A book dedicated to the Alfredian Boethius, a comparatively neglected Old English text (though that is now changing, with a project underway in Oxford), is welcome, and Nicole Discenza, a specialist in Alfredian studies, is the obvious person to produce it. Her approach, as in previous work, relies heavily on the "economic" theories of the twentieth-century sociologist Pierre Bourdieu: language operates in a market-place, where it is exchanged for "symbolic capital" (objects or qualities which bring the holder prestige in the eyes of others) or "cultural capital" (the knowledge and skills provided by education). "Adequacy" to purpose is all, and how Alfred seeks to achieve this is the subject of the book.
After a general Introduction, there are four main chapters: In (1) "Treasures from the Latin Hoard," the strategies used by Alfred, both to make contents of the De consolatione available and to establish his authority to do so, are explored. In (2) "A Christian Art of Reading," the investigation turns to Alfred's specific selection of those aspects of Christian tradition which he calculated were necessary for his audience. In (3) "The Making of an English Dialogue," Discenza examines Alfred's conscious use of "native" elements of Old English, some of them deriving from poetry, to make his text accessible. And in (4) "The Translator's Craft," the longest chapter, the aim is to show how all Alfred's various strategies are brought together to effect the promotion of his own model of society. In a short Conclusion, Discenza stresses (as she has throughout) the richness of the Boethian text, in terms of the lore and history and ideas which it transmits, through Alfred's mediation, to the Anglo-Saxons. Finally, an Appendix adds a useful contribution to the continuing debate about the origin of the "glosses" which Alfred's text appears to incorporate.
What I find disappointing and perplexing about this book is the disruptive dominance of Bourdieu. The co-opting of modern literary and cultural theorists to interrogate early medieval texts is a legitimate and often productive procedure, and Discenza has had some success with it in her previous work, but here it proves to be all too often (to this reader) an irritant. In a book-length study, we should at least have been given an explanation of what Bourdieu's strengths are deemed to be, in the elucidation of early medieval literature, and also what his weaknesses are (for there must be some, though Discenza seems to be entirely uncritical). As it is, Bourdieu's ideas are so privileged that argument is apparently considered unnecessary. There is no scholarly scepticism, simply bald statement, with the Bourdieu paradigm taken as self-evident and Alfred's work shaped to fit into it. As a consequence, the line between Bourdieu's theories concerning often unspecified cultures and Discenza's observations about Alfred frequently becomes blurred. A typical example is the following sequence of sentences in chapter 1, in which Bourdieu seems to end up informing us directly about Alfred; Discenza has just noted that the Boethius offers its readers access to classical writers: "As Bourdieu explains, while readers become increasingly comfortable with texts and specific references and ideas those texts contain, they remain aware that most of their contemporaries lack the skills and knowledge they enjoy. They feel a sense of accomplishment in their ability to recognize and use names and concepts. Readers feel also an investment in the text and so have a stake in believing in the authority and usefulness of Alfred's translation and language" (18).
Some of Bourdieu's ideas seem to me to be conspicuously unhelpful. We are told in the Introduction (3), for instance, of Bourdieu's belief that an act of translation engages in "a strategy of condescension;" thus, Discenza explains, "even though Alfred knows Latin, he deigns to work in the vernacular for his people." This, she tells us, is "much as" (conjunctions and adverbs are freighted to breaking point in this sort of discourse) in an example given by Bourdieu in which a French mayor talks to villagers in their local dialect, "not because he does not know French, but to demonstrate his ability and willingness to negate the hierarchy that elevates him above his people." But why dress up a process of simple expediency ("They don't know Latin, so I'll use English") as "condescension?" More to the point, is there the slightest evidence that Alfred himself could communicate in Latin, in writing or orally? Discenza makes frequent statements about his authority as a Latinist: for example, "By reading the text [of the Boethius], readers accept Alfred's authority in the field, making a place for him among the learned Latinists who dominate it" (7). But is there any evidence? In Bourdieu's terms, did the mayor know French at all? Perhaps we have here an example of mayoral/regal dissimulation, rather than condescension! Alfred's language was, and always had been, like his people's, English. He acquired Latin late, according to Asser, and how good he became and whether he was ever able to translate unaided are interesting questions. There is useful evidence, of course, in the letter which Alfred distributed with the translation of the Pastoral Care, the celebrated "preface," which Discenza cites often. First, Alfred tells us, he "learned" the Latin work from no fewer than four helpers--Archbishop Plegmund, Bishop Asser, and his two mass-priests, Grimbold and John--and only then did he put it into English. This is a man who needed close guidance as he worked his way through the Latin text, and he admits it readily, even, perhaps, glories in it. Doesn't latinate authority here reside with those helpers, or, rather (given the explicit naming of their ecclesial duties), with the church which they represent, and which the king supports? There is no reason to dispute that Alfred's non-latinate audience may have revered what they knew of the Latin learning of the church and those connected with it, but the extent to which that reverence rubbed off on Alfred himself is another matter. The question needs asking, but here it is simply answered without discussion. (The identity of Alfred's "audience" is itself is an intriguing problem. Discenza alludes to it often, cumulatively implying that it included everyone from expert latinists to beginners in written English; this may be right, but it requires a full investigation.)
