Jezebel: A Norman Latin Poem of the Early Eleventh Century ed. by Jan M. Ziolkowski (review)

REVIEWS Throughout the book Wimsatt demonstrates an encyclopedic knowl­ edge of the literary connections he proposes to analyze. His knowledge, in fact, is unique among this generation of Chaucerians. Moreover, his tech­ nical analyses will make interesting reading even for Chaucer scholars inclined to privilege the poet's structural and thematic achievements. Wimsatt's real service to students of medieval English literature, however, is that he persuades us to discover a different Chaucer, a poet whose musical interests are not confined to the works traditionally termed both minor and lyric. R. BARTON PALMER Georgia State University JAN M. ZIOLKOWSKI, ed. Jezebel: A Norman Latin Poem of the Early Eleventh Century. Humana Civilitas: Studies and Sources Relating to the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, vol. 10, published under the auspices of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Univer­ sity of California, Los Angeles. New York, Bern, Frankfurt am Main, and Paris: Peter Lang, 1989. Pp. xiv, 226. $32.95 paper. Jezebel was a sacrilegious, blasphemous, idolatrous biblical harlot whose spectacular misconduct made her name a synonym for depravity, and yet, surprisingly, this is the first book devoted to a full discussion ofher standing in the Middle Ages.Jan M. Ziolkowski has done much more thanproduce a magnificent edition of the poem in which she figures: he has produced a biographical resurrection of the heroine herself. The book is divided into three parts. The first part describes the evolu­ tion of her image, from the "murderously pagan and tyrannical queen, the wife of Ahab" (p. 5) in the OldTestamentto the use of her name in the New Testament as the type of false prophetess set on seducing all around her: "Whereas theJezebel in the New Testament is sexually uncontrolled and heretical, the queen in the Old Testament is cruel and idolatrous" (p. 12). Thus the two strains of idolater and fornicator became fused, as, for example, in the writings of Ambrosius, who refers to her as "Iezabel idolatra simul et fornicaria." The original meaning of thenameJezebel is uncertain.Jeromefurnished what became the standard etymologies for her name in hisLiber interpreta­ tionis hebraicorum nominum, and Isidore, among others, based his defini297 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER tion onJerome's in his Etymologies: 'Jezebel is a discharge of blood or a stream of blood: but it is better when the name is rendered as 'dung heap' " (p. 13). Her name became a byword forpersecutor, and her picture appears frequently inmedieval art as the persecutor ofElijah. Ziolkowski notes"the complete neglect she has received from historians of Christian iconogra­ phy" (p. 20). The second part of the book is concerned with the Norman Latin poem itself. The editor disputes the theory that the poet has an actual woman in mind and convincingly argues that she is "probably a fictitious character based loosely upon her two biblical forebears" (p. 26). The poem, which is 141 lines long, survives in one manuscript, Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, lat. 8121A, dated on paleographic grounds to the second half of the eleventh century and copied in eastern France. In addition to two pieces of prose there .are four poems in the manuscript, two named as satires by Warner of Rouen, and two anonymous,jezebel, and Semiramis. The latter are similar in vocabulary, phraseology, sources, and themes and were probably composed by the same author, "either Warner himself or a member of his circle" (p. 37). The third part of the book contains a transcription of the manuscript, an edition of the poem based on the transcription, a translation, and a commentary. Jezebel is written as a question-and-answer dialogue, a very popular form (cf. catechisms and colloquies). It is a wrangle between Jezebel and her interlocutor, couched in language that resembles the double-entendres of OldEnglish riddles. The Latin is extremely difficult and full of ambiguities. Jezebel's answers can be very direct. For instance, she is asked why she is an adulterer ("Die cur moecharis") and she replies: "Uulue respondeat ignis" ("Let the fire of the vulva respond to that"; line 62). Often she is ambiguous, as, for example, when she says: "Poterit cognoscere luscus" (line 105), which literally means, "The man who is blind in one...