This collection consists of an introduction by the editor and nine individual essays. In "Etymology, Wordplay, and the Truth Value of the Linguistic Sign from Antiquity to the Middle Ages," Mikael Males provides a helpful survey of etymological thought beginning with the battle between conventionalism (the signifiers are arbitrary) and naturalism (the signifiers and the signifieds are inherently linked) in Plato's Cratylus. He then discusses the Stoics, Marcus Terentius Varro's De lingua latina, Isidore of Seville's Etymologiae, and Thomas the Cistercian's commentary on the Song of Songs, among others. Males ends with a consideration of the uncomfortable coexistence of conventionalism and naturalism in Augustine's work. Wim Verbaal writes about Alan of Lille, especially his extremely complicated deployment of etymology in Anticlaudianus, in "Discretionis libra (With the Scales of Discernment): Allegorical Writing and the Concealment of etymologia." Verbaal's own exposition seems to parallel Alan's as the reader needs to follow closely through thickets of definitions and distinctions. [End Page 415]

In "The Terminal Paronomasia of Gautier de Coinci," Keith Busby examines moments of intense wordplay in the poet's monumental Miracles de Nostre Dame, demonstrating how the highly wrought form enhances the devotional content. In the process, he reinforces the place "at the centre of the Old French literary tradition" for a figure only recently given more considerate scholarly attention (p. 108). Stephen Carey uses puns in "Soteriological Macaronics: Ambiguum and Paronomasia in Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival" to argue that the Middle High German romance does not move steadily and conclusively from the lowly to the sublime. Rather, it keeps the readers suspended between multiple options, asking them to decide on their own trajectory. In "'Scuro saccio che par lo | meo detto' (I Know that my Word Seems Obscure): Wordplay and Obscurity in Thirteenth-Century Italian Poetry," Paolo Borsa explores the intricate, paronomasia-rich verse of Guittone d'Arezzo and his followers, a group of vernacular poets lambasted by the author of De vulgari eloquentia. Their poetry signifies a marked departure from grammatica's set of rules, which antagonizes Dante.

Jan Erik Rekdal in "Etymology, Wordplay, and Allegorical Reading in Some Medieval Irish Texts" takes on the role of etymology outside of poetry proper, in glosses and law texts, before illustrating how an instance of etymologizing expands into a full-fledged narrative. He uses as his example a story found in the glossary Sanas Cormaic that is usually read separately from its most immediate context. In "Puns and Poetic Style in Old English," Eric Weiskott looks at a cluster of nautical puns in the Old English Exodus to uncover the anonymous author's linguistic and epistemological assumptions and his contemporary audience's expectations, two important issues not recoverable otherwise. In his third contribution to the volume, "Etymological Interpretation of Dreams in Old Icelandic Literature," Mikael Males argues that the wordplay in interpretations of dreams in the sagas functions similarly to the imbedded skaldic verse, adding some internal commentary to the genre with typically reticent narrators. Finally, Julia Verkholantsev looks at the various, sometimes overlapping ways in which medieval Czech and Polish historiographic texts etymologize the ethnonyms Bohemian, Czech, and Slav in "Language as Artefact: The Practice of Etymologia in the Narratives about the Origin of the Slavs." She concludes that the Eastern Europeans take part in the same Isidorian rhetorical tradition as their Western European counterparts.

I will first identify some rich, stimulating ideas coming out of the book as a whole, which are sure to engage medievalists regardless of their specialization, before I address a significant area of concern. Several strands connect various components of the volume. Authors as different as Alan of Lille, Gautier de Coinci, Wolfram von Eschenbach, the Old English Exodus poet, and Icelandic saga writers include and flaunt linguistic difficulty in their texts consciously and consistently. Such complexity slows down the audience, drawing their attention to particular moments in the texts, and asking them to think, meditate, and remember.

Another common thread...