Chaucer to Spenser: An Anthology of Writings in English, 1375-1575, and: Chaucer to Spenser: A Critical Reader ed. by Derek Pearsall (review)

REVIEWS145 derek pearsall, ca., Chaucer to Spenser: An Anthology ofWritings in English, 1375t $j$. Blackwell Anthologies. Oxford: Blackwell, 1999. Pp. xxvi, 686. isbn: 0—63119839 -3. $36.95. derek pearsall, ed., Chaucer to Spenser: A CriticalReader. Oxford: Blackwell, 1999. Pp. xviii, 327. isbn: 0-631-19937-3. $18.95. It is a fact that most undergraduate English majors (and perhaps a fair number of graduate students as well) complete their formal training without knowing anything about John Lydgate. Is this a problem? Derek Pearsall thinks so, and this handsome new anthology and critical reader are designed to showcase the vatiety ofwriting in English from the end ofthe fourteenth to the last quartet ofthe sixteenth-century, a period ofliterary history that has a strong claim, with its lionizing ofChaucer, Lydgate, and Gower, to be the origin of the notion, if not the fact, of a continuous English literary tradition. Pearsall states that his goal in the Anthology is to provide 'substantial reading in the best and most important writers of the two centuries from Chaucer to Spenser' (xv). And as the title ofthe volume suggests, this literary high road is paved with the tradition of courtly verse that derives primarily from Chaucer's dream visions and philosophical romances, and to a lesser extent from Langland's satire and allegory. Yet the Anthology also includes a number ofshort extracts that reveal the strength and versatility oflate-medieval and Tudor prose. These selections are particularly important not only because they provide a fresh context for verse that may otherwise look too familiar, but also because they, perhaps more than the poetry, challenge the traditional period boundaries that Peatsall wishes to interrogate. Pearsall's breadth of knowledge and common sense make him an ideal editor of such an anthology. The glosses and annotations are helpful without being obtrusive, and his critical introductions are generous in giving equal time to interpretations that he may not in the end find convincing. In all this, Pearsall follows the model of the hero of the volume, Chaucer, whom he praises foremost for experimenting, for leaving us in The Canterbury Tales 'an open-ended work' (79). Yet Pearsall does not succumb to the anthologist's temptation to oversell the literary merits oflesser writers, John Lydgate being just one notable example. The monk of Bury was not only the most prolific English poet ofthat, or perhaps any, era. He also arguably stands at the center oflate-medieval poetry, both on his own account and as the (however distorting) lens through which many writers saw Chaucer. Yet Pearsall, who has written the standard study of this fifteenth-century writer, freely acknowledges his limitations, calling his desire to be compared to Chaucer 'inevitably painful' (343) and allowing him a mere twenty-five pages. Pearsall also knows that anthologists are a cursed lot: they inevitably attract criticism both for what they include and for what they leave out. Chaucer to Spenser is in many ways a model anthology. Yet it too will no doubt be charged with sins, probably more of omission than of comission. One could, for example, point to its unbalanced treatment ofwomen writers: while there are several from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, there is no writing by a sixteenth-century woman, despite the fact that 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...