The Love Debate Poems of Christine de Pizan: Le Livre du debat de deux amans, Le Livre des Trois jugemens, Le Livre du Dit de Poissy by Barbara K. Altmann (review)

REVIEWS ual passions is deep-cooled by impersonal constructions and abstract language in the presentation of this and other topics. Felipe Fernandez­ Armesto's chapter on "Exploration and Discovery" is unforgettably vivid in its evocation of individual explorers, some unsavory, but never dwells on the victims. At any rate, this is a vitally up-to-date and very well produced intro­ duction to a complex period of European history that will open up the interest of that century for those who may still dismiss it. I found only one typo (the wrong font on p. 756), and was disappointed by only one plate (13, where the embossed scene is difficult to see). Rather than simply "reference," this is recommended reading for all medieval and Renaissance scholars, for it will provoke much consideration both ofaca­ demically divided "periods" and their disciplinary separation. Indeed, its publication is an event of great importance in European historiogra­ phy and an opportunity to contemplate Europe's history and develop­ ments as a whole, even at a moment when several comprehensive his­ tories of Europe have already charted new ways of imagining so vast, destructive, and productive a culture. ANDREW GALLOWAY Cornell University BARBARA K. ALTMANN. The Love Debate Poems ofChristine de Pizan: Le Livre du debat de deux amans, Le Livre des Trois jugemens, Le Livre du Dit de Poissy. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1998. Pp. 294; 4 color plates. $49.95. In this exemplary edition Barbara K. Altmann offers us the three debate poems by Christine de Pizan, composed between 1400 and 1403 and last edited by Maurice Roy in the late nineteenth century. Roy based his edition on manuscript Paris, BNF 835, while Altmann chose London, British Library, Harley 4431, the presentation copy prepared by Chris­ tine de Pizan herself for queen Isabeau de Baviere. As has become clear in recent years, this manuscript provides superior readings for many of Christine's texts. Altmann has done a superb job not only in considering the codicolog­ ical and philological questions her texts raise but also in providing 445 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER a stimulating and thorough discussion of the genre of the love debate and its place in Christine's thought on women and the conventions of courtly love. The long introduction (eighty-three pages) provides a good overview of Christine's works in general and then focuses on Christine's attitude toward courtly love, which she "simultaneously (engages} and (dis­ misses}" (p. 5). With this insightful remark Altmann has put her finger on the central achievement of these texts: while ostensibly forming part of an established literary tradition, represented especially well by Guil­ laume de Machaut, they at the same time undermine it by questioning and reorienting its very premises. Altmann begins with very helpful synopses of the poems and then goes on to examine the genres that fed into the love debate poems, the jeu-parti and especially the dit, characterized, according to Jacqueline Cerquiglini, by "discontinuity," by the presence of the writer within the text and by his or her identity as a "writer-clerk" (p. 13). Altmann high­ lights this discontinuity particularly for the Dit de Poissy, where a long and detailed description of women's life in a religious community (the Dominican abbey of Poissy, home to many royal ladies, as well as Chris­ tine's daughter) is juxtaposed with a debate between a mournful lady and a squire. The result of this juxtaposition is, as Altmann demon­ strates convincingly, an indictment of courtly love as hollow and un­ happy (p. 14). Further, the fact that no actual judgment is rendered (unlike in the debate poems by Guillaume de Machaut) shifts the dy­ namic away from the actual debate-which in the Poissy focuses on who is more unhappy in love-to the relationship between the writer and the patron. In fact, all three poems defer the actual pronouncing of the sentence to the extratextual patron. In one of the most interesting sections of the introduction, Altmann examines the relationship of the three poems to each other; she suggests that "One simple and mildly provocative formula might be to say that Deux amans treats love from...