A Companion To Medieval Scottish Poetry. Edited by Priscilla Bawcutt and Janet Hadley Williams. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2006. Pp. xii + 248. $80.

This collection of essays offers a comprehensive guide to early Scots vernacular literature, in which the editors have assembled contributions from a range of distinguished scholars. In their introduction, Bawcutt and Williams locate the flowering of late medieval Scottish poetry within the period spanning from the close of the fourteenth century to the opening decades of the sixteenth century, predating and outlasting the reign of James IV (1488–1513), which has sometimes been identified as the Golden Age of Older Scots literature. Despite its relatively late date, the literature of this period typically has more in common with the poetry of the "high" Middle Ages than with that of the Renaissance. Its breadth and diversity have often been neglected within a critical tradition that has often focused on the quartet of James I, Robert Henryson, William Dunbar, and Gavin Douglas to the exclusion of other poets. In this volume, the editors seek to redress the balance with the inclusion of chapters covering romance and religious verse and the work of relatively neglected figures such as Richard Holland, alongside more familiar subjects. In addition to a brief survey of the various social and cultural factors that contributed to this remarkable poetic flowering, the introduction presents a concise account of the complexities of manuscript transmission and the relatively late advent of print in Scotland. Illustrated with copious references, it should prove especially useful as a reference point for students and scholars from neighboring disciplines.

Elizabeth Elliott
University of Edinburgh