The King's English: Strategies of Translation in the Old English Boethius. By Nicole Guenther Discenza. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2005. Pp. viii + 224. $60.

There is arguably no Old English prose text that poses greater challenges to the editor or commentator than the Old English rendering of Boethius' De consolatione philosophiae. Is the attribution to King Alfred reliable or, like those who see Bacon as the real author of the plays of Shakespeare, are we to suppose the king to have lacked the right qualifications to undertake the works issued under his name? Assuming the former, did he work entirely alone in translating Boethius, or did he have scholarly collaborators or amanuenses? How are we to evaluate the numerous departures from the general sense of the original: the additions, the omissions, the alterations?

Janet Bately
King's College London