Geoffrey Chaucer. The Wife of Bath: Complete, Authoritative Text with Biographical and Historical Contexts, Critical History, and Essays from Five Contemporary Critical Perspectives (review)

178 Reviews Bawcutt's Job 14: 2. Yet Bawcutt's takes better account of the poem as a whole. The following stanza expands the shadow image, as Dunbar lists the feats of the heroes of antiquity only to recall that 'all are gone,/At will of God' (13-14). Editorial notes on these heroes (9-12), moreover, differ. Bawcutt provides brief biographies of each figure (not all n o w well known), with further valuable references; Kinsley discourses more generally on the ubi sunt commonplace. Bawcutt's focus is sharper here, but the student loses nothing, since more general aspects have aheady been covered in the introductory paragraph to the poem. It might be thought unfair to consider Bawcutt's selections in the tight of Kinsley's complete edition, despite her opening comparison, but careful use of the two volumes will supports its validity, with few reservations. Scholars will use both volumes, but will look forward to Bawcutt's editions of those Dunbar poems omitted from this selection, and to her opinion on the dubia. Students, on the other hand, could not hope to have, in so concise, accurate, and helpful a form, a better Dunbar edition than Bawcutt's. Janet Hadley Williams Department of English The Australian National University Beidler, Peter G., ed., Geoffrey Chaucer. The Wife of Bath: Complete, Authoritative Text with Biographical and Historical Contexts, Criti History, and Essaysfrom Five Contemporary Critical Perspectives. (Ca Studies in Contemporary Criticism), Boston and N e w York, Bedford Books of St. Martin's Press, 1996; paper; pp. xiii, 306; R.R.P. US$35.00. 'We hope that the Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism series will reaffirm the richness of its literary works, even as it introduces invigorating n e w ways to mine their apparently inexhaustible wealth.' So Ross Murfin concludes his series editor's introduction to this new edition of the Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale. The volume is edited by Peter Beidler, and includes introductions to Chaucer's biographical and critical history, introductions to n e w historicist, Marxist, Reviews 179 psychoanalytic, deconstructive and feminist theory by Murfin, and corresponding essays in these modes by five eminent Chaucerians: Lee Patterson, Laurie Finke, Louise Fradenburg, H. MarshaU Leicester and Elaine Tuttle Hansen. It is an unusually comprehensive volume: where else do philology, criticism and theory mingle so well? Where else can the student find a guide to the pronunciation of Chaucer's poetry between the same covers as a history of Marxist criticism? This book would be a useful adjunct to any course in medieval English Uterature: it is an exemplary teaching text, and its pages are full of authoritative and clear guidelines for the student seeking to combine an understanding of Chaucer's language and historical context with practical examples of a variety of critical and theoretical approaches. In the tradition inaugurated by Blackwell's Re-Reacting Literature and Harvester's N e w Readings, the Bedford Books series is structured around the meeting of canonical literary text with practical applications of n e w critical modes. These books dotittleor nothing to chaUenge or interrogate the idea of the Uterary canon, or the historical processes of canon-formation. There is nothing here to suggest that decisions to read Chaucer might be subjected to the kind of analysis practised on his texts, or that his canonical status might usefully be historicised and politicised. Beidler's o w n interventions provide no exceptions. The Wife of Bath section of the Canterbury Tales is hard to date yet it must have been completed 'when Chaucer was at the very height of his powers': the potentiaUy circular argument from aesthetics. Or again, the variety of feminist criticism—all those argumentative women's voices— produces 'surprisingly little agreement on anything except that the Wtie, her prologue, and her tale are rich, memorable, and enduring' (a vocabulary invoked by none of the contributors, let alone by Elaine Hansen). A n d in concluding, Beidler confesses himseU both 'distressed' and 'delighted' in turn at the sheer volume and the complexity of the critical tradition. T a m pleased nevertheless to note that a lesser artist than Chaucer would long ago have joined...