<i>Early English Metre</i> (review)

knowledge effectively. Clarity struggles under the weight of unclear sentences, constant qualifications, and shifts in focus; passages frequently have to be re-read for their meaning. She is prone to overload her sentences with detail, as for example when speaking of pseudonyms: ‘Some (alias, incognito) are taken by characters themselves; namelessness imposed within the text (by self or by others) tends to attract a pseudonym or nickname very quickly, unlike the Anonymity imposed as if directly by the writer’ (pp. 22-23). Abstraction rules; this reviewer longed for the reassurance of a concrete noun. Bliss has much to say that is insightful, but her contribution to scholarship would have been more effective if she had written a series of chapters focussed on quite specific, limited topics, avoided such extensive use of asides, and resisted the desire to convey the whole reach of her thoughts in a single volume. John Beston Nazareth College of Rochester NY