Chaucer and the Death of the Political Animal by Jameson S. Workman (review)

By the time this review goes to print it will by some standards be slightly untimely, but Workman will appreciate its untimeliness because in this book he combats historicism, which he argues misunderstands the nature of poetry. The “death of the political animal” in his title is probably a pun referring both to humans as political animals (who may die in the political world but continue living in the real world) and the “animal” that he sees political, historicist theories to have become—an animal that should be put to a swift death (whether painless or not). Workman argues that historicism unfairly elides the timelessness of poetry, which he approaches via that oft-heralded (yet all too rarely demonstrated) art of close reading, to which he adds an interest in poetry’s relation to philosophy—especially Platonic philosophy—and a refreshing playfulness. Chaucer himself might chuckle with knowing approval upon encountering Workman’s deft juggling of game and ernest. Workman is flippant in his book much as Chaucer is flippant in his poetry—but flippancy can be deadly serious.

Workman begins his book with such serious flippancy by imitating the see-mingly upside-down manner of thinking and writing made famous by Lewis Carroll. Chapter 1, “Poetry’s Old War,” which serves as the introduction, briefly considers the historical relation between philosophy and poetry before Workman admits, “I’m less concerned with how the philosophy arrived than how it worked” (3). He then outlines his methodology and the remaining chapters of the book. His methodology is a-historicist (even anti-historicist) and seeks to reveal the timeless, Platonic character of Chaucer’s poetry. With its emphasis on the Platonic, one could compare Workman’s book to other work on Chaucer by Robert Myles (especially Chaucerian Realism, 1994) and David Williams (e.g., Chaucer and Language, 2001, co-edited with Myles), to work on the Pearl-poet by Piotr Spyra (i.e., The Epistemological Perspective of the Pearl-Poet, 2014), to the broad collection of essays titled Platonism and the English Imagination (1994) edited by Anna Baldwin and Sarah Hutton, and to work on texts outside of the English literary tradition such as Winthrop Wetherbee’s Platonism and Poetry in the Twelfth Century: The Literary Influence of the School of Chartres (1972) and K. Sarah-Jane Murray’s From Plato to Lancelot: A Preface to Chrétien de Troyes (2008). Workman’s study differs from these primarily in his emphasis on the metapoetic and his understanding of poetry as ahistorical. In Workman’s own words, “Chaucer’s poetry actively and ironically asserts itself as poetic philosophy or metapoetics. It is neither purely the product of its time nor a poetic vision of its time, but a poetic vision of itself and of poetry, writ large” (10). Workman’s interest in the metapoetic and the timeless continue throughout the book.

If, then, by some standards this review is already untimely, by others it is perfectly timely, for any time to respond to such a book is a good time, and this book deserves a wide audience. Indeed, Workman’s opening chapter should prove worthwhile reading both because of its interest in poetry qua poetry and because of its unique style. Workman’s criticism is at once more poetic and more learned than most. He simultaneously crafts and sustains more of his own metaphors, alludes to a wider body of primary and secondary sources, and even employs a wider array of technical terms than the typical literary critic. Such poeticality and learnedness could be vices and well as virtues; either in isolation could render a work of criticism obscure, so the two together could doubly do so. I had to read Workman’s writing rather slowly, but when I checked my desire to skim I enjoyed reading it slowly. I admittedly cannot myself appreciate a few of his allusions and technical...