Secular and Sacred Visionaries in the Late Middle Ages by Forrest S. Smith (review)

REVIEWS pecially useful as an instrument for locating both relevant background material and Scase's own discussions of particular lines and passages. ROBERT WORTH FRANK, JR. Pennsylvania State University FORREST S. SMITH. Secular and Sacred Visionaries in the Late Middle Ages. Garland Publications in Comparative Literature. New York and London: Garland, 1986. Pp. xi, 334. $55.00. This volume in the Garland Publications in Comparative Literature series sets out to trace "one type of vision, the imaginative journey to heaven and hell" (p. ix), ranging from the biblical Apocalypse to Dante. As such, it joins a substantial scholarly discourse, which includes historical studies of the visionary in elite and popular culture, such as Carolly Erickson's The Medieval Vision: Essays in History and Perception (New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1976) and more recently Avon Gurevich's Medieval Popu­ lar Culture: Problems ofBeliefand Perception (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); collections such as Visions of Heaven and Hell Before Dante, ed. Eileen Gardiner (New York: ltalica Press, 1989); and more broadly based accounts such as Carol Zaleski's OtherworldJourneys: Accounts ofNear-Death Experience in Medieval and Modern Times (Ox­ ford: Oxford University Press, 1987). Smith's emphasis on the continuity and transformation of a literary tradition also recalls Barbara Nolan's influential The Gothic Visionary Perspective (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977) and more recent critical studies, including Michael D. Cherniss, Boethian Apocalypse: Studies in Middle English Vision Poetry (Norman: Pilgrim Books, 1987); J. Stephen Russell, The English Dream Vision: Anatomy of a Form (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1988); and Kathryn L. Lynch, The High Medieval Dream Vision: Poetry, Philosophy, and Literary Form (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford Univer­ sity Press, 1988). Unlike these works, though, Smith neither focuses on a unique mode of perception (as does Nolan) or a particular literary "genre" (as do Cherniss and Lynch) nor filters the medieval texts through a contem­ porary theoretical lens (as does Russell). Given this recent flourishing of scholarly attention to the visionary, one must ask, What does Smith's Secular and Sacred Visionaries contribute? 235 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER The answer, I fear, is relatively little. The notion of "secular and sacred visionaries" does not define a medieval tradition, and, as we shall see, it does not even exclude texts that are not cast as visions. The first two chapters, "The Biblical Apocalypse and the Apocalyptic Imagination in the Thirteenth Century" and "Modes of the Apocalyptic: Sacred Archetypes and Secular Allegory," briefly survey a small group oftexts relating vision­ ary journeys and various forms of allegory and rehash the commonplace scholarly categories regarding the definition ofthe apocalyptic, with a spin derived from Northrop Frye and an emphasis on the pilgrim-narrator intended to foreshadow Dante. These chapters do not clearly delineate the distinction between the visionary and the apocalyptic, which are often mistakenly conflated, nor do they consider the differing effects produced by dreams within narratives, on the one hand, and narratives organized as accounts ofdreams, on the other. They also fail to consider adequately the potential contradiction implied by a "secular apocalypse." The most valuable chapters are the two that consider some Old French visionary poems, works that deserve to be better known by students of Dante and Middle English literature. These chapters survey scholarly interpretations of the poems and then provide thematically organized readings, often quoting extensively from the Old French texts. The third chapter focuses on Raoul de Houdeoc, "the first author of the thirteenth century to adapt the structures of the apocalyptic for satire of social institutions and for moral reform" (p. 38). Smith deals specifically with Songe d'enfer and voie de Paradis, though he recognizes that Raoul's authorship ofthe latter has been questioned. The following chapter surveys other thirteenth-century poems, concentrating on two poems entitled voie de Paradis, by Rutebeuf and by Baudouin de Conde, though only the discussion ofRutebeufis extensive. The outline ofthe "superstructure" of Rutebeuf's complex poem is quite helpful. The book's last three chapters shift attention from a French to an Italian "visionary tradition." The fifth chapter, "Lay Apocalypse and Eocyclo­ pedism: Brunetto Latini and II Tesoretto," provides an interesting transi­ tion into the chapters on Dante's...