Volume 136, Issue 4

In this paper, I examine the Old English word scytel , which appears in the Old English Medicina de quadrupedibus . I argue that, contrary to definitions offered in current Old English lexical aids, scytel does not mean ‘dung’, but rather ‘penis’. In the Medicina de quadrupedibus , OE scytel translates Lat. moium (from Greek μοιóν) ‘penis’. I begin by tracing the development of the definition/s of scytel in the lexicographic tradition (Sections 1.1 and 1.2) and in editions of the Medicina de quadrupedibus (Section 1.3). Starting with Bosworth-Toller (1882–1898), scytel (1) was defined as ‘dung’, apparently on the misperception of an etymological relationship between scytel (1) and Old English scitta , n. ‘shit’. Section 2 offers a discussion of the manuscripts containing the Old English Medicina de quadrupedibus and its Latin source text, and Section 3 contains a discussion of the two relevant recipes that contain OE scytel (1). In Section 4.1 I show that, in fact, scytel (1) cannot be etymologically related to any scit‑ / scīt‑ ‘shit’ words in Old English, as the two derive from separate Germanic (Gmc.) and Proto-Indo-European (PIE) roots. In Section 4.2, I argue that the scribe of the manuscripts containing scytel could not have written a non-etymological <y> for /i/, which eliminates the possibility that scytel is connected to scit‑ / scīt‑ ‘shit’. It becomes clear, as demonstrated in Section 4.3, that scytel (1) ‘penis’ and scytel (2) ‘dart’ can be reconciled as a single dictionary entry, with ‘penis’ as a metaphorical extension of ‘dart’. I demonstrate in Section 4.4 that, from a cross-linguistic perspective, ‘dart’ > ‘penis’ is a well-attested semantic shift. Ultimately, it is clear that the Old English translator/s of the Medicina de quadrupedibus correctly translated the rare Latin word for ‘penis’ they encountered in the source text.

The aim of this article is to study the extension of genitive singular ‑ es from the a -stems to other noun classes in the gloss to the Durham Collectar (Durham, Cathedral Library, A.iv.19). To this end a quantitative analysis of sixty-five nouns has been carried out in contexts where they gloss a Latin genitive form. The nouns have been selected on the basis that their etymological inflection for the genitive singular is other than ‑ es , and they consist of feminine nouns (nouns ending in ‑ ung , nouns ending in ‑ ness , ō ‑stems, i ‑stems), kinship r ‑stems and weak nouns or n‑ stems. The results of the analysis of the Durham Collectar are compared with those found in the Lindisfarne Gospels (London, British Library, Nero D.iv) with three main purposes: first, to determine the degree of similarity between the two glosses; second, to establish whether Durham is more conservative or not with regard to this feature, and finally, to contribute to the discussion on the question of authorship.

The Physiologus has survived in some twenty-four manuscripts, two of which are of English origin: Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, 448, and Exeter, Cathedral Library, 3501. The latter codex, also known as the Exeter Book, contains a verse Physiologus (fols. 95v–98r) in Old English. In turn, the Cambridge manuscript provides a Latin prose Physiologus (fols. 88r–89r). These two texts bear witness to the knowledge of the Physiologus in the late Anglo-Saxon period and constitute the central piece of evidence extant for the dissemination of this work in England. Even though the two versions are formally and stylistically different, the manuscripts in which they occur are roughly contemporary and both of them are of Southern provenance. Each of these Physiologi comprises three chapters describing three animals: lion, unicorn and panther in the case of the Cambridge Physiologus, and panther, whale and an unknown bird – whose identification is problematic due to a textual gap – in the Exeter codex. Despite these striking affinities, no scholarly work has offered a comparative study of the two Physiologi , with the exception of Andrea Rossi-Reder’s unpublished PhD dissertation (1992), and only passing reference has been made to the Cambridge Physiologus in discussions of the better‑known Exeter text. In order to remedy this critical neglect, the present article offers a detailed analysis of both Physiologi , together with a first edition of the Latin text. As we will show, the Cambridge and the Exeter Physiologi share the same cultural background and apply similar compilation criteria. In both cases, the zoological motifs were selected according to organizational principles based on Isidore’s Etymologiae , such as the animals’ unclean character and size. In both, too, the creatures described are interconnected by means of recurrent associative imagery and an allegorical circular design. This combination of encyclopedic criteria and the sensory characterization of the animals discloses remarkable parallelisms in the structure and the compositional technique of these two Physiologi . Moreover, this analogous organizational method offers additional evidence to support Michael D. C. Drout’s hypothesis that the bird described in the fragmentary third chapter of the Exeter version is the phoenix instead of the partridge, as some other scholars had traditionally maintained. Our reading also effectively harmonizes with the eschatological and anagogic elements which have been pointed out for the third chapter of the Exeter Physiologus , as well as with the allegorical and tropological roles of the panther and the whale.

Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s Torquato Tasso (1790) and Henry James’s Roderick Hudson (1875) share not only a number of structural parallels but also an interest in the fate of the romantic artist in a regulated society. The article suggests Goethe’s play as a possible influence on James’s novel. After a brief outline of James’s relationship to Goethe and of the structural parallels between the texts, the article discusses the similarities of their stance on the romantic artist. Both texts contrast the protagonist’s classicist-idealist art with his broadly romantic personality, both remain ambivalent about the romantic conception of the poet-genius, and both take an analytical attitude toward their artist figures. On this poetological level, the article concludes, their portraits of a proto-Romantic and a late Romantic respectively form a revealing historical frame of the phenomenon of the Romantic artist.

On the surface level, Fowles’s novel sets the trust in the timelessness of art and the possibility of a recourse to some kind of ‘true self’ against American hyperreality. Though the novel’s verdict on the American scopic regime of simulacra is devastating, England’s morbid theatricality does not represent an alternative. However, a novel which criticizes visuality only to accord Rembrandt’s “Self-Portrait” a place of utmost importance necessarily runs into problems of self-contradiction: Rembrandt’s self-portrait refuses any one-dimensional functionalization and contains self-reflexive/revocative elements pertaining to its capitalist dimension and to the dangers of commodification/narcissism/serialization. Moreover, Rembrandt’s portrait is located at the centre of a whole series of mises en abyme and contains significant autotelic elements which link it with the criticized American scopic regime, question its representational dimension by stressing the pure materiality of the work of paint and revoke Fowles’s novel and its didactic media-theoretical underpinnings. I would like to thank Bryan Knowlton, Simon Loesch, Keith Hollingsworth and Bettina Jansen for their constructive help at various stages of work on this article.