The Apocalyptic Imagination in Medieval Literature by Richard K. Emmerson, Ronald B. Herzman (review)

REVIEWS RICHARD K. EMMERSON AND RONALD B. HERZMAN. The Apocalyptic Imagination in Medieval Literature. Philadelphia: University of Pennsyl­ vania Press, 1992. Pp. xi, 244. $27.95. The purpose of Emmerson and Herzman's study is surprisingly simple: they hope to demonstrate the pervasiveness of "the apocalyptic imagina­ tion" in medieval literature. In doing so, they have chosen a daunting array of authors, each represented in one of the book's five chapters: (1) Joachim ofFiore (they cite mainly his Liber Figurarum and his Expositio in Apocalyp­ sim); (2) Bonaventure's Legenda Maior; (3) Jean de Meun's continuation of the Roman de la Rose (focusing on the figures of Faus Semblant and Aste­ nance Contrainte); (4) Dante's Commedia (focusing on Inferno 19); and (5) Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. As they candidly admit in their preface: It has certainly occurred to us from time to time that such an enterprise as we have undertaken might well be construed as an act of terminal hubris, dealing as we do with so many seminal texts, any one of which could fruitfully engage the scholarly energies of a lifetime. We are especially grateful, then, to be able to share the blame with an improbably large number of friends and colleagues. [p. ix} What is striking about the ensuing list is the astonishingly large number of students who must "share the blame" as well: the authors developed the ideas for the book while team-teaching a course at Georgetown University, while working together to oversee the NEH's seminar programs, and while teaching at a variety of institutions. Perhaps most tellingly, Herzman thanks the "participants in NEH School Teachers Seminars in Dante and Chaucer, who kept their sights and their director's on what was important" (p. x). These comments mark the book as an all-too-rare instance ofschol­ arship written explicitly from and for engagement with students and scholars. I stress this for two reasons: First, although lip service is often paid to the pedagogical benefits supposedly deriving from active research by faculty, much of what we publish is aimed exclusively at an audience of professional scholars, and certainly very little ofit can claim to have been­ like recipe books-tested in our own kitchens. Emmerson and Herzman deserve credit for caring enough to try to bridge the gap between class­ room and conference intelligently. Second, the book adopts in places a teacherly tone, providing explanations, caveats, and apologies for things which most scholars in the field would take for granted, or simple summa189 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER ries ofthings some scholars might wish to see elaborated or debated. More­ over, the study does not, by and large, aim to contribute new knowledge to the scholarship on these five authors, although it does contribute thought­ ful opinions on ongoing scholarly controversies and insights based on Em­ merson and Herzman's detailed knowledge of Apocalypse iconography. Its primary goal, rather, is one of consciousness raising for students and for scholars new to the area of apocalyptic themes in literature. As the authors say, "If there is a polemical thrust to our work, it is that the apocalyptic imagination is more widespread, more subtle, and more significant than has been previously understood." There is also another polemical thrust to the book: the authors wish to prove that an apocalyptic imagination is more orthodox than has been previ­ ously understood. This is a complex issue, but Emmerson and Herzman's position on it is sensible. Since the influential work ofNorman Cohn, there has been a tendency to associate apocalypticism with revolutionary thought, and the authors have rightly thrown their weight behind the movement to redress this balance. If there is any aspect of the book which may take an afficionado of apocalypticism by surprise, it is the fact that the opening chapter is about Joachim of Fiore, a bold and somewhat polemical gesture apparently made in support of their view that "apocalypticism is neither revolutionary nor unorthodox, that eschatology is a key aspect of ordinary Christian thought" (p. 148). Although the scholarly battle to establish Joachim's orthodoxy has now pretty well been won, his apocalyp­ tic thought is usually regarded as "alternative...