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Reviews THOMAS D. CooKE, The Old French and Chaucerian Fabliaux: A Study of Their Comic Climax. Columbia and London: University of Mis­ souri Press, 1978. Pp. 220. $15. The subtitle of this book, which is a reworking of the author's disserta­ tion, is an accurate statement of its delimitations; the title as a whole may mislead Chaucerians into thinking that his work gets as much attention as the Old French material, when in fact Professor Cooke de­ votes only the last eighth of the book to Chaucer's fabliaux and does not deal with all his work in the genre. Recognizing that the most influential fabliau scholarship has been in great part concerned with the sociology of the genre (Bedier, Nykrog, Rychner), Cooke has chosen to consider the tales intrinsically in an attempt to illuminate the nature of their comedy. The introductory chapter offers a succinct statement of his argument: the principal goal of the fabliaux is humor; the most important factor in its achievement is the "comic climax," to which all other elements in the tales are sub­ ordinated; and the climax has two features: "it comes as a surprise, and yet it has been carefully prepared for in such a way that when it comes, it is seen as artistically fitting and appropriate. The tension experienced between the surprise and preparation generates the humor of these tales, and an audience's appreciation of the climax is the deep satisfac­ tion that it feels in seeing the appropriateness of that climax" (p. 13). The next three chapters develop this thesis. In chapter two Cooke explains, using Wayne Booth's distinction between showing and telling, how some of the "more objective aspects" of the fabliaux-characteriza­ tion, setting, actions, dialogue-are manipulated as part of the prepara- STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER tion for the comic climax. Chapter three turns to the more "subjective" role of the narrator and discusses how it too prepares the listener (throughout Cooke rightly stresses fabliau presentation as performance) for the climax through the use of such devices as authorial commentary, formulaic tags, rhetoric, moralizations, and quick insights into a charac­ ter's thoughts. There follows a chapter on the comic climax itself which attempts to categorize the various ways in which the surprise appears: through "discoveries, escapes, tricks, reversals" and other means (p. n8). In the course of these chapters a variety of fabliaux are summarized and discussed according to the categories specified above. Usually Cooke deals with a few tales to illustrate each aspect of preparation and each type of climax, though in the subdivision "tags and formulas" he ex­ amines only one and is content to "suspect" that other tales also put formulaic diction to artistic use (p. 77). There seems to be an inconsistency throughout these chapters between Cooke's intentions and his methods. He is concerned with the merits of fabliau narrative and would like to elevate the genre esthetically. Hence what other critics may deprecate as literary casualness or thinness he can justify as "a deliberate act of artistic selection" (p. 17) in an effort to achieve a successful comic climax. Accordingly, he stresses the artistic integrity of each fabliau (e.g. pp. 45, 96), and it is reasonable to assume that his exposition would give us some detailed analyses of individual stories. Yet the material is organized in such a way that categories and subcategories for the genre as a whole take precedence over sustained attention to specific works; some fabliaux are discussed piecemeal be­ causetheirvariousaspectsoccur indifferentsubdivisions of the taxonomy. Though he frequently acknowledges the inability of such categorizing to do justice to the uniqueness of each text ("unique," in fact, is one of his favorite words), Cooke is unable to escape its consequences, and the re­ sulting fragmentation does not help his attempt to convince us of the careful artistic control that the best fabliaux reveal. He does offer some useful observations about certain stories; but I doubt that as presented here his central thesis is likely to change measurably most readers' opinions of fabliau artistry. Much of what he points to seems fairly basic, and his focus on fabliau economy in the service of...

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