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  • The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Literature, 1100-1500
  • Karen Gross
Larry Scanlon , ed. The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Literature, 1100-1500. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Pp. xix, 294. £45; $80 cloth, £17.99; $29.99 paper.

In many ways, the field of medieval English literary studies was redefined in 1999 by The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature, edited by David Wallace. Iconoclastic in its toppling of the evolutionary model of literary history, in which a very few authors' stars shone in the medieval darkness, the History also erected a multicultural, polyglot, formally diverse Middle English as a field of weight in its own right, an [End Page 465] argument underscored by the monumentality of the book itself, with nearly eleven hundred pages and weighing in at over 3.5 pounds. Since that volume's appearance a decade ago, we have seen at least nine other histories and companions to Middle English literature, not to mention the many casebooks and guides devoted to single authors or particular genres (I know of eight published on Chaucer alone, and there may well be more). This is an abundance of riches, and the growth of such guides seems to attest to a flourishing field. More cynically, this number might suggest that publishers are more interested in channeling their resources into the lucrative market of guides for entry-level readers and undergraduate libraries than into furthering more specialized scholarship. But this proliferation does prompt the question: Do we really need another such resource book like The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Literature at this moment?

The answer rests with what we want in a companion (an answer, alas, that can be as contradictory in reference materials as it is in life). Are we students, or perhaps beginning college teachers, needing to hoover up in a hurry the basic outlines of a period, a genre, or an author's canon—looking, in short, for a Virgil to offer us instruction and then to lead us out of the dark wood so that we can share what we have seen with others? Do we want a companion to make a journey with us as our friend and confidant, a trusty Achates who helps to do the dirty work—reminds us when exactly Chaucer visited Italy or how the C-text diverges from the B-text—but never sets himself up as a rival to the main action? Or are we specialized readers ourselves, seeking a companion to challenge us with further novel speculation and elaboration, knowing that the risk of such a guide is that its pedantry may resemble the long-winded eagle of The House of Fame?

Certainly the compactness of The Cambridge Companion to Middle English Literature works against any flights of the eagle. And while pretending to understated conservatism—"err[ing] on the side of what seemed conventional wisdom" (6)—this Companion is too lively to be considered simply a second-in-command. Instead, it is a true guide, efficiently orienting advanced undergraduates/graduates/new instructors in the terrain of current literary study of Middle English. The Companion is divided into two sections. "Part I: Contexts, Genres, and Traditions" begins by providing two different ways to locate late medieval literature, linguistically in the status of Middle English as a vernacular (Wendy Scase) and socially in the milieu of patrons and readers of Middle English [End Page 466] texts (Richard Firth Green). Cogent introductions to genres follow, including religious writing (Richard Newhauser); romance (Christine Chism); dialogue, debate, and dream literature (Steven Kruger); drama (Sarah Beckwith); lyric (Ardis Butterfield); and Lollard writings (Rita Copeland). "Part II: Authors" then introduces readers to William Langland (Ralph Hanna), the Gawain-poet (Sarah Stanbury), John Gower (Diane Watt), Geoffrey Chaucer (Larry Scanlon), Julian of Norwich (Lynn Staley), Thomas Hoccleve (Ethan Knapp), John Lydgate (James Simpson), Margery Kempe (Rebecca Krugg), Sir Thomas Malory (David Wallace), and Robert Henryson (Sally Mapstone).

The expectation is that these essays should provide a double focus, a summary of major issues as well as a gesturing to critical cruces left unresolved. On the whole, the contributors deliver this. Kruger gives an excellent overview of sources and critical approaches to the...

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