McNamara, 'Dream of the Rood', Bryn Mawr Medieval Review 9411
URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/bmmr/bmmr-9411-mcnamara-dream
@@@@94.11.3, Squires/Timbrell, e-Dream of the Rood
Ann Squires, General Editor and Nicola Timbrell, Developer. The
Dream of the Rood. Oxford: ITTI Products, 1994. 25.00 for single
user, 95.00 for 10 station license (pounds sterling). E-mail orders:
j.burgan@pa.shef.ac.uk. Orders by mail: ITTI Products c/o Jean
Burgan, CVCP/USDU, Level 6, University House, Sheffield S10 2TN,
UK (telephone 0742-725248). Reviewed by Greg McNamara -- West
Virginia University
The Dream of the Rood, a Toolbook 1.53-based
instructional application by sometime University of Oxford software
developer and Old English font designer Nicola Timbrell, not only
brings the Old English poem of the same title into the hypertext
environment, but provides sufficient background to support multiple
readings of the poem's texts and contexts. It should be a most welcome
package in the Old English classroom, but I do not mean to suggest that
The Dream of the Rood is directed solely toward a specialized
academic audience. On the contrary, although it is suggested that the
program be used in conjunction with other teaching forms, the reader
need not have an understanding of Old English or any specific
knowledge of the field in order to profit from, and enjoy, the textual,
cultural, and historical insight offered by The Dream of the
Rood. The Dream of the Rood is a functional example
of the possibilities for another Toolbook program developed by
Nicola Timbrell: The Poetry Shell. Designed to allow users to
build hypermedia "editions" of individual poems without the burden
of learning programming code, The Poetry Shell is particularly
suited to working with foreign language-based poetry, as it will
accommodate a glossary, an unlimited number of translations, and a
grammar file (all of which the end-user can install with relative ease).
The technical guide to the Shell notes that in evaluation tests
users with varying Windows experience (from nearly none to a
good deal) who were not programmers were able to create hypermedia
editions in a very reasonable amount of time:
A 15 line poem with glossary, notes, two translations, two background
topics, and a bibliography took less than 25 hours to complete on a
first attempt at using the Shell. This included all research and
preparation of materials in a word-processor.
So, The Dream of the Rood, should be appreciated not only for
its stand alone value, but as an example of the possible applications of
The Poetry Shell. The printed guide Using an Edition
that is included with The Poetry Shell describes the
construction of The Dream of the Rood as a model and
provides a clear and practical perspective on the relationship between
the two projects.
System Requirements and Program Documentation
The Dream of the Rood is designed for PC-compatible
computers 386sx and above running Windows 3.1. Four
megabytes of RAM or better and a hard disk with at least 12 MB of free
space are a must. Additionally, a 3.5" 1.44MB floppy drive (the
program is delivered in this format), a mouse or other
Windows compatible pointer, and a VGA color monitor using
256 colors at 640x480 resolution are necessary to install and run The
Dream of the Rood. The package includes excellent
documentation for all stages of use, including instructions for
modifying the program to include additional information such as
images, texts, and glosses (a Poetry Shell feature).
Documentation comes in the form of three well-made books: a user's
guide, a technical guide, and a guide to the Kappa Type Old English
font package included with the program; appendices of suggested
pedagogical applications as well as troubleshooting and setup
suggestions are a nice addition to the well- designed technical guide.
Program Design
The Dream of the Rood is divided into five primary areas:
the Poem Text Window (top left-center), an Associated Text window
in which translations, notes, and analogues appear alternatively
(below main text window), a Glossary window, a Usage window (right
of main text window), and a Notepad window, where brief notes can
be jotted down and saved. The top of the screen is devoted to a well-
organized menu-bar with buttons to invoke dialog boxes for
translations, graphics, analogues, and controls for the Notepad feature.
The organization of the screen is functional and clean, providing easy
access to commands and a large space for the Poem Text and the
Associated Text windows. The Glossary and Usage windows are also
well-designed, assigning a neat place for all available information;
additionally, most information in this window is coded with hotwords
that allow hypertext links to fields that explain technical terms and
symbols-- a nice design touch which demonstrates consideration for
the intended audience of the program. Against the backdrop of the
other excellent features, however, the "Notepad" function is clearly
lacking. Yes, you can copy to the notepad using keyboard commands
(but not with the mouse), and you can save the notepad to a disk, but
the lack of a command for printing the notepad from within The
Dream of the Rood is noticeable as is the feeling that the notepad is
just too small. Mouse interaction and, perhaps, a limited-access menu
bar for editing operations and (at least) a Print Screen command would
lend a more genuine Windows feel to the program and offer
users who prefer mouse operations to keystrokes additional freedom
and confidence in getting basic tasks done. The Notepad, at any rate,
supports only the most basic jotting. Those who wish to keep a
significant and easily readable table of notes will do well to multi-task
with a word-processor, as the technical manual suggests. Indeed, there
are fewer steps and more benefits to keeping notes on an external
program than bothering with Notepad for any task worth saving and
reviewing. This situation is made more awkward because the
program does not run within a Windows border, and thus
requires keystrokes to invoke Task Manager instead of mouse-driven
operations-- multi-tasking is a hassle here because you can't see
outside of the Dream interface when the program is active.
