses to establish Henryson's texts. He also reviews another eight manuscripts and editions, including Denton Fox's standard modern critical edition. In a useful introduction to Scots, the dialect of English spoken and written in southern and eastern Scotland, he then reviews the basic features of Henryson's language: lexicon, grammar, pronunciation, verse, and style. Parkinson concludes his introduction with a brief discussion of his editorial policy, rationale for selecting particular witnesses for each text, and alterations he made regarding spelling and punctuation. Students and teachers would find Parkinson's accessible discussion of Henryson's language transferable to other Scots texts, and his review of textual witnesses and editorial choices instructive for understanding the craft of modern editing. In the edition itself, Parkinson offers edited versions of Henryson's major works- the Fables, the Testament of Cresseid, Orpheus and Eurydice- eight shorter poems of 'strong attribution,' and four poems of 'weaker attribution.' In each case, as Parkinson notes, the poem 'appears in the form of a manuscript or print that has been selected for the completeness and consistency of its text and the clarity of its representation of Middle Scots.' . . . In this editing principle . . . he gravitates to late witnesses rather than early ones for his base texts, and he punctuates lightly, following an observation that 'Henryson's sentences tend to involve coordination rather than subordination.' . . . Following standard TEAMS practice in presenting the text, Parkinson includes end-line glossing to faciliate reading, a full set of explanatory notes with a brief introductory comment on each text, and a full set of textual notes. . . . An extensive bibliograpy and a brief glossary of Henryson's word-hoard (mostly a list of 'false friends' that pose difficulty because of their similarity to common modern English words) round out the book." --William F. Hodapp, The College of St. Scholastica, Duluth, Minnesota