Medieval Sign Theory and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Ross G. Arthur (review)

STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER setting the foundation of the vocabulary as the Bibliography has set the foundation of research in the realm ofliterature and the law. HOWARD H. SCHLESS Columbia University Ross G. ARTHUR. Medieval Sign Theory and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Toronto, Buffalo, N.Y, and London: University ofToronto Press, 1987. Pp. x, 182. $25.00. This book takes as its point ofdeparture the beliefthat the ambivalence of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight must be accepted as a fact; no new interpretation will come along and sweep the slate clean, convincing us that the meaning was, after all, single and simple. Granted that the poet was concerned with the "productive possibilities ofcontrolled ambiguity," it is necessary, Ross Arthur suggests, to find medieval analytical models which correspond to this fact and help the modern reader with its elucida­ tion. "'Modes ofinterpretation' " ofmedieval literature "need to be placed in historical context every bit as much as theological beliefs and social attitudes" (p. ix). Decoding critics have scoured scriptural exegesis and handbooks of symbolism in the hope of"finding authoritative glosses and explications for the stubborn details of the poem.": But there is no exact science of symbolism; it cannot be reduced to a coherent system of equivalences because the range of meanings is simply too vast, the ambivalences too manifold. A different approach to the symbolism of Gawain is needed. Having been introduced to the logician Peter of Spain by Copelston's History of Philosophy, Arthur became convinced of the importance of medievalsemioticsfor theinterpretationofliterarysymbolism,particularly the distinctions between significatio and suppositio. This resulted in a study which argues that the Gawain poet is "not simply exemplifying the epistemological function of signs but examining the problems that arise when there is no agreement on what thoughts the sign initiates" (p. 12). Few readers would wish to gainsay that, even though many of them will wish to quibble with some of Arthur's applications of medieval semiotics and the interpretations of Gawain which result. "A fourteenth-century Englishman with the general educational back244 REVIEWS ground we may safely ascribe to the Gawain poet," Arthur implies, would have known Augustine's definition of signs (in De doctrina 1.2) and its elaboration by Peter Lombard at the beginning of his much-studied Sen­ tences, as well as "other works on signification." There are assumptions here about the education of the Gawain poet, and about what logic textbooks were influentialin Ricardian England,which require far more investigation and substantiation than can be offered in this short book. However, the author disarmingly speaks of the "common knowledge" limits of his ap­ proach, and his refusal to plunge too deep into the esoteric and technical will surely capture the benevolence of many readers. By "supposition" medieval logicians and speculative grammarians un­ derstood how a word's meaning is determined by its use in a given sentence, in contrast to "signification," the meaning of a word in isolation. A distinction was made between "naturalsignification," where the meaning is "imposed" in accordance with the nature of the thing signified, and "signification by convention" (adplacitum), where the meaning is "im­ posed" by the will of the institutor" -for example, homo represents a human being not "naturally " but by convention, because that is how the word has been established and is used. Also important in determining meaning is the larger social context in which an utterance occurs. The application of these basic notions of medievalsemantics to "the visible signs prominent in SGGK" will result, Arthur claims, in a "fuller appreciation of the poet's ability to structure complex ideas around the various levels of audience interpretation of such objects" (p. 16). The several major signs in the poem are said to function in several ways. The pentangle and the green girdle are capable of being "read" differently, but here is no "relativist quandary," for "the poet has succeeded in building a properly orthodox hierarchy of such readings." At the top comes pure signification, in which realm the pentangle is a "natural" sign for absolute Truth. Then comes "supposition." When a value term is used in a proposi­ tion, it can refer to an attribute of a...