{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.024550898203592814, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0, 'mean_word_length': 5.2819548872180455, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Gordon McMullan and David Matthews, Reading the Medieval in Early Modern England

The last few years have witnessed a growing interest, largely on the part of medievalists, in examining the divide between the medieval and early modern periods. The essay collection reviewed here does an excellent job of showing how rich and complex these cross-period investigations can be— when the medieval period is not merely a backdrop to the early modern period but, rather, when these two periods are set in conversation. What is initially quite striking and commendable about this volume is that the essay writers have read each other’s essays and refer to them periodically throughout the volume. This practice gives a cohesion that is often lacking even in essay collections that grow out of conferences devoted to a specific topic. In addition, the editors have provided a helpful rubric of five parts: Period, Text, Nation, Geography, and Reformation. These divisions are relatively self-explanatory. More interesting, perhaps, are the different ways in which the essays approach the intersection of medieval and early modern—from easy appropriation, to what one might describe as ‘‘haunting,’’ to a struggle between older and newer ways of knowing. An introduction by McMullan and Matthews provides a brief history of the relationship between these two periods and recent attempts to overcome periodization. In the perspective outlined here, the Reformation gains in importance, replacing the Renaissance as defining the relationship between the periods. The collection begins with an essay by James Simpson, ‘‘Diachronic History and the Shortcomings of Medieval Studies,’’