: Lines of Thought: Branching Diagrams and the Medieval Mind

Abstract

Previous articleNext article FreeBook ReviewLines of Thought: Branching Diagrams and the Medieval Mind. Ayelet Even-Ezra. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021. Pp. 250.Beatrice KitzingerBeatrice KitzingerPrinceton University Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreLines of Thought explores the forms and implications of a specific type of paratext in medieval manuscripts, especially those from the university milieux of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries: horizontal tree diagrams (hereafter HTs, per author’s abbreviation). These frequent denizens of scholastic textual margins are all too easily overlooked—not least because they can strike us as downright intimidating. The hastier the script, the greater the multiplication of tiers, the more inclined you are as reader to center the central text, and the less initiated you are in the keywords and chief arguments of that central text, the easier it becomes for the eye to glaze when confronted with a multiphased, atomized scheme breaking down a passage or a concept or a single word. Even-Ezra is not intimidated; she parses the parsing of long-gone readers with depth and relish, emerging from the thicket with a judicious and companionable discussion of HTs and their ramifications (pun essential) for our understanding of how reading, thinking, pen work, and the book medium may be inextricably entwined.The cover is a telling place to begin a characterization of the book’s project. Any irritation occasioned by the singular “mind” in the subtitle is mitigated by what a fundamentally good title Lines of Thought is—good because of how well it communicates the study’s chief themes. The “lines” and the “branching” concretely evoke the bones of the HT, but the title’s effectiveness lies in the interplay of substantive and verbal forms, and in the linkage of “thought” both to active process and to visual form. Furthermore, this is a book with an excellently judged cover design. Jill Shimabukuro’s gorgeous composition, in which the nerve-like spindles from a graphic work by Greg Dunn flow seamlessly into the branches of a first-erased and then-revised HT, completes an ensemble of subtle verbal and visual argument to frame the book. Even-Ezra presents HTs as the visible evidence of active thinking, born of reading and keen attention to language alongside textual contents. In one strong section she reverses the vector and considers the evidence for construing some HTs as the very engine of thinking and writing. Above all—as the inspired choice of an erased and reworked example on the cover articulates from the outset—the author casts HTs as productive processes, in their composition and decipherment alike. A small hint of the central text appears in the top right corner of the cover; just so, with periodic attention to more formalized diagrams integrated with the text block or copied fine by the principal scribe, Even-Ezra’s study sets the margins center stage. The book spotlights the additional and the accrued in the full form of a manuscript, and weights the agency of readers. That Shimabukuro’s wraparound design integrates the front and back of the book presses a point with scope for development in Even-Ezra’s study but no less crucially part of her argument for that: the forms and uses of HTs build a story in cognitive and intellectual history that is inseparable from book history. The codex medium matters to a reading of HTs, as do the accidents of script or ink, just as HTs matter to our reading of medieval book culture.Colleagues interested in intellectual technologies, regardless of period specialty, may read the book with focus on Even-Ezra’s use of rich terms such as “paradigmatic writing” for the characterization of HTs. Related themes include distinctions between “real” and “conceptual” visualization; or discussion of the way HTs function as tools of an “extended mind,” building externalized workings-through not only of textual structures, but of fine-grain facets in language. Historian-philologists may fruitfully follow Even-Ezra’s line of thought on spatialized conceptions of text, and their connection to period culture more broadly, including mnemonics and narrative. Historians may wish for a Branch II in which the author develops a tantalizing thread about the Latin-European development of the HT forms and “habit” in conversation with Greek and Arabic intellectual spheres; or investigates the question, anticipated at the study’s close, of why some printers chose to preserve the HT forms that are in many ways antithetical to that medium. I myself think habitually about the visual-material character of books, and will dedicate the rest of this discussion to the sparky and substantial thought that went into the form of this one.At several points, Even-Ezra urges her reader not only to absorb her text but to practice the kind of thinking-reading-writing-drawing her subject entails. I began to take her up on it and diagram my whole review, but quickly realized how intensive the process would be and retreated, fearing to try editorial patience. Better than a review’s usual chapter map, here is the beginning of Even-Ezra’s introduction (unnumbered p. 2):Even-Ezra’s diagram of the book’s structure and contentsView Large ImageDownload PowerPointEven-Ezra explicitly recounts her vision for a book that “re-creat[es] the reading experience of a medieval scholastic manuscript, with tens of diagrams” and warmly thanks the University of Chicago Press team for seeing it realized (201)—a gratitude I expect readers will share. This first diagram is the initial demonstration of the premise, and, in context, it also illuminates a cluster comprising important points the author makes about HTs—both throughout the discussion and by way of the numerous other diagrams she composed. First, the diagrams support a powerful experience of entering into the logic of medieval forms. Second, and relatedly, when one reads the introductory plan together with the list-form table of contents, one feels the processes of choice and distillation the HT form represents. Third, together with the discussion of the book’s concerns in the introduction, the cluster of table of contents, diagram, and essay discourse emphasizes the differing senses of linear and spatial structure that become possible in these various modes. Finally, facing the introduction as it does, the initial diagram inaugurates the point that the placement of visual schemata matters a great deal to how they read.Even-Ezra deploys her diagrams in myriad ways. Some translate medieval examples, rendering them immediately accessible in the flow of discussion, but others relate to Even-Ezra’s own text in a range of respects analogous to her medieval examples in their variety. The schema in the lower margin of page 5 elaborates on ideas in the text block without reproducing its language. The diagrammed gloss on Distinctio on page 89 functions as a footnote; the wordless bracket on page 64 as a stealthy guide to the structure of the paragraph. A little map for chapter 1 appears in the upper margin of page 15, startling the reader in the knowledge of how accustomed to contemporary layout conventions one may become, and in the experience of the brain perceiving information differently, based on how and where it appears. From cover to close, the argument of the book is fused with its design. Should an engaged reader annotate their copy with words, lines, or schemata, they would actively extend the lively subject of this welcome work. Previous articleNext article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Modern Philology Volume 120, Number 3February 2023 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/722257 Views: 285Total views on this site HistoryPublished online November 28, 2022 For permission to reuse, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.