Scan barcode
Reviews
The Book of Beasts: Being a Translation from a Latin Bestiary of the Twelfth Century by T.H. White
julis's review
adventurous
funny
informative
fast-paced
5.0
God this was fun.
Yes, this is that T.H. White; his interest in the Matter of Britain is reflective of a deeper interest in medieval lore, and this book came out of that. It isn’t so much a translation as an adaptation–White freely admits to editing passages for redundancy, picking the most pithy rendering of a complex phrase, and otherwise simplifying the original text. He also inserts creatures common to bestiaries who did not appear in the source text.
All of this is, of course, perfectly in line with the textual tradition, which is several centuries of monks adapting and adding to the bestiaries that they received in order to copy them for the next generation.
The text itself is a riot, and greatly enhanced by a good working knowledge of medieval Christianity, although it stands perfectly well on its own. In addition to recording the animals that existed in their world, the monks also felt free to expound on helpful parables for the reader, almost none of which reflect real animal behavior.
Furthermore, White has annotated the whole thing with footnotes, the vast majority of which are other interesting beliefs that don’t strictly come from bestiaries, and written a small essay at the end about the bestiary tradition.
Highly recommend.
pussreboots's review
3.0
I remember reading this at UCLA but my book diary tells me that's not possible. I was already done with school by the time I read it.
More...