Chaucer and the Trivium: The Mindsong of the Canterbury Tales (review)

264 Reviews a very useful guide to readers finding their w a y between the present contributions and pursuing issues raised and approaches to the material further. There is m u c h to be gained from a concerted effort of reading through the collection in its entirety. The essays are short and eminently readable, and, especially w h e n taken as a whole, contribute, in many significant ways, to the current discourse on w o m e n and the Middle Ages. Margaret Rogerson Department ofEnglish University of Sydney Russell, J . Stephen, Chaucer and the Trivium: The Mindsong of the Canterbu Tales, Gainesville, University Press of Florida, 1998; cloth; pp. x, 265 R.R.P. US$49.95. This lively study of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales covers the General Pr the Knight's Tale, the Man of Law's Tale and the Clerk's Tale in detail a in its conclusion, deals briefly with the characterisation of the Wife of Bath and the Merchant, and also with the Tale ofMelibee and the Franklin's Tal It is aimed primarily at students (who are characterised as 'workers', those w h o try to connect with others) of Chaucer and Middle English literature but is also directed to those w h o are concerned with 'medieval ideas about the mind, language, expression and identity' (p. ix). It is eminently readable, with a clear and sometimes colloquial style, and frequently uses twentieth-century analogies to clarify complex points. It situates itself not as a definitive or exhaustive discussion of its topic, but as an invitation and stimulus to further work in the area. Its major title gives a clear indication of its subject-matter; a discussion of Chaucer's work in relation to the curriculum of the trivium. Its subtitle makes clear its focus on the Canterbury Tales and introduces the key term 'mindsong' which, like 'worker', is a term expressing connection. A s Professor Russell explains, 'mindsong' encapsulates the truth, acknowledged by medieval thinkers as well as by modern ones, that 'we never actually connect with each other at all, that w e can never do better than to share words and ideas imperfectly, inexactly', and that 265 'our words try to connect' but are never more than 'a performance that i s both by us and about us' (p. ix). In a short introductory chapter which sets out to reassure medievalists of the validity of their enterprise, Russell positions his work as a negotiation between the 'presumptions of the old historicism and the despair of the New', arguing that, while 'a measure of humility in the face of the past' m a y be a positive challenge to scholars, it can be so only if it frees itself from the enervating constraints of scepticism and is energised by 'palpable passion, curiosity, and boldness, at least to explore and hypothesize' (p. 2). Certainly, there is humility in this book and a deep passion that sustains its carefully elucidated thesis. Russell argues that the trivium was a formative influence on the Canterbury Tales and that an understanding of the 'trivial' curriculum (especially of the sister arts of grammar and logic, the bases of medieval understandings of the cognitive processes) leads not only to a validation of truths already intuitively held about the text, but also to new ways of knowing both the characters w h o populate i t and the tales they tell. Before embarking on his detailed analyses of the General Prologue and selected tales, Russell presents a 'litel tretys' on medieval education, its values and priorities (p. 5). This 'tretys' (pp. 6-53) offers a clear and cogent exploration of the various branches of the trivium, the basis of language framing in the medieval period. Russell is cautious about our ability to know precisely what Chaucer's education was, but is prepared to claim that, if it is assumed that he would have been exposed to the languagebased trivium subjects, then it m a y equally be assumed that he would have shared the understanding that language is a fallible medium of expression. He further suggests that, along with other medieval artists and thinkers Chaucer would have seen...