"Renaissance" Talk: Ordinary Language and the Mystique of Critical Problems by Stanley Stewart (review)

in her opening analysis ofgardens and "anti-gatdens" in The Wife ofBath's Tale, which is most provocative; howevet, the main body of Howes' gendered analysis focuses on the gatdens in the Knight's, Ftanklin's and Merchant's tales, stories in which gardens function prominently as loci fot action involving female charactets . Here Howes' argument is based upon a tathet conventional feminist intetptetation of the Tales, het previous historicism seeming tathet distant and sometimes itrelevant to hef present analysis. In the Knight's Tale, fotexample, "Theseus's garden ... represents the way in which men control, guard, and imprison women for theit own purposes; political, petsonal and nattative" (94). Here Chaucet father predictably promotes "anitmisogynistic values, ifnot outfight feminist ones" (87). Fot those committed to a "feminist" Chaucet, howevet, Howes' reading may be somewhat disappointing when, finally, she seems to argue that the gatden space in the Tales becomes but "a contested ground" where Chaucet merely dabbles in feminist possibilities tathet than committing his stories to female potentialities. Howes' wotk exemplifies a high degree ofinterdisciplinary research and litetary interpretation throughout, her initial historical chaptet on English medieval gardens is informative and delightful to read; at times, howevet, the causal relationship between het initial and thorough analysis ofthe history ofmedieval gardens and her latet gendered intetpretation of the Tales is not always cleat: often they seem to be two sepatate endeavots yoked togethet by political tathet than histotical necessity. F Stanley Stewatt. "Renaissance" Talk: Ordinary Language andthe Mystique ofCriticalProblems. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1997. 306p. Michael Richard Bonin Gonzaga University "Renaissance" Talk cross-examines the assertions of a few influential Renaissance critics. Stanley Stewart's justification fot this intettogation is modestly undetstated: "The point is to make sense, so as to cleat away misundetstandings" (19). Adopting a pose ofmild Soctatic inquiry (Stewart even casts long stretches ofhis book in the form ofimaginary dialogues between himselfand, fot instance, a defender of New Historicism), Stewart seems merely, and reasonably, to be asking these Renaissance critics to define theit tetms and explain theit major ideas. Three or four chaptets into the book the teadet realizes that Stewart's very Socratic intention is to expose the illogicality and indefensibility of many cuttent Renaissance critical pronouncements, and indeed of much post-sttuctutalist scholarship in 86 * ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW * FALL 1998 Book Reviews general. Given its promisingly dtamatic debate format, and its provocative conclusions , this ought to have been an exhilatating book, one to stir up both avantgarde theorists and ttaditional scholars. However, though Stewart's careful counter-arguments undermine his opponents' positions quite petsuasively, his own philosophical hobbyhorse and his stilted writing undetmine the book's effectiveness . Even those predisposed to agree with Stewart will find reading the book a chore instead ofa pleasure. In his "Acknowledgements" Stewart thanks a host ofcolleagues, teadets, editots and friends, and then avets, "I will not fotget the patience and candot ofthis latge contingent offaithful ifinformal collaboratots. I consider all ofthem—I can think of no highet compliment—Wittgensteinians" (xiii). Aftet this revelation, let the teadet beware. Unless you share Stewart's conviction that "Wittgensteinian" tops all othet supetlatives available in the lexicon ofpraise, much ofthe book will prove frusttating, if not maddening. The introductory chaptet, "Investigating Renaissance Criticism," is an extremely dense atgument for applying Wittgenstein's "otdinary language" philosophy to metactitical questions. Stewart's thesis seems inatguable: "When critical locutions lead us into blind alleys, it is bettet to question die vocabulary than to proceed widi credulity into furthet darkness " (17). His subsequent procedure, howevet, can make you feel as ifyou've fallen into the hands of a logic-bully, like CS. Lewis' tutot The Great Knock in Surprised byJoy, a man who would subject even polite tematks ("Nice weathet today ") to a merciless reductio adabsurdum ("What, precisely, do you mean by the fatuous modifiet 'nice?'") Stewart will seize upon a wotd (e.g.—and with unintended irony, as it turns out—"clarify") and then indulge in an agony ofopaque distinction-dtawing, which can go on for many pages. Stewart recognizes the deadening effect ofsuch unbroken absttact discourse, but his occasional "tegular talk" examples don't help mattets much, stylistically. Here is his notion of colloquial American speech...