The focus of the book, volume 19 of the Medieval and Renaissance Authors and Texts series, is on the craft of philology and its relevance in the twenty-first century. Philology, as the in-depth study of language, literature, culture, and history, and as “the art of reading slowly” (Calvert Watkins), is an interdisciplinary practice, often involving many different areas of research within the humanities. The aim of this volume is both to present philology as a critical method in cultural studies and to exemplify the powers of philological scholarship in “echoing the past for new audiences” (75). The book is intended for academic specialists within the humanities, although it would also be of use to students as an overview of philological history.

The volume consists of ten scholarly chapters, written by well-known Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, and Italian philologists working on West and East Norse philology as well as cultural history, Romance philology, and English studies. In “Philology and the Problem of Culture” (1–20), Helge Jordheim analyses the development of the discipline over the last three centuries. Looking backward to recent works of James Turner and Sheldon Pollock, he argues that philology and the methods that accompany it are the common denominator of modern humanities. A new order of knowledge (ushered in by the digital revolution as well as by climate change) will certainly demand new post-cultural forces of philology. In “Description and Reconstruction: An Alternative Categorization of Philological Approaches” (21–34), Maja Bäckvall proposes a shift away from the hierarchical dichotomy between traditional (old) and material (new) philology, using instead more nuanced terms such as “reconstructive (or normative) philology” and “descriptive philology” with further subdivision into “production” and “reception.” Karl G. Johansson writes in “Intertextuality and the Oral Continuum: The Multidisciplinary Challenge to Philology” (35–57) about the role of interdisciplinary communication in medieval studies. Philology should not merely provide editions for other historical disciplines but should, rather, reveal the interaction between the Latin oral and textual traditions and the establishment of a vernacular literary culture. In “Philological Virtues in a Virtual World” (58–74), Marita Akhøj Nielsen discusses the advantages of digital technologies, especially as they pertain to Old Danish texts. Digital philology promises to make old texts accessible and comprehensible for the coming generations of digital natives. This impacts not only Denmark but also other countries where education in the language and literature of old(er) periods is practically absent or “hampered by the lack of user-friendly tools” (58). Jonas Carlquist, “Philology as Explanation for Historical Contexts” (75–96), focuses on medieval philology from an East Norse perspective. He discusses the value of particular manuscripts that can serve as tools for understanding, interpreting, and reconstructing historical and social contexts.

Philology as explanation is argued by Lino Leonardi in “Romance Philology between Anachronism and Historical Truth: On Editing Medieval Vernacular Texts” (97–117). In defending the stemmatic method, he emphasizes the importance of considering diachronic evolution in the interpretation of facts, instead of simply describing them according to “the presumed ‘reality’ of a single manuscript” (117). Odd Einar Haugen, in “Levels of Granularity: Balancing Literary and Linguistic Interest in the Editing of Medieval Texts” (118–135), points out the need for multilevel editions, consisting of facsimile, diplomatic, and normalized levels and enriched by morphological and syntactic annotations, which help “in giving detailed insight in the language of the time” (135). Harry Lönnroth and Nestori Siponkoski demonstrate in “The Philology of Translation” (136–63) how philology and modern translation studies (including the practice of translation itself) both serve to mediate between cultures and times, using a language as a tool (not as an object, as in linguistics). Interdisciplinary intersections are also the focus of Massimiliano Bampi's “Translating and Rewriting in the Middle Ages: A Philological Approach” (164–81). The book concludes with “Ludwig Traube and Philology” (182–96), by Outi Merisalo, who reveals the importance of Traube's research for modern scholarship.

As a whole, this book provides fascinating insights into theoretical, methodological, and empirical aspects of the field, all the while reaffirming the timelessness of philology.