Published in Journal of Hispanic Philology, 7 (1983 [1984]), 213-214.
[[Note in 2006: Hovering in the background of this highly complimentary review
is that which I did of the same publisher’s Bibliography of Old Spanish
Texts, 2rd edition, published in the same journal, 3 (1979), 178-182,
a link to which is found on the same Web page where you found the link to
this review.]]
Brian Dutton, con la colaboración de Stephen Fleming, Jineen Krogstad,
Francisco Santoyo Vázquez y Joaquín González Cuenca.
Catálogo-Índice de poesía cancioneril del siglo XV.
Madison: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, 1982. Two vols. in one, 285
and 291 pp. ISBN: 0-942260-25-2.
It is rare to see a reference work which
combines as much intelligent thought in its conception, diligence in its
execution, and wisely-employed technology in its publication, as does the
present Catálogo-Índice. The contrast with the
cancionero index of Stenou and Knapp (Paris, 1975-78) could not
be more striking. If all publications were done to this standard, otros
siglos correrían.
Analyzed and indexed for us is the largest
collection of sources ever treated in a single work in this field: 190
manuscripts and 221 printed books. The poetic contents of each are itemized
in a listing arranged by location and manuscript number, or imprint date.
Volume I ends with an index of first lines. Volume II begins with a master
index, arranged in catalog number order; there are 9522 entries. This is
followed by an index of authors, an index of “destinatarios,” indices
of titles and of genres (both of these limited to indications found in the
sources), an index of poems in languages other than Castilian, an index of
relationships among texts, of which more shortly, an index of printed sources
and manuscripts, which duplicates some material form the listing of their
contents, a listing of the libraries in which the printed sources are found,
a keying of the printed sources to the reference works of Vindel, Norton,
Rodríguez-Moñino, Norton and Wilson, and Fernando Colón,
an index of the contents of Foulché-Delbosc’s Cancionero
castellano del siglo XV, an extended “Bibliografía
selecta,” an appendix discussing the technology used, another with a
discussion of the music of these poems and an index of composers, and a list
of errata.
It can already be seen what an abundance
of data is given us, and how much care has been taken to make the use of
this data convenient; technology has been made to serve the project rather
than the reverse. The master index includes, for each text, its length, genre
(if specified), first and last lines, number of locations it appears and
the identification of each, the various titles applied to it, and the various
titles applied to it, and the various attributions of it found in the sources.
One can look up any poem and find who has glossed it and where those glosses
are [p. 214] found, where it has been (poetically) answered, cited,
used as a refrain, continued, rewritten, etc., through a system of
cross-references between poems. we can find easily all the poems with a specific
generic label (and there a re many such labels whose unfamiliarity reveals
how much generic work remains to be done). The index of authors furnishes
data on many little-known or unknown names.
The work is based consistently on
examination, through microfilms in most cases, of the original manuscripts
or printed books. By not relying on published descriptions, many errors have
been avoided and incorrect descriptions revealed. The same care is found
in other features. Orthography has been standardized in the index of first
lines, but not in the citations of the texts themselves. the Castilian language
was not allowed to be a restriction, as it should not be; one major Portuguese
cancionero (Resende) is included, and a number of other texts in a
variety of languages, found in the body of source materials, are included
as well.
I have found no misprints of more than
trivial significance. It is at times confusing to distinguish the
compilers’ comments from those which are reproduced form a source, as
the same type face is used for both. The introductory list of sources (in
which I have noted the absence of the Cancionero de obras de burlas,
and University of Barcelona MS 116, cited in Alonso de Córdoba,
Conmemoraçión breve de los reyes de Portugal, ed. Pedro
M. Cátedra [Barcelona: Humanitas, 1983], pp. 9-10) includes a number
of manuscripts with the note “no se incluye”; in some cases we
are given a reason (“contiene sólo notas en prosa”), but
in others we are not. The presumption is that the list of sources is intended
to be an exhaustive list of cancionero poetry sources, and that
manuscripts with poetic texts are not included only when their owners’
cooperation was not forthcoming, but this is never clearly stated.
In sum, this is a fundamental reference
work which, like La Barrera’s drama catalog, will be supplemented but
never replaced. The study of cancionero poetry has been greatly
facilitated, and the long-term results will be significant.
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