Retelling Tales: Essays in Honor of Russell Peck ed. by Thomas Hahn and Alan Lupack (review)

STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER Century," finds a "mini-boom" in trade between England and Portugal during Richard's reign, encouraged by political ties, especially as the significant Anglo-Gascon trade inversely suffered from political ten­ sions. Two final essays consider issues ofhealth care. J. M. Theilmann exam­ ines "The Regulation of Public Health in Late Medieval England." The picture is not encouraging: only the market seems to have governed health issues; the crown largely passed on any regulation to local author­ ities and to physicians, surgeons, barber surgeons, and apothecaries­ all of whom may have been more interested in protecting their career interests than patients' health. David K. Maxfield examines one partic­ ular institution for the poor in "St. Anthony's Hospital, London: A Pardoner-Supported Alien Priory, 1219-1461." By the fourteenth cen­ tury, the hospital, which cared for a dozen old men, had itself become rich and lasted until the Reformation; it could have been supported by Chaucer's pardoner. The range of topics is matched by that among the scholars contribut­ ing, some newcomers joining well-established academics. James Gilles­ pie is to be commended for editing the collection, ofinterest to scholars in a number of fields. One wonders why a good scholar has found it necessary to be, as he describes himself, in "exile from American acade­ mia" (p. 5). RICHARD W. KAEUPER University of Rochester THOMAS HAHN and ALAN LUPACK, eds. Retelling Tales: Essays in Honor of Russell Peck. Woodbridge, Suffolk: D. S. Brewer, 1997. Pp. vi, 359. $71.00. This collection of seventeen essays honors Russell Peck and recognizes his long association with the University of Rochester. The theme of the volume is described in its title, Retelling Tales-a theme that proves to be an apt one for organizing the diverse contributions, which reflect the broad scholarly and teaching interests of the honorand. Naturally the emphasis falls on Middle English literature, but also included are essays on medievalism and the Cinderella legend. 356 REVIEWS The volume begins propitiously with Derek Brewer's wide-ranging exploration of various aspects of the phenomenon of narrative retelling. Topics such as truth verification, repetition and variation, intertextu­ ality, and inconsistency are briefly discussed in general, yet very sugges­ tive, terms. The essay raises critical issues rather than arriving at conclu­ sions, as it opens the discussion of the many theoretical and critical questions that are raised by the act ofreworking already known material in both oral and literate cultures. Theresa Coletti's substantial examination of the different versions of the traditional story of Herod as it appears in medieval mystery plays supports her thesis that the variants are the result of a conscious under­ standing by the authors of the plays ofthe narrative's capacity to articu­ late contemporary social and political concerns. Alfred David contributes a graceful discussion of Chaucer's different Adams in The Monks Tale, The Nun'.r Priest's Tale, and elsewhere. The result is a series of insightful readings of several tales, especially The Pardoner's Tale, where David calls attention to the sexual associations of the verb "struggle," used to describe the plan to murder the youngest brother. John Fleming's essay on the Wife of Bath's exegetical strategies begins with the useful reminder that The Canterbury Tales is not, prop­ erly speaking, a collection of tales, but a collection of retellings of tales. This distinction is used to good effect to expound the significance ofthe Wife's literal-minded retelling of the Midas story, which articulates what Fleming sees as the major theme ofthe Wife's Prologue, "the chasm separating surface and substance, letter and spirit" (p. 89). Thomas Hahn compares different versions of the tale of the Loathly Lady, which forms the basis of The Wife ofBath's Tale. Hahn shows, in a complex argument, that Chaucer's retelling, narrated by a woman, reflects a particular kind of historically determined female conscious­ ness, one that reinforces for a bourgeois audience the ideals ofheterosex­ ual desire. Ronald Herzman's essay on Christine de Pizan's Book of the City of Ladies examines the role of Virgil and the Bible in shaping Christine's work, inventively comparing Christine...