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REVIEWS others in her defense (2.683-86)? Can one say that the summoner of the Friar's tale enters into a pact with "the devil himself' (p. 166), when he is but a singlefiend (3.1448, 1475, 1506)? If the Ellesmere order is a "right" reading of Chaucer's philosophical intent, is it consonant to cite lines not in the Ellesmere (p. 157)? Finally, while I approve the manu­ script form Custance in preference to Constance, I wonder at nonmanu­ script Cecilia and Griselda in preference to Cecile and Grisild(e). Crucial to the intentionattributed to the Ellesmereredactor is the chi­ asmic arrangement of fragment divisions; but, if Chaucer's fragments represent divisio, why did he fail to link 3, 4, and 5 into the single philo­ sophical story-block where Astell places them? Putting her entire chias­ mic relationship in question is the fact that there are only eight "struc­ tural" breaks in the Tales and, hence, nine fragments "necessary for topical location, and thus for meaning." The publisher's presentation of the text is agreeable, though there are repetitions of blanket footnotes and unnecessary appeals to "as readers have noted" (e.g., pp. 136-37). I spotted only one obvious typo--Sorseynt Leonard (p. 16). To my taste, this book is filling of fact and rich of speculation, though I miss the Chaucer who indulges in the pleasure of learning and is joy­ ful in the jest it affords him even with the sentence of the theologians. Saturnine and ludic Chaucers are not incompatible (even Hamlet, short of playmates in the dour courts of Denmark, had his moments of merri­ ment); but, my own idiosyncratic taste must not take attention from the splendid achievement of this book, which will stir debate on many a crit­ ical terrain. Above all, Astell is everywhere to be taken seriously. She ar­ gues with conviction, commitment, and sincerity. PAUL BEEKMAN TAYLOR University of Geneva CATHERINE BATT, ed. Essays on Thomas Hoccleve. Westfield Publications in Medieval Studies, vol. 10. Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London. Turnhout: Brepols, 1996. Pp. ix, 130. Np. Catherine Batt begins her introduction to this welcome collection with a quote from Hoccleve's Series in which the author fears being thought 229 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER a "double man" for both praising and blaming women in his works. The current interest of literary and cultural critics in Hoccleve has much to do with his "doubleness," the precarious balance in his works between public and private voices, masculine and feminine self-images, sanity and madness. Hoccleve's ambivalent approaches to a range of intertexts, especially his "master" Chaucer's poems, together with his endless ques­ tioning of his own poetic practices, make him a compelling subject for postmodern interpretations. These essays, originally delivered at a conference at the University of London, add to the growing body of new theoretical approaches to Hoccleve. Charles Blyth's "Editing the Regiment of Princes" provides a sound argument for a textual methodology that will support these read­ ings by considering Hoccleve in his social and political contexts. Extending the commonsensical approach of David Greetham, his pre­ decessor as general editor of the Regement, Blyth presents the case for using Hoccleve's later holograph poems to reconstruct a "Hocclevean usage" and apply it to the poet's best-known work. AsBlyth points out, the survival of Hoccleve's holographs represents a uniquely well docu­ mented example of medieval authorship that can be both fruitfully the­ orized and put to practical editorial use. The prospect ofBlyth's new edi­ tion, a replacement of Furnivall's error-ridden 1897 EETS volume, should encourage .anyone interested in pursuing historicist study of Hoccleve. In "Chaucer, Christine de Pizan, and Hoccleve: The Letter of Cupid," Roger Ellis takes up the thorny question of what exactly Hoccleve does to Christine's Epistre au Dieu d'Amours. Both Christine and Hoccleve, Ellis suggests, walk a tightrope between antifeminist discourse and its feminist reworkings, especially since their poems are given the voice of a "male and divine" speaker. Ellis abandons earlier critics' attempts to assess Hoccleve's level of sympathy for women...

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