One other aspect in the design of The Dream of the Rood that
might be improved is the lack of real interaction between the parts of
the program; that is to say, I expected to find a good many more
hypertext links than are actually present. In fact, the only hypertext
links in the program work between the Poem Text window and the
Grammar and Usage windows. I wished many times for hotwords in
the Topics essays that would link into the graphics section of the
program to make the process of forming relationships more
automatic; links from the Poem Text to graphics, topics, and
translations would also be appropriate additions to the program. Once
you know all the available Topics entries and all the Images, you can
go find them to make associations, but it seems counter to the whole
notion of hypertext to have to go and hunt down links. The program
would seem to reflect a more integrated design if these associations
were a part of it.
Program Content
Content is a strong point of The Dream of the Rood, and the
features of The Poetry Shell make it easy to increase content as
relevant information is acquired. Against the primary text of the
poem, seven twentieth- century translations are available for
comparison, and the various texts offered in the Translations dialog
box demonstrate many of the complicated decisions involved in
translation. This appreciation is made more complete for the reader by
the on-line Glossary, with which the reader can, word by word,
"translate" the Old English text of the poem. Apart from issues of
text and translation, The Dream of the Rood makes much of
contextualizing the poem and pointing out analogues. The Analogues
dialog box provides a substantial number of historically and
thematically related poems and other texts for purposes of comparison
and illumination-- including relevant excerpts from scripture and the
liturgy. There does seem to be a bit of a slip in the presentation of
some Old English materials without translations, but with only a
bibliographic reference to a translation (this applies to Cynewulf's
"Christ II" and several others). Whatever the reason for the lack of a
translations in these cases, it is frustrating for the reader who is
unfamiliar with Old English to come upon such a passage and be
unable to find even a basic gloss; consequently, the "analogues" offer
little to the reader and betray a lack of consideration for an audience
which is served by the package elsewhere. The information
contained in the Topics dialog boxes is among the most useful in the
program for illuminating the context of the poem. In the Topics
section there are a number of helpful essays varying in focus from
crucifixion to Old English meter. Like other parts of the program, the
Topics section can be expanded as additional articles or bits of relevant
information are discovered. As the Topics section stands, though, the
amount of information available is strong and diverse, contributions
from Barbara Raw and Ann Squires being major factors in the strength
of the section. One aspect of the Topics section that raises an
organizational issue is the presence of what amounts to a small help
document called "Introduction to the Package." The function of this
topic, it seems, is to substitute for an actual help utility; as it stands, the
on-line help consists of a one paragraph document that states the role
of each window in the program's interface, but this does not seem
adequate, especially considering that the "real" help document is
buried in the Topics section. Expert contributions, as in the case of
the Topics section, are a major strength of the Images section.
Photographs of the Bewcastle and Ruthwell crosses by Rosemary
Cramp, Barbara Raw, and Gale Owen-Crocker, as well as material
drawn from a number of museum collections, provide concrete images
that the help the reader to get a "feel" for the poem. Shots of the
Ruthwell and Bewcastle crosses as well as images of the poem from
the Vercelli Book manuscript help to place the poem into an historical
and archaeological framework. Again, considering the excellent
resources in this section as well as the Topics section it is unfortunate
that there is not a more complete web of hypertext links to support
them. The Beowulf Workstation, which unfortunately was
never issued for the complete text of that poem, and which is now in
need of updating, nevertheless provided links between graphics and
text with a system of parseable textual links, which might have been
instituted in the poetry shell as well.
Overall
As a student aid and a demonstration of The Poetry Shell,
The Dream of the Rood has clearly met and surpassed its
purpose. The program is certain to be a boon to professors teaching
Old English poetry at the introductory level, and, indeed, such
contributions are welcome and needed in the humanities as a whole,
where one often hears the complaint that there are not enough
relevant educational software applications. In this regard, The
Poetry Shell should draw a great deal of interest as well,
considering its flexibility and ease of manipulation. While there is
clearly room for improvement in The Dream of the Rood as
an interactive hypertext program, the design is, for the most part, very
functional and easy to use. The aspect of the program that offers the
most potential for the end-user, though, is that as one expands the
knowledge base-- a task made easier by the large bibliography included
with the program-- The Dream of the Rood can be expanded to
support a developing appreciation of the poem.