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Thomas Usk: Testament of Love
Shoaf here presents a hitherto neglected Middle English text for both undergraduate and graduate classrooms: Thomas Usk's The Testament of Love. Left unpublished since the nineteenth century, Usk's modern edition includes glosses, notes, and a contextualizing introduction to assist students of all levels in approaching Usk's Middle English poem. The fourteenth century work describes Love descending to Usk's prison cell, and the two engaging in a long, theological conversation reminiscent of Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy. Notable for its idiosyncratic imagery, wide variety of themes, and Christian sentimentality, The Testament of Love is a fascinating text to be studied in any Middle English classroom.
471 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1388
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June 3, 2025
A fascinating text with a fascinating history, but badly wounded by the years.
Grievously corrupted in transmission, it's not always easy to read.
At points badly translated by Usk, it's not always easy to comprehend.
Further injuring the text, he draws from Anselm, a man whose nonsense was so sufficiently advanced it is sometimes mistaken for philosophy, and as his underlying text is not always easy to understand (assuming, of course, there was actually anything to understand in Anselm's obscurantist rehash of what went before and the hash of his own "original" "thought"), it makes Usk a very difficult read, particularly the third book.
Shoaf's editorial principles are a further stumbling block to understanding. He prints two texts in parallel: a diplomatic transcription of Thynne's edition (our only surviving text) at the bottom of the page, and a very conservatively emended text at the top. The chapters are re-arranged to restore Usk's original order based on the acrostic he constructs with each chapter's opening, as all modern editions are, and the text is lightly punctuated, but that is the extent of the structural changes made. Emendations are very conservative, very minor, and very sparse.
I can respect the desire to present medieval texts in their original form, but given the presence of a diplomatic edition on the same page as the emended text, he should have re-paragraphed his edition for ease of comprehension, punctuated more heavily, and applied some of the sensible emendations that he points out in his notes but does not apply to the text. With the original text right there at the foot of every page, there is no reason not to emend daringly, and perhaps render Usk a little more palatable in the process.
Grievously corrupted in transmission, it's not always easy to read.
At points badly translated by Usk, it's not always easy to comprehend.
Further injuring the text, he draws from Anselm, a man whose nonsense was so sufficiently advanced it is sometimes mistaken for philosophy, and as his underlying text is not always easy to understand (assuming, of course, there was actually anything to understand in Anselm's obscurantist rehash of what went before and the hash of his own "original" "thought"), it makes Usk a very difficult read, particularly the third book.
Shoaf's editorial principles are a further stumbling block to understanding. He prints two texts in parallel: a diplomatic transcription of Thynne's edition (our only surviving text) at the bottom of the page, and a very conservatively emended text at the top. The chapters are re-arranged to restore Usk's original order based on the acrostic he constructs with each chapter's opening, as all modern editions are, and the text is lightly punctuated, but that is the extent of the structural changes made. Emendations are very conservative, very minor, and very sparse.
I can respect the desire to present medieval texts in their original form, but given the presence of a diplomatic edition on the same page as the emended text, he should have re-paragraphed his edition for ease of comprehension, punctuated more heavily, and applied some of the sensible emendations that he points out in his notes but does not apply to the text. With the original text right there at the foot of every page, there is no reason not to emend daringly, and perhaps render Usk a little more palatable in the process.
Displaying 1 of 1 review