Chaucer's Rehersynges: The Performability of The Legend of Good Women by William A. Quinn (review)

Book Reviews William A. Quinn. Chaucer's Rehersynges: The Performability ofThe Legend ofGood Women. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 1994.253p. Alexandra H. Olsen University of Denver William A. Quinn's thesis is that Chaucer's LegendofGood Women was originally composed for his own oral recitation, which Quinn posits was comic and ironic. He atgues that the F Prologue's use ofdirect address and present-tense vetbs shows that itwas a script fot his petformance to a sophisticated audience well accustomed to his rehersynges. Quinn atgues that the changes to G (like the use ofthe preterit and the change ofplacement ofthe baUde) suggest that it is a vetsion revised for a reading audience: the "latet and less daring text ofthe Prologue presents a book intended fot othets to intetpret" (47) and it "reflects a patent effort by Chaucet to make the Legendfunction as a book" (60). Quinn does an excellent job ofplacing the Legend m die context of die traditio ofwtitets like Virgil, Ovid, and Gower and placing it in context in Chaucet's canon between Troilusand Criseydeand The Canterbury Tales. In his "Afterwords," he focuses on "Chaucer's one honest tribute to saintly martytdom" (2 1 5), Saint Cecilia, in conttast to his "many problematic accounts of suicidal women" (215). As a documentation of his intetest in detetmining a possible performance of the Legend, Quinn examines the nine extant legends in nine chaptets to show how Chaucet might have petformed them to undercut any serious motalizing that might have been expected from legenda. Fot example, about the "Legend of Cleopatta," he says that "the real (and really comic) conflict dramatized ... did not happen at Actium; the actual agon is that being played out in court between its male teheatset and female-dominated audience. Theit point ofcontention is one ofsovereignty: who tules the nattative" (70). By calling attention to such mattets, Quinn asks us late-twentieth-century readers to considet the relationship between the poem in manuscript and the original petfotmance that must have taken place. He also echoes teadet-response theory in some interesting ways. Quinn also catefully points out the lines in which Chaucet calls attention to himselfas an obttusive nattatot, as when he asserts his honesty in "The Legend of Thisbe" ("Ye lovetes two, ifthat I shal nat lye") ot replaces Phyllis' epitaph with "a petsonal proposition" (186) ("And ttusteth, as in love, no man but me"). He suggests that "all things ... seem to conspire to trivialize" the "Legend of Philomela." Chaucet seems to be (as we as teachets often tell students) discussing tathet than arguingz case. I have often noticed the points Quinn mentions; I would like him FALL 1998 % ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW * 83 really to speculate about why they exist. A hypothetical petformance which we can nevet recovet does not teally seem to explain such mattets. Quinn admits that his book is highly speculative (200), and it does not answet some admittedly unanswetable questions: did Chaucet compose the poem in answet to a royal command, and is his "pose ofgtudging compliance" (81) actually a pose, ot did he resent his commission? Did he get bored with his own fiction and leave it unfinished? What conclusions can we reasonably draw from the fact that the Faiffax manuscript "does not conclude the Legend with an explicit" (188). Finally, Quinn is too teady to attribute all mattets to a possible ironic presentation ofthe poem. "Irony" is a loaded tetm, and when a critic uses it as a covet fot all problems, a teadet wonders whethet he is protesting too much. Some of Quinn's points seem to be both unprovable and ittelevant. He calls Sir Orfeo "a text probably known to Chaucet" (176), an unnecessary statement placed in a footnote. The good point about the book is that Quinn finds the /,^«¿/extremely humorous, and it may therefore help the weaty teachet who tries to petsuade graduate students ofthis fact. By providing a fresh and intriguing critical reading ofa much-maligned wotk, Quinn has done a service to humanistic learning. F Lauta Howes. Chaucer's Garden andthe Language ofConvention. Gainsville: Univetsity Press of Florida, 1997. 136p. Jeffrey Cain Washington State University Reviving a critical interest in Chaucet...