The goal of Matthew Day's study is to evaluate the impact of Renaissance humanism on Virgil's reception in England during the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Noting that studies regarding Virgil's English reception have been divided into either medieval or Renaissance periods — that is, either up to Chaucer or the Elizabethan and Jacobean ages — D. aims to explore both the continuities and changes from 1400 to 1550 as a bridge between the two eras. He accomplishes this through studies of Virgilian exegesis and early translations of Virgil in England. Ultimately, D. concludes that ‘exegesis and translation of Virgil were shaped by the medieval inheritance, and developments were often gradual and piecemeal’ (3). While some changes in exegesis and translation are perceptible due to humanism, continuity better represents the movement between the medieval and Renaissance periods.
In the first half of the study (chs 1–3), D. examines twenty-five manuscripts and forty-eight printed editions of Virgil of English provenance. While recognising areas of humanist innovation such as palaeography and decoration, he argues that methods of reading Virgil did not fundamentally change. Reception studies must have a foundation in reading practices left in books, and by analysing readers’ annotations he determines that readers’ glossing was not significantly altered over the period in question. Typical annotations in the manuscripts and printed editions were interlinear glossing of vocabulary and grammar, moral and rhetorical interests (sententiae and figures, respectively) and textual corrections. D. declares, ‘Since Late Antiquity, the practices of Virgilian exegesis had been structured by the pedagogic disciplinary framework of grammar and rhetoric, and this well-established framework continued to structure the humanist study of Virgil’ (9). He notes that two major humanist Virgilian commentaries of Cristoforo Landino (1487) and Jodocus Badius Ascensius (1501), which were printed in continental editions and present in England for pedagogic uses, both demonstrate this grammatical and rhetorical focus. This is not to say that there were no other features of reading Virgil present, as moral and epideictic aspects were evident, but D. maintains that these were not a point of focus for English readers.
Similarly, D. asserts in the second half of the study (chs 4–6) that Latin-to-English translations of Virgil also demonstrate continuities in the practices of translation for this period. Through an examination of William Caxton's Eneydos (1490), Gavin Douglas’ Eneados (1513) and the Earl of Surrey's translations of Aeneid II and IV (c. 1543), D. posits that there is not a simple progression from medieval to humanist translations, but rather noteworthy continuities among them, especially from the influence of Virgilian commentaries and glossing, alongside gradual changes. Moreover, he claims that it would be incorrect to characterise the medieval period as one of adaptation and the Renaissance as the dawn of translation. For example, Caxton's significantly amplified and ornate work is translated from the French Livre des Eneydes, but most English scholars understate the French work's close dependence on the Latin text, as roughly one half of it is a direct translation from Aeneid IV. Close translations, then, were not introduced by humanism and Caxton's work ought not to be simply considered an adaptation. Also of interest is the author's challenging of the conventional wisdom regarding Surrey's blank verse translation as an example of humanist practice, for D. remarks that his formal experiments in translation were not adopted by most of his contemporaries. Furthermore, his translation engaged in amplification of the Virgilian text, though to a more moderate degree, just as both Caxton and Douglas did.
D.'s final assessment is that humanism further promoted the reading of Virgil and cemented his canonical status. His opera gradually became more central to English educational curricula at all levels. Yet humanism did not significantly influence poetic exegesis of Virgil in this period. Humanist methods of philological and textual scholarship only gradually influenced Virgilian reception and certainly did not revolutionise reading practices. In fact, it was not until the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries that humanist dictionaries and grammars slowly came into use alongside older medieval texts. In the realm of translation, humanism also increased the number of translations of Virgil, but earlier translation techniques such as employment of loan words, use of extra material from Virgilian glosses and amplification continued into the sixteenth century in a more restrained manner. Having demonstrated such continuities, D. effectively argues that the periodisation of ‘medieval’ and ‘Renaissance’ reception of Virgil in England is undoubtedly too rigid. By bridging the gap between historical periods via close analysis of reading and translation practices, D. makes a compelling argument. The study challenges some accepted ideas about English humanism and should foster further scholarly discussion in both reception studies and translation studies.
