Queer / Early / Modern by Carla Freccero (review)

REVIEWS 226 ment to regions other than the Holy Land during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. VINCENT RYAN, History, Saint Louis University Carla Freccero, Queer / Early / Modern (Durham: Duke University Pres) x + 182 pp. In this book, Carla Freccero offers a genuinely valuable and provocative exploration of the role that queer theory can play in Renaissance studies. Freccero focuses mainly on the theoretical and hermeneutic tensions which bias and inform the work of the modern (literary) historian, and while many traditional Renaissance scholars may be put off by Freccero’s consistent attention to the permutations of queer theory and some of its modern points of reference (such as “Brandon Teena” and Melissa Etheridge), such a dismissal would be unfortunate. Freccero’s work is rigorously attentive to the political biases and implicit identity politics of all interpretative work; although queer theory is the lens through which Freccero approaches the idea of the alterity of Renaissance identity formation, her theoretical insights open a number of fascinating windows into some texts which would benefit from fresh approaches. The title of the book is meant to draw attention to the productively awkward connections of its three words, and the slashes indicate the variety of ways in which they can be said to connect. Freccero begins by establishing a theoretical framework for her study. In the first two chapters, she openly avows that “all textuality, when subjected to close reading, can be said to be queer” (5). She proceeds to explore how the sort of queer perspectives such reading can produce can be used to interrogate the phrase “early modern,” which carries with it—as many have noted—a problematic implication of familiarity and—in the genetic sense—familial relation to the modern, presumptively normative, critic. So queer theory, for Freccero, is not narrowly limited to a specific set of political alignments (though Freccero embraces the ethical imperative of hate crimes, such as the murder of Matthew Shepard, which have galvanized and motivated a generation of academics), but rather it is a particularly well-developed array of perspectives which can be used to approach the issues of memory and memorialization which characterize the work of scholars. Freccero brings her theory into the interpretative sphere in a careful reading of the operation of the lyric “I” in the poetry of Louise Labé. Chapter 3 addresses the unavoidable subject of Foucault—in this, and in her attention to early modern French texts, Freccero’s facility with, and communication of, the French original is extremely accessible and productive. In chapter 4, she explores the psychoanalytic issues which underpin the poetics of French nationalism, and argues persuasively that a kind of incestuous logic is inseparable from the rules of royalty, and that such logic is rendered in a literary echo in the work of Marguerite de Navarre. Finally, Freccero examines the idea of “queer spectrality,” that is, the ways in which what is queer is both what “haunts” the heteronormative culture, and—concomitantly—how those same marginalized voices can function as spectators, that is, as constitutive points of view. To point out just a few of the ways in which this work could be applied, Freccero’s discussion of the relation of the French controversy over the “Salic REVIEWS 227 Law” to the “a fantasy of nation-building based on direct father-to-son seminal transmission” (64) could productively be applied to Henry V. Similarly, Freccero ’s exploration of the alterity of the “haunting” voice could help to produce a more subtle critique of The Mirror for Magistrates. Further, Freccero’s observation that “cannibalism is in some sense haunting’s double, its evil twin” (87) could be used to reinvigorate readings of The Tempest. In short, this a theoretical work which clarifies, advances, and enriches the possibilities of early modern research. MICHAEL SAENGER, English, Southwestern University Jane Geddes, The St. Albans Psalter: A Book for Christina of Markyate (London: The British Library 2005) 136 pp., ill. Jane Geddes has written an informative and beautifully decorated book about the St. Albans Psalter. The Psalter is a remarkable artifact that dates to the midtwelfth century. It remained at the nunnery of Markyate for 400 years, and during the English Civil War...