The French Fetish from Chaucer to Shakespeare (review)

The author is concerned to show that English literature, and the English language, have been much affected by the prevalence of French in English from the conquest by the French-speaking Norman William in 1066 to the present, but particularly until the seventeenth century. Perhaps the most important element which she singles out in this French influence, apart from language, is the idealization of woman, amply illustrated in the frontispiece and dust-jacket of this book by a picture, from the Heures du duc de Berry, of a May-outing on which a pretty young woman on a white horse attracts much male attention (plus another picture, our only representation of Caxton, kneeling to present a book to the young, English Duchess of Burgundy). Teaching at York University in Toronto at the time of this book's publication, Williams felt that the problem reached crisis-point in Quebec. Your reviewer can only agree: he varied twenty-five years in Ontario with a summer in Montreal, during which he taught, and conversed with his wife, in English but lived the rest of his life in French. Williams speaks of the "two solitudes" of French and English in Canada, which she has apparently experienced.

This idealization of women was replaced, she feels, under the influence of such transitional figures as Caxton, by "homosocial," intellectual relationships among men. That word, one of her favorites, appears early on ("the homosocial affiliation of Kennedy and Dunbar," 64). She shares it with several other critics, although it is not in the OED or in any other dictionary that I have consulted. It is apparently modeled on "homosexual," but refers to generally favored, often intellectual, relationships among men.

Not many readers will share her conviction that Chaucer's Prioress's Tale,of the little boy who goes on singing Alma redemptoris mater after his throat hasbeen cut by a Jew and his body thrown into a cesspit, makes the pilgrims "sobre"only because they resent her unsuccessfully Frenchified ways. Sometimes theauthor spoils her argument by far-reached theorizing. What does she mean by say-ing "the Angevin King Richard Coeur-de-Lion: a name that, when pronounced with an English accent, sounds a lot like Cordelia" (211)? The principal source of Lear has "Cordella." Spenser has "Cordeill" once and "Cordelia" twice (FQ II. x. 28–31), apparently for metrical reasons, and that is where Shakespeare is supposed to have found the name. Williams is very well-informed (and knows it). She gives good reasons for the use of "fetish" in her title, but one reader suspects that resemblance to ME "fetis" played a large part in her choice.

Skelton published Philip Sparrow before 1529. Shakespeare probably wrote King John in 1595/6. In it, the Bastard, just after someone has called him "Philip," mutters "Philip sparrow" at 1.231 because his name is not Philip: by his mother's testimony he was begotten by Richard Coeur de Lion during her husband's absence, so that the Bastard should be called by another name. Williams, however, takes this to be a reminiscence of Skelton. She is apparently unaware of John Bartlet's sixteenth-century madrigal praising "Philip my sparrow." Anyone who has lived in England as long as Williams and I have done knows, unlessshe is extremely bookish, that the common British sparrow (unlike the North American kind) chirrups "Phip." E. A. J. Honigmann, in his edition of King John, punctuates this speech as "Philip?- sparrow."

The notes are all at the end, with the usual advantages and disadvantages, mitigated by running heads giving the page-numbers corresponding to the notes. But the system breaks down on page 15, where "Homi Bhabha" is named, without a note showing the source. Another page-number, referring to the same source, appears only in parentheses in the text.