Stories of Chaos: Reason and its Displacement in Early Modern English Narrative (review)

Reviews 173 Davis, Nick, Stories of Chaos: Reason and its Displacement in Early Modern English Narrative, Aldershot, Ashgate, 1999; cloth; pp. x, 195; R.R.P. AUS$ 115.00; ISBN 1840146494. Underlying this study of Early Modem narrative is an awareness of late twenti century chaos theory, always ready to relativise images and conceptions of order. Nick Davis ranges freely through diverse material from classical, medieval and Renaissance philosophy to Lacanian psychoanalysis to examine the strategies through which forms of cultural and personal stability are both affirmed and questioned. As the title of his book suggests, Davis is mainly interested in the ways that images of reason and wholeness are undermined through the twists of nanative action and characterisation. Davis's starting point is a serious appreciation of narrative as a discursive mode. In the Preface he conceives ofnarrative as 'a form ofphilosophical thought and enquiry' (p. vii) rather than asfictionaldiscourse. Plato's Dialogues are the archetype for this conception of narrative, in particular the Timaeus, which Davis interprets as combining rational creativity with an acknowledgment of the impossibility of sustaining hierarchical structures of thought and reasoning. A second early text seen as central to Renaissance attempts at grounding rational discourse is Boethius's De Arithmetica. Throughout his study Davis uses the period's notions of mathematical logic, usually in tandem with clear-cut ethical positions, to exemplify the frequently fragile workings of reason. The book's four central chapters focus on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Faerie Queen, King Lear and Paradise Lost. In each chapter, Davis discusses the ways in which narrative aspects of the works servefirstto ground and then challenge notions of systematic thinking and ethical rationalism. For example, the narrative of Sir Gawain is seen as combining 'rationalist closure' with 'unpredictable dis-closure' (p. 40). Thefirstelement is epitomised by the motif of the Pentangle on Gawain's shield. Davis interprets it as a kind of mathematical and moral emblem, linking balance, proportion, reason and ethics: 'the poem is inviting us to contemplate an image of Gawain's prudentia and its effects as the power which shapes the virtues individually and collectively in conformity with Truth' (p. 50). However, Davis contends that Sir Gawain does not simply endorse these ideals but investigates them in a way that refuses 'the circular self-satisfactions of normative philosophical practice' (p. 60). The key to this scrutiny is the increasing impact that sexual tensions come to have in the poem. These tensions 174 Reviews radiate from the uncanny figure of Morgan le Fay and see masculine conduct and identity undergo a 'progressive loss or degradation of purpose' (p. 64). The forms of knightly selfhood, morality and meaning central to Arthurian discourse are interrogated as they are recounted. In reading various episodes from The Faerie Queen, including the Mutability Cantos and Scudamore's troubled night in the House of Care (IV.v), Davis suggests that Spenser held deep doubts about the possibility of 'fundamental cosmic order' (p. 78). These doubts extend to ethical reasoning, which 'as practised or lauded in the poem possesses no reliable footing in the nature of things' (p. 84). Davis analyses contradictory elements in the actions and outlooks of Guyon and Artegall. Neither, he suggests, is able to embody consistent ethical conduct. Only 'in an imaginary future, lies the absolute solidity of heroic achievement' (p. 104), and such a future always lies out of the male protagonist's control. This imaginary, egocentric concept of virtuous identity undercuts the knights' actions, and Davis contrasts Britomart's relative selflessness as indicating a more positive conception of ethical identity in Spenserian narrative. The analysis of King Lear builds on these earlier readings. The opening scenes of the play are seen as invoking a number of practical conceptual models through which cosmic and social relations might be mediated and understood. The map of the divided kingdom relies on spatial and mathematical logic, while Lear is confident in the powers of language and ritual to orchestrate affairs. Even when his plans begin to be threatened, Lear tries to cling to these modes of order. For example, Davis notes the importance assigned to the hundred knights who are to accompany Lear - the...