Scripta Mediterranea (E-Journal)

McDonald, R. Andrew

English

"FAR IS ROME FROM LCOHLONG": Gaels and Scandinavians on Pilgrimage and Crusade, c. 1000 - c. 1300

Dean-Thacker, Veronica

Ruiz, Pedro Guerrero

Poetic Mystery in Garcia Lorca's Drawings and Visual Poetry

Norris, Harry T.

Early Medieval Islamic Folk Epic and Romance among the Muslim Peoples of the Caucasus Regions of Eastern Europe

Rusch-Drutz, Corinne

Uncovering a "Herstory" of Power: Mediterranean Goddess Myth, Image and Symbol in Contemporary Canadian Women's Playwriting

Dendle, Brian John

Les Mémoires de la Méditerranée. Préhistoire et antiquité. Fernand Braudel. Edited by Rosalyne de Ayala and Paule Braudel. Preface and Notes by Jean Guilaine and Pierre Rouillard. Paris: Editions de Fallois, 1998. pp. 399.

Manning, William

The Double Tradition of Aphrodite's Birth and Her Semitic Origins

McGeer, Eric

"Asleep beneath Sicilian skyes": The Canadian War Cemetery at Agira

Dendle, Brian J.

The Maltese Novels of Nicolas Saudray

Guerrero, Jorge Carlos

76 Reviews 
the French These d'Etat it is a testimony both to the perseverance required of 
French historians, and to the wealth of the Islamic sources which have allowed 
an elaboration on this scale. While the relationship with Frankish outposts 
south and West of Aleppo are not the focus of the book, its political chapters 
reconstruct the division which followed Saladin's death and the infighting 
among his sons and brothers. That, and the Mongol invasion of the Middle East, 
explain the survival of the Crusaders' cities for another 100 years. Moreover, the 
elaboration of the institutional structures of the Ayyubid state offers interesting 
comparative possibilities. In spite of the general perception that Islam did not 
have "feudalism", at least not in the European sense, the land grants, iqtii, made 
by the Ayyubids to family members, military commanders and tribal chiefs 
affected the sultan's attempts to concentrate power in his hands in a very simi-
lar way to that in which the Frankish nobility conducted relations with their 
own monarchy. The constant lack of manpower, the occurrence of female 
regency, the military tactics and siege warfare, were all shared concerns of both 
the Latin cities and Aleppo's masters at different times. Moreover, Frankish 
Antioch's collaboration with the Mongols and the Armenians against Aleppo, 
reflect the degree of the Latins' integration in the region and their familiarity 
and share in the political game. The chapters dealing with the economy rein-
force this sense of peaceful Western integration by documenting the penetration 
of the Venetians into the regional trading network through numerous treaties 
now commonly signed with other Muslim rulers in the region. The chapters on 
the cultural and religious life demonstrate the sophistication of municipal and 
learning institutions that dotted the Alepine urban scenery and that neither 
Frankish society nor the Mongols, Kurds, Turks and others gathering at the 
gates could have either enjoyed or appreciated at the time. In the larger frame 
of the Islamic perspective of the history of the Crusades, this new synthesis 
manifests, how unique was the momentary unification that resulted in Saladin's 
triumph at Hattin. It was not the unity achieved by Saladin, but the political 
patterns described in the bickering of his heirs, which was the norm. These were 
the intrinsic patterns of the region during the roughly five centuries that sepa-
rated the Abbasid empire from that of the Ottomans, and during which the 
Crusades took place. The image conjured here is of a society of cultural strength 
and political fragility. 
MAYA SHATZMILLER 
The University of Western Ontario 
Nuessel, Frank & Cedeno, Arist6fanes (Ed.). Selected Literary Commentary in the 
Literature of Spain .Ottawa: Legas, 2004. 
Selected Literary Commentary in the Literature of Spain presents a collection of lit-
erary commentary from major literary works of the Spanish Peninsular canon. 
According to the authors, their intention has been to provide a representative 
sample of the historical development of literary theory and literary commen-
tary in peninsular literature. 
It comprises ten chapters with literary commentary found in the works of 
major writers. There are seven chapters on the Golden Age period including 
Reviews 77 
literary commentary by Juan de Valdes, Juan Martinez de Jauregui, Gongora, 
Quevedo, Lope de Vega and Cervantes. The three texts from the nineteenth cen-
tury exhibit literary commentary by Mesonero Ramos, Larra and Pardo Bazan. 
Each text is fittingly organized and contextualized. Every chapter starts with 
biographical information and the literary-historical contextualization of the 
author's work. Additionally, there is bibliographical information on relevant 
critical sources. Regarding the actual selection of literary commentary, the 
authors have highlighted important terms, name of authors, etc., and these 
appear, in lieu of footnotes, at the end of the book. 
As for the specific content of the selections, for the Golden Age period, the 
authors have chosen a number of texts illustrating Juan de Valdes' views on 
Spanish literature, namely a Renaissance perspective on Spanish literature; the 
debate on culteranismo; Lope's ideas on the dramatic work; and Cervantes' the-
ory of the novel. The nineteenth-century selection includes texts representing 
Mesonero Romanos' parody of Romantic literature, Larra's views on Spanish 
literature and Pardo Bazan's reflections on Naturalism in Spain. 
Selected Literary Commentary in the Literature of Spain has been prepared 
with literary pedagogy in mind. It provides an excellent introduction and con-
text to the study of some of the major literary debates of the Peninsular canon. 
One wonders if the project might have been better served if it had focused 
exclusively on one of the major periods. Nevertheless, the book could be an 
excellent aid as an introduction to some of the most important literary issues in 
Peninsular literature from the perspective of literature itself. Those who habit-
ually work or might be interested in working with some of these literary 
debates in their courses will benefit from having them organized and properly 
contextualized in this book. 
Jorge Carlos Guerrero 
University of Toronto 
La presse judeo-arabe dans la Tunisie coloniale (1884-1896). Mohamed Larbi 
Snoussi. Preface by Khalifa Chater. Tunis: MediaCom, 2003. 
Supplementing and correcting the work of such earlier scholars as Eusebe 
Vassel, Daniel Hagege, et al., Mohamed Larbi Snoussi examines numerous jour-
nals published in "judeo-arabe" (Tunisian Arabic transcribed in Hebrew char-
acters) between 1884 and 1896. Tunisian Jews split into two communities: the 
Twansa (indigenous Jews) and the Grana CTews of Italian ancestry and sympa-
thies). For the early period of this study, covering journals published under the 
press law of October 1884, Mohamed Larbi Snoussi details publishers and edi-
torial content of such ephemeral publications as Moubachar Sidq (1885), 
Mounawar El Haq (1886), Moucharrah Al-Asdar (1886), Al Badr Al Kamel (1886), 
and Fahhah al-Asrar (1887). The liberal press laws of 1887 to 1897 saw the publi-
cation of numerous, for the most part short-lived, journals in Judeo-Arabic, of 
which the most important were the Zionist El-Boustan (1887-1895), which 
opposed the evangelizing efforts of Cardinal Lavigerie, El-Mouhayyar 
(1891-1892), and Al-Ittihad (1893 - 1894), which unfavorably contrasted the sit-
uation of Jews of Tunisia with those of France and which called on Tunisian 
Jews to assimilate French culture. 


Nuessel, Frank & Cedeño Aristófanes (Eds.). Selected Literary Commentary in the Literature of Spain. Ottawa: Legas, 2004.

Vizmuller-Zocco, Jana

The Names of the Mediterranean: a Linguistic and Cultural Journey

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