Pause and Effect: An Introduction to the History of Punctuation in the West.

Edwards, A.S.G.

This book provides us with a systematic account of the development of punctuation systems in the West from classical antiquity to modern times. Most of it is devoted to the evolution of such systems down to the Renaissance, when printing led to their stabilization. In addition, there are 74 plates to illustrate the argument, with facing-page commentary, and (for manuscripts), transcriptions and translations (as appropriate). There are also full bibliographies of both manuscripts and printed works cited, and a helpful glossary of technical terms.

The history is divided into two parts. The first (|Pause: symbols as notation') deals with the development of the repertoire of punctuation signs. Underlying their development is the emerging influence of Christianity, |a religion of the book' (p. 14). Its concern for the transmission of texts to a wide audience, and the influence of the liturgy, imposed demands for clarity in punctuation. The contributions of crucial figures like Cassiodorus, Isidore of Seville and Charlemagne are examined. From a complex of such influences there emerged, with the growth of commercial scriptoria, a standardized repertory of punctuation signs that became fixed with the emergence of printing.

The second part (|Effect: symbol as signs') analyses the various factors that have affected the use of these signs. It pays particular attention to the differing - and, at times, conflicting - claims of rhetoric and grammar in determining forms of punctuation. Parkes distinguishes two such forms (p. 70): the |deictic' and the |equiparative,' the latter reflecting a |more neutral' type of punctuation than the former. The distinction is not one I find altogether compelling. In practice, equiparative punctuation seems synonymous with heavier punctuation. That less punctuation should be employed by other scribes copying the same passage may be not so much a function of interpretation as of perceived necessity. This is, of course, particularly so in inflected languages, where different scribes copying the same text may have differed more in their sense of the disambiguating function of the inflections than in rhetorical purposes.

Other aspects of the discussion in this section are very valuable, especially the examination of the presentation of verse texts, which emphasizes the need to consider layout as often, apart from rhyme, the primary element of punctuation. However, the conclusion that |scribes and readers throughout the Middle Ages usually introduced punctuation [in verse texts] only when they thought it was necessary to avoid possible confusion' (p. 106) may warrant qualification. For example, Sarah O'Brien O'Keeffe's Visible Song (Cambridge, 1990) - a work too recent to be cited by Parkes - suggests that significant systematic differences can be perceived between the punctuation of Latin and contemporaneous Old English poetic texts, and that the major vernacular poetic codices reflect variant motives in their punctuation forms.

The large number of plates, which are an essential accompaniment to the text, are generally of good quality. The accompanying transcriptions are meticulous. Some sustained checking noted only a missing line-division on page 245.

This is a challenging book that requires an understanding of a complex terminology and of the range of grammatical and literary functions for which it could be employed. It is one that all students of mediaeval manuscripts and texts will wish to master.