The Politics of Middle English Parables: Fiction, Theology, and Social Practice by Mary Raschko (review)

This study examines adaptations of Gospel parables in a broad range of Middle English texts. In a departure from standard ways of thinking about the relationship between literature and exegesis (e.g., deference to allegorical interpretation, and to the static authority of Latin textual tradition), the mode of reception envisioned here is a generative one. Not only did adaptation produce new scriptural narratives, it also led to the formation of what Raschko calls "parabolic fiction," which she singles out for its "socially and spiritually engaged" poetics (6). Variously evinced in poems, sermons, Gospel harmonies, and devotional treatises, parabolic fiction sought "to reconcile the divine word with the lived experience of late medieval culture" (5). Whereas previous claims for the significance of parables have tended to stress their ubiquity and their normative mediating functions, especially in sermons, this book instead attends to their structural and formal variability as narratives; such an approach is justified by the fact that parabolic fiction shares in the enigmatic, often fragmentary nature of its grounding biblical material, distinguishing such stories (so it is claimed) from related genres such as exemplary writing or psalmic adaptations, and soliciting a critical method sensitive to their provocative textual contingencies. Accordingly, each chapter unfolds dialectically, pairing a specific parable with key literary retellings, in long stretches delineating patterns of textual revision, with manuscript issues largely confined to the notes. Thoroughly researched and meticulously argued, The Politics of Middle English Parables succeeds in its ambitious effort to contextualize a uniquely paradoxical and suggestive body of late medieval religious writing.

Chapter 1 discusses the parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard (Mt 20:1–16), arguing that competing salvation theologies came into focus through its retelling in sermons and poetry. The long Wycliffite sermon cycle, Thomas Wimbledon's sermon Redde rationem villicationis tue, and John Mirk's Festial all reinforce the parable's liturgical associations by stressing "a reciprocal relationship between doing good works and receiving heavenly reward" (33). But if such adaptations upheld "a social structure in which labourers serve the material interests of more elite classes," the version of the vineyard parable we encounter in Pearl, Raschko argues in the last section of the chapter, challenges "the very foundation of a merit-based economy," instead emphasizing the abundance and sufficiency of God's grace (35, 46). Complicating literary-historical models that exalt the inert and self-enclosed aesthetics of alliterative poetry, this chapter shows how Pearl recasts parabolic material for audiences struggling to live virtuously in the world.

Chapter 2 continues the book's focus on paraliturgical contexts for spiritual instruction and lay theological inquiry. Here Raschko tracks adaptations of the Prodigal Son story (Lk 15:11–32) in sermons (the Northern Homily Cycle and edited selections from London, British Library, Royal MS 18 B.XXIII) and Middle English lives of Christ (the Pepysian Gospel Harmony, the South English Ministry and Passion, the Mirour of Mans Saluacioun), showing how it functioned in these texts as a highly adaptable catechetical script. Throughout the narrative's different versions, subtle but significant shifts in language, style, form, and storyline imaginatively restage the parable's confessional scene (a father who forgives his errant son) to accommodate variations in penitential belief and practice. The chapter concludes with an extended discussion of the (possibly Wycliffite) Book to a Mother. Here, Raschko joins other scholars—namely Nicole Rice and Fiona Somerset—whose work has recently inspired critical reassessments of this fascinating but deeply ambiguous text. As she shows, Book to a Mother dramatically embodies the diversity surrounding late medieval Prodigal Son narratives, both translating the Gospel parable directly and then rewriting the story in commentary so as to make the episode "function more effectively as a guide to Christian living" (82). The extended scope in this analysis dedicated to use and instrumentality rather than ideological affiliation makes sense given how Raschko frames the transformative ethical effects of sermons and vitae...