A proper dyaloge betwene a Gentillman and an Husbandman ed. by Douglas H. Parker (review)

HUMANITIES 189 extensively ~om Italian, French,Spanish,and Latinis not particularlyuserfriendly . (THOMAS HEALY) Douglas H. Parker, editor. A proper dyaloge betwene aGentillman and an Husbandman University of Toronto Press. x, 292. $55.00 The deficit. Language rights. Identity politics. Civil disobedience. Distrust of those in power. Rather than a description of our late twentieth-century political landscape, this is actually a synopsis of the issues addressed by a little-known English Reformation dialogue. A proper dyaloge betwene a Gentillman and an Husbandman (1529-)0) presents a spirited attack on the clergy for bringing the whole nation into debt by land-grabbing and advocates disenfranchising them six years before the dissolution of the monasteries. The dialogue deplores the tyrannical - and not unrelatedburning of books and heretics, arguing for the translation of the Bible into the vernacular. And the interlocutors, a landed gentleman and a labouring ploughman who represent two opposite ends of the social scale, consider making a trip to London to present their views to parliament advising the complete separation of secular and ecclesiastical powers. As well as its historical appeal as a contribution to Reformation polemics, this text is valuable to current discussions of the sociology of knowledge, the codicology of the early book, and - most important - the neglected field of English dialogue studies. One example may serve to illustrate the nexus of these interests: when the gentleman says that no one until now has complained against the worldlypossessions ofthe clergy, the husbandman disagrees and produces an old treatise to prove it - which he reads in the text. The inclusion of this Lollard treatise, plus a second one on translating scripture appended at the end of the dialogue, supply moments of literary interest as well as legitimating Reformation claims via the authority of Lollard, and through them more ancient English precedents. Notably, the work contains in ovo many of the concerns of English dialogue literature of the sixteenth century: the interclass debate harkmg back to medieval estates satire; the focus on social and economic theory and practical applications thereof; the discussion of contemporary events anticipating the growth of dialogues into newsbooks; the use of dialogue to foreground issues of literacy, pedagogy, and the circulation of texts; and the interlocution itself typical of the home-grown English variant of the genre - identifiable with neither classical norcontinental Renaissance exemplars. Aside from the dialogues of canonical authors like More whose entire CEuvre has been edited, the appearance of A propel' dyaloge doubles the number of popular English Reformation dialogues available in modem critical edition, following as it does Parker's 1992 edition of the satiric dialogue Rede Me and Be Nott Wrothe (1528) byJerome Barlowe and William 190 LETTERS IN CANADA 1996 Roye. At this rate ofproduction, the two-hundred-and-forty-odd sixteenthcentury English dialogues may soon achieve their rightful place in the consciousness of scholars of the period, removing the cloak of invisibility which still shrouds the genre. Parker's edition aids this discovery by providing a readily accessible version of the text with an exhaustive critical apparatus which helpfully contextualizes the dialogue within contemporary themes and debates. This is a careful edition, marked by clarity and thoroughness, and its appearance is important to the future of English dialogue studies. It is regrettable, however, that the editor feels it necessary to adopt an apologetic tone with regard to his text, notingits lack ofliterary distinction, its inferiority to Rede Me and Be Nott Wroth, and even doubting its dialogue status: whether A proper dyaloge is 'a proper dialogue' at all. The commentary on this text is proportionately three times that of Parker's edition of Rede Me, which seems to communicate ananxiety to legitimate publication. The notes continue arguments discussed in the introduction - e.g., that Barlowe and Roye were the authors of this dialogue too, or that Tyndale was the editor of the second treatise - as further attempts to authorize the text? The weight of the apparatus threatens to divert the reader's attention from the ephemeral nature of this early pamphlet as the text almost sinks beneath the abundance of references and quotations from better-known Reformation tracts. But it is most regrettable that A proper dyaloge is classified...