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Number 3, Fall 2002 cartographic perspectives Birney was aware that the medieval term mappa mundi did not have to imply a graphic representation of the world; it could also mean a verbal description, one like "Mappemounde" itself (Woodward 1987, 287-88; Del- ano-Smith and Kain 1999, 7). As we shall see, his poem does not describe any single map, nor does it conform to any single image of the world. Instead, it begins by offering a uniquely ironic view of mappaemundi—par- ticularly those created, like the Psalter map, in England prior to Chaucer's death in 1400. 6 We confront an inadequate representation of these mappaemundi in a sketch map by an unidentified artist, Figure 2 (page 66), which is the only illustration in Birney's critical study, The Cow Jumped Over the Moon: The Reading and Writing of Poetry (Birney 1972). Based on actual medi- eval maps, it was inspired by and illustrates Birney's five-page guide to "Mappemounde." At the top of the map, a serpent-entwined tree flanks an embarrassed Adam and Eve; the circle around them represents Eden, from which they are about to be expelled. The map reveals that their descendants spread out from the east, eventually crossing rivers and mountains to build cities as far as the edge of the circumfluent ocean. Beyond the habitable tripartite world of Asia (top), Europe (lower left), and Africa (lower right) lies the "unknown." Unexplored regions are often graphically expressed by monstrous human hybrids on mappae- mundi, like those lining the southern border of the Psalter map. On the sketch-map, as in Birney's "Mappemounde," the strange creatures in the corners play a similar role. The sketch map's whimsical illustrations, however, are better suited to Birney's later explanation of "Mappemounde" than to the bleak "Hard- yean irony" of the poem he composed thirty years earlier (Birney 1972, 86). Let's ignore the fact that the nadders do not oppose each other across the map, and that the whale is the only creature in its proper place ("southward"). Let's overlook the fact that the poem contains no mer- maid; and that Birney's 1972 explanation, which does, neglects to men- tion Ulysses' ball-of-wax trick when he encounters such "treacherous mermaids" on his return from antiquity's legendary world war (Birney 1972, 85; Odyssey 12.177-200). Even so, the creatures in the corners are disconcerting. They look no more terrifying than the figures of Triton, Neptune, Thetis, and Aeolus arrayed around a zonal map in a thirteenth- century copy of the Etymologies by Isidore of Seville, for example (Figure 3, page 67). The 1972 sketch-map seems to have combined such naive figures with Chaucer 's light-hearted touch in order to teach well-mean- ing, if slightly obtuse readers how to approach "Mappemounde." In his attempt to counter charges of his poem's obscurity and to increase appreciation of poetry generally, Birney offers a delightful lecture—but strips "Mappemounde" of its dark complexity. The sketch map, for all its charm, trivializes the very material it should help us envision. To make sense of Birney's poem, we need to go to the actual maps themselves. Let's imagine, then, that Birney had been offered the oppor- tunity to illustrate "Mappemounde" with the mappaemundi that inspired his poem's setting. Which of them, besides the Psalter map, might he have chosen? The Anglo-Saxon map immediately springs to mind (Figure 4, page 68). Dating to the tenth or eleventh century, it is one of the earliest world maps that survives, and the only example of a non-zonal map from the Old English period. 7 Also known as the Cotton [Tiberius] map, it is as remarkable for its precocious depiction of the British Isles as it is unusual for the rectangular shapes of land and sea. The Anglo-Saxon map is one of the few mappaemundi that matches the wording of the version of "Mappe- "Birney's poem begins by offer- ing a uniquely ironic view of mappaemundi— particularly those created, like the Psalter map, in England prior to Chaucer's death in 1400." "The sketch map's whimsical illustrations, however, are better suited to Birney's later explanation of "Mappemounde" than to the bleak "Hardyean irony" of the poem he composed thirty years earlier." "Birney was aware that the medieval term mappa mundi did not have to imply a graphic representation of the world; it could also mean a verbal description, one like 'Mappemounde' itself."

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