A Commentary on the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales by Muriel Bowden (review)

438 THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY truth. If the treatment of these involved topics is illumined by a detailed knowledge of scientific psychology, it is also assisted immeasurably by the author's capacity to free his analysis from metaphysical obfuscations through the use of certain techniques of symbolic logic. From an elaborate and lengthy analysis three conclusions are drawn: psychological hedonism offers a foundation for a unified theory of value; all forms of value are not absolute but relative; evaluations are a form of empirical knowledge. These conclusions are far from novel, but even the most convinced metaphysical idealist will be forced to admit that they derive new and powerful support from Dr. Hilliard's work. Hitherto it has always been fairly easy to expose the fallacies of hedonism owing to the extremely subjectivistic psychology on which the theory rested. We are now confronted with the challenge of a unified hedonistic axiology which is based on a thoroughly objective psychology. Dr. Hilliard has therefore written an important book which will be welcomed by philosophers, psychologists, and psychiatrists alike. From the perspectives of philosophy and psychology, literary criticism in Canada has suffered from two serious defects, first the lack of an adequate conceptual framework, second the use of an outmoded subjectivistic psychology. The first defect can be remedied only through the adoption of a theory of value (which need not necessarily be that advocated by Dr. Hilliard ), the second only through the assimilation of modem psychological knowledge. Whether our literary critics accept or decry a hedonistic axiology, they ought at least to profit from Dr. Hilliard's remarkable use, in a philosophical context, of scientific psychology. JOHN A. IRVING A Commentary on the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. By MURIEL BOWDEN. New York : The Macmillan Company [Toronto: The Macmillan Company of Canada Limited]. 1948. Pp. ix, 316. $4.75. The Preface to this book states that it is intended for three classes of readers, uthose schooled in Chaucerian criticism," college students, and the general reader interested in Chaucer. If the first class is flatteringly meant to include all teachers of the General Prologue, well and good; if not, it should be expanded to include them, for they will find it invaluable. Almost every page gives striking evidence that it has been written out of sustained and immediate lecture-room experience. SHORTER NOTICES 439 It provides a much fuller treatment of the Prologue than any other book with which this reviewer is acquainted. With 316 pages of commentary on approximately 860 lines of text, a certain degree of fulness is possible. A possible misapprehension here might be created. The book is no line-by-line examination of the Prologue. The author is well aware of the difficulty of making a book interesting and useful to the scholar and to the layman. The arrangement of material is designed to help in overcoming this difficulty. The arrangement is uniform for each chapter, and chapter m, "The Perfect Knight," will serve for illustration. With copious references to and sizable quotations from medieval sources, explanatory of specific expressions in the General Prologue, the portrait of the Knight is enlarged, until by the time the discussion is completed the reader has been given an introduction to chivalry, a detailed account of the historical military events with which the Knight has been connected, a full explanation of the important words used to characterize him, and a brief but critical comment on Manly's views as to the identity of the Knight. The most important feature in this enlargement has been the inclusion of generous quotations from sources inaccessible to almost all readers. The emphasis has been on content, and the one grammatical remark on the number of the noun "hors" in line 74 has been relegated to the notes, otherwise used chiefly for the identification of quotations used in the chapter. It should be added that as the book proceeds, these notes are used much more extensively to relieve the general discussion in the chapter of information pertinent and curious rather than essential. No particularly new light is shed upon Chaucer, and indeed no claims of original scholarship are made. The excellent bibliography is eloquent testimony to...