The Absent Image: Lacunae in Medieval Books by Elina Gertsman (review)

Abstract

used sporadically throughout the codex, and she points out that more research is needed on the notation and analysis of the melodies. For English readers, this volume will be an essential first port of call for research into the Codex Buranus. The scholarly literature on each aspect of the codex is listed and summarized in its related chapter, such that readers are introduced to previous key works of scholarship. This is invaluable for readers who want to know more about the codex from the perspective of a discipline foreign to them, but it will also benefit readers whose knowledge of scholarship in German is lacking. Perhaps unsurprisingly, most previous scholarship on the Codex Buranus has been generated by Germanspeaking scholars. This collection of essays presents handy summaries of fields of scholarship that have largely been conducted in German; the editors have even gone so far as to translate some chapters of the book from the original German of the contributor into English. For readers with little or no Latin, the volume is also accessible, with translations into English provided for all Latin quotations. Occasionally the translation is presented after the Latin, rather than alongside it in a second column, which can make it difficult to check the translation against the original (especially where the Latin starts on one page and the translation finishes overleaf). Nevertheless, the care taken over Latin translation is commendable and shows the editors’ desire to make the volume accessible to scholars from different disciplines. For that, and for their efforts at embracing interdisciplinary study of the Codex Buranus, they should be applauded.