Customer Reviews

Medieval Latin: Second Edition

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Harrington's text has been the backbone of a majority of undergraduate (and beginning graduate) Medieval Latin courses in the United States for several generations now, and it has, despite some serious deficiencies, worn relatively well. The passages were thoughtfully chosen, minimally edited and annotated, and presented with spare introductions providing just enough context to get on with the business of reading. In a field as wide as Medieval Latin, there are bound to be differences of opinion on what should be included, and if one is interested primarily in patristic or diplomatic Latin, it's probably a good idea to look elsewhere. But what was there was mostly adequate. The occasional textual problems were annoying, but fairly infrequent.

Pucci's new edition gives this flawed classic a fatal makeover. The new edition is endowed with a superior introduction and some good grammatical information; the selection of passages is changed from the first edition on more or less rational principles; introductions are enhanced; problematic grammatical constructions are given considerably more annotation. Being pleased with what I saw, and on a short time-budget, I ordered it for a class. Since I had already encountered many of the passages I intended to teach in the first edition, I didn't read them through before ordering the book for my students.

But when I began to teach the class, it became clear that the text itself (which is still, after all, the core of the enterprise) had become a hopeless mess -- such a mess, in fact, that only a textual scholar who doesn't need an introductory book will have enough experience and self-confidence to work past its bizarre readings. In the space of the six or eight passages we went over before the class simply gave up, we encountered many desperate phrases -- and in every instance the new edition had substituted gibberish for Harrington's comprehensible reading. These errors range from the whimsical placement of commas to absurd typographical errors (e.g., Duo instead of Deo). These occur at an alarming and debilitating rate -- not one every few pages, but sometimes several per paragraph. A complete errata-list, I suspect, would constitute a small volume of its own.

One wonders how a competent Medieval Latinist could have produced such a travesty. From the arbitrary and capricious look of the errors, I am led (with some incredulity) to suspect that a copy of Harrington's text was scanned into a computer, corrected without human supervision by a spell-check routine and a Latin wordlist, and then annotated and rushed out the door without ever being proofread by anyone who knew any Latin.

The University of Chicago compromises its credibility with such appalling work, and insults those who buy it in good faith, expecting to learn to read Medieval Latin. It should on no account be inflicted on undergraduates, who typically find the Latin itself challenging enough without having to battle through layers of modern textual corruption. Until they either prepare a corrected second edition (or a third), or simply discard it to return to the first, there are really only two paths available: Beeson's Medieval Latin Primer (not widely known, but still filled with solid passages), and Sidwell's Reading Medieval Latin (passages too short for my taste, but cleanly presented). Both have their drawbacks, and neither quite fills the gap left by the disappearance of Harrington's first edition, but there should be no mistake: Harrington's text is out of print.

This revision of Harrington's _Medieval Latin_ includes an excellent choice of texts, elegant illustrations, good introductions to individual selections and a useful grammatical introduction. Unfortunately, Pucci's notes to the Latin passages are often vague or misleading and are riddled with elementary errors. I found teaching from this book an exercise in frustration. Keith Sidwell's _Reading Medieval Latin_ remains the best choice both for college courses and for self-study.

This is the required textbook for my grad program's Medieval Latin class. I am not a medievalist; to a classicist, this seems like a decent selection of ML authors. Apparently the first edition is superior, but the second edition has a much different selection of authors. The notes in this text are sometimes helpful, but frequently incorrect or useless. The typos in the Latin texts and in the notes drive my professor insane.

Unfortunately, some of the real treasures of medieval Latin literature, most notably the Dies Irae, which were in the First Edition were removed in this edition, and the additions are of little benefit. Still, a fair collection of medieval works. A solid knowledge of Latin is required to benefit from this book. Not for beginners.

This is a useful anthology of Medieval Latin texts at various levels of difficulty, with introductory essays that provide you with a fair amount of the literary-historical context and guides to further reading, and linguistic notes that are often good aids to understanding - but be warned that the explanations of linguistic peculiarities are not always the best. The texts in Harrington are not arranged with any sort of real coherence in mind, but are good representative samples of the different periods and milieus of Medieval Latin, and his introductory notes provide competent if brief overviews of the periods and authors. I would recommend SidwellReading Medieval Latin over this for the choice of texts, and the thematic organisation, though both are useful, and you get more texts for your money in Harrington. A further very useful feature of this anthology, as useful at least as the notes to the texts, is the introduction to Latin grammar by Alison Goddard Elliott; while this cannot replace the relevant sections in the Mantello and Rigg handbook Medieval Latin: An Introduction and Bibliographical Guide, it's the next best, easily accessible guide--and some sort of assistance is essential if you're just starting to read medieval Latin.

Pucci's revision of Harrington's first edition is nothing short of maddening! I was looking forward to an expansion of the late Prof. Harrington's masterpiece only to find the excerpts of Milton, Scaliger, Dante, Pertrarch, and Castiglione removed! If one is interested in German Latin lyricists as well, do not buy this book! It was a grave disappointment!

I was looking for a primer on Medieval Latin at my University library and ran across this one. I am only a first semester Latin student (I am working on an M.A. in history), and my primary interest is Medieval Asia Minor and the Crusades, thus my need for Medieval Latin. It is preposterous to denigrate this book as not being for beginners... One would naturally need a background in classical Latin (two years at least) before tackling the complexity of the Medieval Latin. As per the lack of ecclesastical Latin in the volume, you can get that in other specific primers dealing the ecclesisatical language. I am especially impressed with the inclusion of excerpts from Luitprand of Cremona's account of his time in Constantinople. The specific intro. on the changes in the language itself were also quite useful. Overall, a very good introduction to the subject.

Many inadequacies in the notes to the Latin passages. Many errors of interpretation of the Latin passages, (imho) and not enough useful notes for the novice reader.