Crossing Boundaries: Issues of Cultural and Individual Identity in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (review)

230 Reviews volume. But caveat lector. M a y one really say that 'Julian thus deconstructs underlying principles at variance with her o w n insights' (p. xiv)? What is meant by claiming that the text 'transcends essentialist interpretations' (p. xvii)? In order to avoid essentialist arguments based on gender, does one turn instead to Julian's 'personal experience...whatever the cause' as she 'transforms [the Augustinian] paradigm to express her o w n unique vision' (p. 56)? Can w e say 'Lacanian theory might stipulate/would indicate' or 'As Lacanian theory might assert' (pp. 121,123 and 140)? Finally, as a gripe can I mention the use of a double hyphen without spacing in place of a dash: clumsy, tacky and ugly, especially when—as happens at least once—the item is split across the end of a line (p. 79). In every other respect I consider myself blest to o w n a copy. Judith Dale School of English, Film and Theatre Victoria University of Wellingto McKee, Sally, ed., Crossing Boundaries: Issues of Cultural and Individual Identity in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Arizona Studies in th Middle Ages and the Renaissance 3), Turnhout, Brepols, 1999; board; pp. xii, 283; R.R.P. not known. In her introduction to this collection of essays, the third in the seri sponsored by the Arizona Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, the editor, Sally McKee, explains that the nature of the papers which were submitted came as a surprise; in general they responded primarily to the idea of 'crossing boundaries', rather than to 'issues of cultural and individual identity' (p. vii). M c K e e goes on to stress the positive results of this, and rightly indicates the richness, breadth and depth of the response contained in the articles. However, despite the fine quality of the articles, as a collection centred around a theme, this volume is somewhat disappointing. The idea of 'crossing boundaries', it turns out, is too richly suggestive of too m a n y different possible approaches to strongly bind the parts into a fully satisfying whole. Although thetitlewould seem to indicate that a theoretical interest in issues of identity is what unites the papers, and M c K e e does offer an Reviews 231 extremely brief (one paragraph) review of theoretical approaches to 'crossing boundaries', theoretical issues are not actually emphasised. In most of the essays, explicit theoretical discussion does not occupy m u c h space; often there is only a superficial sentence or two to make it clear how an article's argument engages with the themes of the collection. In general, I greatly appreciate scholarly writing like the bulk of that in this volume, where theory is not the focus of the paper, but deployed as necessary for its explanatory or analytical use in grappling with an historical or textual problem. In the case of Crossing Boundaries, however, the vagueness of the central idea, along with the range of disciplines representee! in the collection, and the range of times and places covered, means that probably only an explicit and deliberate engagement with the designated themes of the volume could have provided sufficient c o m m o n ground. McKee's introduction is only a short overview, and in the available space cannot really pull together the articles to make a coherent book of them. Unfortunately (especially from m y o w n point of view, as an admirer of her work on Venetian Crete) M c K e e does not contribute a paper of her own, so w e cannot see h o w she herself would reconcile the demands of collection and article. Crossing Boundaries also has in full measure the virtues that result from the same factors that weaken somewhat its effectiveness as a collection. A broad array of disciplines is represented, including musicology, linguistics, and art history, as well as various different approaches to history and cultural and literary studies. Texts and issues from the period of Geoffrey of M o n m o u t h to that of John Locke are treated, and encompass material from England, France, Spain, Italy and Greece. Younger scholars...