Writing After Chaucer: Essential Readings in Chaucer and the Fifteenth Century ed. by Daniel J. Pinti (review)

146ARTHURIANA figures such as Queen Catherine Parr and Anne Askew have been receiving increasing attention. A more general criticism is that the Anthology contains so few complete texts, and here the obvious problem ofspace is exacerbated by Pearsall's decision to devote more than a quarter of the volume to Chaucer. There are, of course, good economic and literary reasons for Chaucer's prominence. Anthologies, and especially ones in early literature, probably need canonical figures in order to sell. Pearsall also no doubt accords Chaucer so much room in order to make a point about literary history and periodization. Yet one cannot help but feel that he could have omitted selections from The Canterbury Tales (which are, after all, already available in other inexpensive and reliable editions) and instead offered more complete versions oftexts that are much more difficult to find: Dunbar's The Treatise ofthe Two Married Women and the Widow or Golden Targe, Skelton's The Bowge ofCourt, Henryson's Orpheus andEurydice. Right now the standard editions ofSkelton and Wyatt are out ofprint, and in this climate one might well argue that an anthology such as Pearsall's has a duty to present, when possible, reliable complete texts ofworks that otherwise might not be assigned. Chaucer to Spenser: A Critical Reader reprints some of the most important recent criticism on Ricardian, fifteenth-century, and early Tudor literature. Pearsall does not pretend that such a collection is completely representative ofthe works included in the anthology or of the various approaches taken by contemporary critics. Nevertheless, the volume does present God's plenty, in which a number of critical projects—primarily historicist, though feminist and psychoanalytic as well—are articulated through general methodological statements, careful readings ofindividual texts, or both. Here, as in the Anthology, there must be omissions. The most conspicuous one is coverage, especially at the latter end of Pearsall's chosen period. Roland Greene's essay on colonialism and Wyatt is interesting and very forwardlooking ; otherwise, there is no piece devoted to writing after 1540, not even to Spenser. The orher notable gap is, oddly enough, writing about literary history. The selections by David Aers, Lee Patterson, and Paul Strohm combine to form an eloquent case for the difficulty, necessity, and above all excitement of historical criticism. Yet it would have been nice also to see recent work (such as Seth Lerer's) that focuses more specifically on literary history and periodization, especially since these issues so clearly underlie the Anthology, with its aim to challenge traditional categories of 'medieval' and 'Renaissance.' These are, however, minor criticisms ofa collection that otherwise does an admirable job of showing the vigor of contemporary research, and as such will be a valuable addition to any graduate course in early literature, with or without the Anthology. KEVIN GUSTAFSON University ofTexas at Arlington Daniel j. pinti, ed., Writing After Chaucer: Essential Readings in Chaucer and the Fifteenth Century. (Garland Reference Library ofthe Humanities, 2040; Basic Readings in Chaucer and His Time, vol. 1.) New York and London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1998. Pp. xiv, 279. isbn: 0-8153-2651-3. $70. REVIEWS147 WritingAfter Chaucer is the first volume to appear in this Garland series, which aims to reprint 'significant essays in the field, written mainly after 1950, along with some new essays as commissioned by editors ofthe individual volumes,' with the intention of'offering students easy access to major landmarks in the subject' (iii). Daniel Pinti's own remarks echo and expand on this aim: 'the purpose of this volume is to make conveniently available to teachers, scholars, and students a range of the most provocative and influential articles on Chaucer's 'afterlife' in the fifteenth century, on the scribes, glossators, poets, and editors whose reception and transmission ofChaucer's writing influence so much our own reception of it' (xii-xiii). This volume contains eleven reprinted essays preceded by the single commissioned contribution: Stephen Partridge's 'Questions ofEvidence: Manuscripts and the Early History of Chaucer's Works.' Partridge directs his readers beyond the text-centered tradition of manuscript study articulated, for example, by E. Talbot Donaldson, observing that: 'manuscripts...provide evidence not only for what [Chaucer] wrote duting his lifetime, but also for...