Speaking Images: Essays in Honor of V. A. Kolve ed. by Robert F. Yeager, Charlotte C. Morse (review)

REVIEWS Strohm’s test case is Guinevere’s bloody bed in the castle of Mellyagaunt , an episode discussed in terms of Freud’s theories of the ‘‘primal scene.’’ In spite of efforts to center these essays around core themes, the interest they provoke flies off in a diaspora of directions. I have always found Strohm’s work bracing, and this book is no exception, yet I also find myself both moved and disarmed by its vulnerability, its refusal to hide behind forbidding opacities. For elsewhere, as practiced by others, these may so easily amount to passive-aggressive strategies for constraining assent from the frightened reader. Their repudiation is part of this book’s honesty, for which I am thankful. Alan J. Fletcher University College Dublin Robert F. Yeager and Charlotte C. Morse, eds. Speaking Images: Essays in Honor of V. A. Kolve. Asheville, N.C.: Pegasus Press, 2001. Pp. xvii, 650. $90.00. Speaking Images is a collection of twenty-six essays by prominent scholars, each of whom acknowledges his or her debt to the rich and varied scholarship of V. A. Kolve. The volume has all the strengths and some of the weaknesses commonly associated with celebratory writing of this kind. Among its strengths are the aforementioned impressive array of wellknown and established scholars who have lent their voice to the project (as well as a Tabula Gratulatoria consisting of some three hundred names) and a wide variety of topics sure to be of interest to medievalists. In addition to essays on Marie de France, Dante, Chaucer, and the drama, there are offbeat and unusual essays on topography, landscape, labyrinths, and the poetry of Robert Southwell. One weakness is the scope of the essays. Evidently the editors were confronted with a choice either to limit the number of essays or to limit the number of pages each contributor was allotted. They chose the latter, with each essay ranging between eighteen and thirty pages, including notes, often copious . As a result, most of the essays do not break any new ground or attempt anything too complicated. Still, there is much fruit here and PAGE 433 433 .......................... 10906$ CH11 11-01-10 13:59:56 PS STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER one comes away with the impression that each contributor has a special interest in the topic chosen and wanted to say something about it. Although there is not a single theme or set of themes that unifies or groups the essays, most make an effort to link their essay to the work of Kolve, especially his work on images, and the editors have done an admirable job of arranging the essays, matching them in pairs whenever possible. One of the more successful pairings is the juxtaposition of essays by Barbara Nolan (‘‘Playing Parts: Props, Texts, Bodies, and the Mystery of Love in ‘The Miller’s Tale’’’) and Jill Mann (‘‘Speaking Images in Chaucer’s ‘Miller’s Tale’’’). Both of the essays look closely at some of the same passages and image patterns and then move in different directions and arrive at different conclusions, attesting to the multivalent nature of Chaucer’s language and imagery. Nolan aims to show how Chaucer is working poetically to interject the shadow presence of a larger vision in this fabliau. She concerns herself with Chaucer’s use of rhetorical devices, such as metonymy and synecdoche, in the tale to create a novel approach to the sacred or ‘‘Goddes pryvetee.’’ The essay pays special attention to the courtship scenes for parallels with the Annunciation and other events in Mary’s life that will allow readers to ‘‘glimpse the eloquent absence in the tale of just those sacred stories and mysteries that have the power to infuse things and signs, including earthly time and space, with transformative meaning’’ (p. 263). Mann explores the visual imagery of the tale by setting the imagery into the context of the complicated interplay between language and physical reality that this narrative creates. She does this by taking a close and hard look at the description of Alison, or her body language, in order to show that Alison’s body has a complicated semiotics of its own. Some readers may find...