It is perhaps the tyranny of the Bourdieu paradigm which causes a disengagement between the book's narrative and the "real" world of Alfredian England and its texts, especially in the Introduction. This is the only explanation I can find for a number of puzzling imprecisions and oversights. Disconcertingly, the book opens with a sentence which implies that Alfred's educational programme and the struggle against the Danes were simultaneous ("In the late ninth century, while the Danes were attacking England and the Anglo-Saxons were struggling to fight them off and rebuild, Alfred, King of the West Saxons, embarked on a startling program of translation and education," 1). There is, too, an apparent misunderstanding of a passage in Alfred's above- mentioned "preface" (even though, elsewhere, Discenza has used the same material uncontroversially). Eager to establish, following Bourdieu, that Alfred not only legitimised the use of English but at the same time maintained the status of Latin and bolstered his authority as a guardian of that language, Discenza tells us (citing the preface): "The languages [Alfred] associates with learning are Hebrew, Greek, and Latin ... He names no vernaculars except English because vernaculars do not have the same standing; his translations seek to attain that status for English" (4). The final clause is not a problem, but a crucial point about the passage has been ignored. Alfred does name other vernaculars: they are Greek and Latin. He tells us that, when the Greeks came to learn the Law (i.e., Old Testament scripture), they turned it into "their own language;" when Latin people learned it, they too turned it into "their own language;" and so also all other Christian people put some of it into "their own language." Alfred does not have a technical word for "the vernacular," but he does not need one: "own language" says it precisely. This is Alfred's justification for his own "vernacular" project; English (like Latin and Greek before it) is in effect self-legitimising as a language of scripture and learning. If anything, Alfred downgrades the status of the earlier biblical languages. The same demystifying strategy has of course been used repeatedly through the Christian ages to justify vernacular translation, notably (among English translators) by the Wycliffites in the late fourteenth century.
Sometimes Discenza does seem to strike a note of caution. On p. 5, she writes that "Bourdieu's ideas on legitimate language are especially challenging in the early Anglo-Saxon context, because his work concerns the way agents relate to an exisiting legitimate or official language". Alfred has a choice only between "the existing norms of legitimacy drawn from a foreign language (Latin prose) and a different genre (Old English poetry)." One is tempted to suggest that this might have been a good opportunity to jettison Bourdieu, if really the facts no longer fit the paradigm. But the irony is that the challenge on this occasion may not be quite so serious after all. What about the existing Old English prose tradition? Its nature and extent are of course contentious issues, with little evidence to go on (though at the very least there were law codes, and probably some scriptural translation, and collections of short narratives in works such as the Old English Martyrology, though just when this work was put into English from Latin sources is not known), but it must have been the base on which Alfred and his helpers built, and it cannot be brushed aside. Spurred by the exigencies of an illiterate age, Alfred's team brought Old English prose to new heights of utility and even eloquence, but they did not invent it.
If I seem to have given undue prominence to negative aspects of this book, I must repeat that it is welcome addition to Alfredian studies, and it provides valuable material (especially in the detailed analyses in chapters 2 and 3) on the language and purpose of the Old English Boethius. But it is at its best when Discenza herself takes the reins of the Alfredian waggon and leaves Bourdieu firmly strapped in the back.