The Beginnings of German Literature: Comparative and Interdisciplinary Approaches to Old High German. By Cyril Edwards. Studies in German Literature, Linguistics and Culture. Rochester, N.Y., and Suffolk: Camden House, 2002. Pp. xviii + 197; 14 manuscript plates. $75

This volume is not a book in the established sense of the literary-studies branch of the scholarly publishing industry, for it advances no argument and has no thesis, nor does any of its seven individual essays advance a focused argument for or against any given proposition. Instead they provide some background context in both the literary and scholarly history of some half-dozen Old High German texts, such that the author can describe some problematic interpretive issues, to which he nonetheless does not in the end offer comprehensive solutions. Thus, just as the volume is not a book, neither are the essays articles that would generally be published in refereed journals. They are rather ruminations or deliberations (p. 121) that with some frequency add nuance to, or subtly reshape the contour of, our readings of familiar texts. Perhaps it is specifically because (and not in spite) of this constitution that the volume is an interesting one, for its utter lack of a focused argument-to whose proof all else is subordinated in the standard mode of scholarly writing-enables the author to examine a broader scope of issues in each text, most of which lead-again in contradiction to the thesis mode of writing-nowhere, but which nonetheless add to the complexity and context of our understanding. They are, additionally, thoroughly enjoyable to read along the way.

Jerold C. Frakes
University of Southern California