The Dream of the Rood, a Toolbook 1.53-based instructional application by sometime University of Oxford software developer and Old English font designer Nicola Timbrell, not only brings the Old English poem of the same title into the hypertext environment, but provides sufficient background to support multiple readings of the poem's texts and contexts. It should be a most welcome package in the Old English classroom, but I do not mean to suggest that The Dream of the Rood is directed solely toward a specialized academic audience. On the contrary, although it is suggested that the program be used in conjunction with other teaching forms, the reader need not have an understanding of Old English or any specific knowledge of the field in order to profit from, and enjoy, the textual, cultural, and historical insight offered by The Dream of the Rood

. The Dream of the Rood is a functional example of the possibilities for another Toolbook program developed by Nicola Timbrell: The Poetry Shell. Designed to allow users to build hypermedia "editions" of individual poems without the burden of learning programming code, The Poetry Shell is particularly suited to working with foreign language-based poetry, as it will accommodate a glossary, an unlimited number of translations, and a grammar file (all of which the end-user can install with relative ease). The technical guide to the Shell notes that in evaluation tests users with varying Windows experience (from nearly none to a good deal) who were not programmers were able to create hypermedia editions in a very reasonable amount of time: A 15 line poem with glossary, notes, two translations, two background topics, and a bibliography took less than 25 hours to complete on a first attempt at using the Shell. This included all research and preparation of materials in a word-processor.So, The Dream of the Rood, should be appreciated not only for its stand alone value, but as an example of the possible applications of The Poetry Shell. The printed guide Using an Editionthat is included with The Poetry Shell describes the construction of The Dream of the Rood as a model and provides a clear and practical perspective on the relationship between the two projects.

System Requirements and Program Documentation

The Dream of the Rood is designed for PC-compatible computers 386sx and above running Windows 3.1. Four megabytes of RAM or better and a hard disk with at least 12 MB of free space are a must. Additionally, a 3.5" 1.44MB floppy drive (the program is delivered in this format), a mouse or other Windows compatible pointer, and a VGA color monitor using 256 colors at 640x480 resolution are necessary to install and run The Dream of the Rood

. The package includes excellent documentation for all stages of use, including instructions for modifying the program to include additional information such as images, texts, and glosses (a Poetry Shell feature). Documentation comes in the form of three well-made books: a user's guide, a technical guide, and a guide to the Kappa Type Old English font package included with the program; appendices of suggested pedagogical applications as well as troubleshooting and setup suggestions are a nice addition to the well- designed technical guide.

Program Design

The Dream of the Rood is divided into five primary areas: the Poem Text Window (top left-center), an Associated Text window in which translations, notes, and analogues appear alternatively (below main text window), a Glossary window, a Usage window (right of main text window), and a Notepad window, where brief notes can be jotted down and saved. The top of the screen is devoted to a well- organized menu-bar with buttons to invoke dialog boxes for translations, graphics, analogues, and controls for the Notepad feature. The organization of the screen is functional and clean, providing easy access to commands and a large space for the Poem Text and the Associated Text windows. The Glossary and Usage windows are also well-designed, assigning a neat place for all available information; additionally, most information in this window is coded with hotwords that allow hypertext links to fields that explain technical terms and symbols— a nice design touch which demonstrates consideration for the intended audience of the program.

Against the backdrop of the other excellent features, however, the "Notepad" function is clearly lacking. Yes, you can copy to the notepad using keyboard commands (but not with the mouse), and you can save the notepad to a disk, but the lack of a command for printing the notepad from within The Dream of the Rood is noticeable as is the feeling that the notepad is just too small. Mouse interaction and, perhaps, a limited-access menu bar for editing operations and (at least) a Print Screen command would lend a more genuine Windows feel to the program and offer users who prefer mouse operations to keystrokes additional freedom and confidence in getting basic tasks done. The Notepad, at any rate, supports only the most basic jotting. Those who wish to keep a significant and easily readable table of notes will do well to multi-task with a word-processor, as the technical manual suggests. Indeed, there are fewer steps and more benefits to keeping notes on an external program than bothering with Notepad for any task worth saving and reviewing. This situation is made more awkward because the program does not run within a Windows border, and thus requires keystrokes to invoke Task Manager instead of mouse-driven operations— multi-tasking is a hassle here because you can't see outside of the Dream interface when the program is active. One other aspect in the design of The Dream of the Rood that might be improved is the lack of real interaction between the parts of the program; that is to say, I expected to find a good many more hypertext links than are actually present. In fact, the only hypertext links in the program work between the Poem Text window and the Grammar and Usage windows. I wished many times for hotwords in the Topics essays that would link into the graphics section of the program to make the process of forming relationships more automatic; links from the Poem Text to graphics, topics, and translations would also be appropriate additions to the program. Once you know all the available Topics entries and all the Images, you can go find them to make associations, but it seems counter to the whole notion of hypertext to have to go and hunt down links. The program would seem to reflect a more integrated design if these associations were a part of it.

