New Readings of Late Medieval Love Poems ed. by David Chamberlain (review)

STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER The French Tradition and the Literature ofMedieval England is not only an immensely useful work of synthesis, the fruit of one scholar's enormous labor of pursuing complex and long-standing disputes and reading an in­ credibly long list ofdifficult primary sources. It is also a genially polemical book, for it argues convincingly that the field described as "the literature of medieval England" must be remapped to include works written in England but in French, even as those works thought to be "English" be­ cause of their language must be seen as part of an unbroken series of cultural connections reaching to continental France. Ifthe task ofthe com­ paratist is to challenge the disciplinary separation of national literatures by showing how political boundaries are easily crossed by multicultural ex­ changes, then William Calin has succeeded in this well-written, exten­ sively documented, and amazingly erudite study. His book should be read closely by all ofus who think we have been specializing in "the literature of medieval England" but have hitherto neglected worthy texts and their interrelations. R. BARTON PALMER Clemson University DAVID CHAMBERLAIN, ed. New Readings ofLate Medieval Love Poems. Lan­ ham, Md., New York, and London: University Press of America, 1993. Pp. v, 198. $44.50 cloth, $23.50 paper. This slim volume consists of essays by seven authors on late-medieval courtly love poems written or translated into Middle English or Middle Scots. Almost a third ofthis book can be attributed to David Chamberlain, who in addition to writing the introduction has authored one essay, "Clan­ vowe's Cuckoo," and coauthored another with Susan Schoon Eberly, "'Un­ der the Schaddow of the Hawthorne Greene': The Hawthorn in Medieval Love Poetry." The remaining contributors and essays are Bryan Crockett, "Venus Unveiled: Lydgate's Temple ofGlas and the Religion ofLove"; Claire F. James, "The Kingis Quair: The Plight of the Courtly Lover"; Melissa Brown Tomus, "The Hope for 'Pleasaunce': Richard Roos' Translation of Alain Chartier's La Belle Dame Sans Mercy"; Cynthia Lockard Snyder, "The Floure and the Leafe: An Alternative Approach"; and Bonita Friedman, "In Love's Thrall: The Court ofLove and Its Captives." As Chamberlain's useful 190 REVIEWS introduction makes clear, despite the book's varied authorship, the essays are conceived as a coherent collection, unified through the use of the same critical approach and through the authors' familiarity and agreement with each other's conclusions. Chamberlain describes the approach as an "attempt to be historical criti­ cism of a broad and sensitive kind, drawing on a wide range of cultural resources, religious, social, literary, and philosophical" (p.2).The approach emphasizes "the texts themselves, their cultural context, and the literary tradition of the genre" (p.2).It is especially interested in "careful analysis of imagery as a means to determining the presence of humor and irony" (p.2), and in "the poems' likely meaning to their original audiences" (p.2). Although the terms "patristic" and "exegetical" are rarely found in this volume, the approach described and utilized is of course patristic criticism. While the emphasis in the volume is on specific readings of specific texts, Chamberlain's statement that "all the coherences are intended to create a more substantial and convincing body of criticism" (p.3), with each essay "contribut(ing} something to the persuasiveness of the others" (p.3), makes clear the additional intent to make a contribution toward further understanding and acceptance of exegetical criticism.One value of this volume, then, is the opportunity it provides to see how patristic criticism of the nineties compares with its earlier versions.As Chamberlain rightly notes, to assess the usefulness of a critical approach, it is helpful to have several examples marshalled together. Chamberlain's invitation to "test the validity" of his approach marks a clear difference in tone and emphasis in Chamberlain's description of pa­ tristic criticism from that ofsuch earlier practitioners ofthe approach as its originator, who was also Chamberlain's teacher, D.W Robertson, Jr.No longer stressing exegetical criticism as the only authentic approach, and no longer merely dismissing all other approaches as modern and therefore "wrong," Chamberlain clearly strives to present a criticism for the...