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STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER interest to readers of this journal. But it isn’t clear how this sense of ‘‘reading’’ in Chaucer’s texts relates to the reading practices discussed in earlier chapters. For example, Amtower’s argument that the Wife of Bath deconstructs ‘‘discourse to reveal the structures of ideology and self-interest that always lay behind it’’ (p. 167), whereas the Prioress ‘‘is a shallow reader of texts’’ (p. 172), will not surprise most Chaucerians. But in terms of the argument of this book, are we to understand that this is because the Wife was more influenced than was the Prioress by the private, silent reading that pointed ‘‘increasingly to the capacity for self-fashioning’’ and implied ‘‘the possibility of control over one’s own destiny’’ (p. 43)? One expects the opposite to be the case. Within Chaucer ’s fiction, the Wife’s knowledge of ‘‘discourse’’ is largely based on aural reception of vernacular texts, whereas the Prioress is more likely to have read books of hours, although ones written in the Anglo-French of ‘‘Stratford ate Bow’’ (as were many fourteenth-century English prayer books) rather than in Latin. This application of Amtower’s earlier arguments to her later interpretations is perhaps unfair, but it highlights a problem weakening the book’s argument—a failure to relate its opening survey of reading practices to the literary analysis of its closing chapters. Richard K. Emmerson Medieval Academy of America Denise Baker, ed. Inscribing the Hundred Years’ War in French and English Cultures. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2000. Pp. x, 277. $69.50 cloth; $23.95 paper This volume, the proceedings of a session at the International Medieval Congress at Kalamazoo in 1994, adds substance to ardent hopes that the long-standing gulf between the disciplines of history and literature is being bridged, if not yet fully closed. Twelve members of departments of English or romance literatures contribute essays that relate key authors or texts to the chosen historical period, the era of the Hundred Years’ War, which ‘‘coincided with a remarkable efflorescence of vernacular culture in both countries’’ (1). All contributors assume that the texts speak both of and to their historical periods; that is, they reflect their parent cultures but at the same time question and criticize certain 366 ................. 9680$$ CH16 11-01-10 12:36:49 PS REVIEWS dominant values and beliefs. Large-scale a priori theorizing has largely yielded in these essays to close analysis of the evidence showing a complex interplay of text and context. Foucault and Derrida get a total of three mentions in the entire book. The chapters, contributed by established veterans and junior scholars alike, are written in clear and readable English, avoiding jargon or verbal density. The opening two essays interpret Les voeux de heron, the satirical poem that claims to explain the outbreak of Anglo-French warfare. Norris J. Lacy, the most recent editor of the text, emphasizes the contrasts between the boasts of historical characters featured in the poem and their actual accomplishments—either ineffectual or brutal. Though it may be difficult to say that the poem is antiwar, Lacy argues that ‘‘it is surely a text whose cutting irony undermines the validity of military posturing’’ (24). Patricia DeMarco likewise reads this poem as critical of the brutality of war, which so sharply contrasts with at least the idealizing tendencies of courtly and chivalric tradition; even the pregnant queen’s horrific vow at the end of the poem, she is convinced, delivers a critique through a surprising assertion of female agency. The somewhat more cautiously critical views of war from the English side of the Channel are analyzed in two essays. Denise Baker considers Langland’s critique of the chivalric ideology of Edward III by means of the character Lady Meed in Piers Plowman. Meed’s debate with the character Conscience and her opposition to the Treaty of Brétigny (ending the first traditional phase of the war) indirectly reveal the material incentives of the English warriors and Langland’s own critique of their motivation. Chaucer, Judith Ferster argues, at least cautiously stood by Richard II and his peace policy (and against...

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