Program Content

Content is a strong point of The Dream of the Rood, and the features of The Poetry Shell make it easy to increase content as relevant information is acquired. Against the primary text of the poem, seven twentieth- century translations are available for comparison, and the various texts offered in the Translations dialog box demonstrate many of the complicated decisions involved in translation. This appreciation is made more complete for the reader by the on-line Glossary, with which the reader can, word by word, "translate" the Old English text of the poem.

Apart from issues of text and translation, The Dream of the Rood makes much of contextualizing the poem and pointing out analogues. The Analogues dialog box provides a substantial number of historically and thematically related poems and other texts for purposes of comparison and illumination— including relevant excerpts from scripture and the liturgy. There does seem to be a bit of a slip in the presentation of some Old English materials without translations, but with only a bibliographic reference to a translation (this applies to Cynewulf's "Christ II" and several others). Whatever the reason for the lack of a translations in these cases, it is frustrating for the reader who is unfamiliar with Old English to come upon such a passage and be unable to find even a basic gloss; consequently, the "analogues" offer little to the reader and betray a lack of consideration for an audience which is served by the package elsewhere.

The information contained in the Topics dialog boxes is among the most useful in the program for illuminating the context of the poem. In the Topics section there are a number of helpful essays varying in focus from crucifixion to Old English meter. Like other parts of the program, the Topics section can be expanded as additional articles or bits of relevant information are discovered. As the Topics section stands, though, the amount of information available is strong and diverse, contributions from Barbara Raw and Ann Squires being major factors in the strength of the section. One aspect of the Topics section that raises an organizational issue is the presence of what amounts to a small help document called "Introduction to the Package." The function of this topic, it seems, is to substitute for an actual help utility; as it stands, the on-line help consists of a one paragraph document that states the role of each window in the program's interface, but this does not seem adequate, especially considering that the "real" help document is buried in the Topics section.

Expert contributions, as in the case of the Topics section, are a major strength of the Images section. Photographs of the Bewcastle and Ruthwell crosses by Rosemary Cramp, Barbara Raw, and Gale Owen-Crocker, as well as material drawn from a number of museum collections, provide concrete images that the help the reader to get a "feel" for the poem. Shots of the Ruthwell and Bewcastle crosses as well as images of the poem from the Vercelli Book manuscript help to place the poem into an historical and archaeological framework. Again, considering the excellent resources in this section as well as the Topics section it is unfortunate that there is not a more complete web of hypertext links to support them. The Beowulf Workstation, which unfortunately was never issued for the complete text of that poem, and which is now in need of updating, nevertheless provided links between graphics and text with a system of parseable textual links, which might have been instituted in the poetry shell as well.

Overall

As a student aid and a demonstration of The Poetry Shell, The Dream of the Rood has clearly met and surpassed its purpose. The program is certain to be a boon to professors teaching Old English poetry at the introductory level, and, indeed, such contributions are welcome and needed in the humanities as a whole, where one often hears the complaint that there are not enough relevant educational software applications. In this regard, The Poetry Shell should draw a great deal of interest as well, considering its flexibility and ease of manipulation. While there is clearly room for improvement in The Dream of the Rood as an interactive hypertext program, the design is, for the most part, very functional and easy to use. The aspect of the program that offers the most potential for the end-user, though, is that as one expands the knowledge base— a task made easier by the large bibliography included with the program— The Dream of the Rood can be expanded to support a developing appreciation of the poem.