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Johnson, David F. and Elaine Treharne, eds., Readings in Medieval Texts: Interpreting Old and Middle English Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Pp xii + 400, and 8 plates. £20.00. ISBN 0-19-926163-6. Reviewed by Richard Dance Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic University of Cambridge As the Introduction to this important new collection indicates, its twenty- five chapters are aimed primarily at students taking courses in Old and Middle English literature, and it is intended that the remarks of the leading scholars here assembled should constitute a range of ways for the beginner into reading a body of literature whose attitudes and contexts may appear "alien at first glance" (1). Each piece addresses a text or group of texts that can be considered representative of a genre, aiming to evaluate their characteristics and the major relevant scholarly concerns, and "reading strategies are proposed to highlight particular methods and approaches of understanding the nature, form, and function of the texts (1) that can be applied by students more broadly in their encounters with early English literature." The different essays in fact interpret this broad remit in a wide variety of ways, some offering a handbook-style tour through the basics as their main raison d'etre and pausing only briefly over some sample close reading, others (notably Conner's) eschewing full coverage in order to present ground-breaking new theories that absolute beginners will find more daunting; there are also some big (and highly canonical) texts that feature only very briefly, including The Canterbury Tales and Piers Plowman. But it is a measure of the success of this volume that its diverse approaches jostle along so well with one another, offering in sum a novel
collection that presents students with a stimulating range of styles and types of critical introductions to a very broad body of literature. It is highly recommended. The book begins with Elaine Treharne's scene-setting "The context of medieval literature," a pithy, concise survey of the main features of English literature during the period that includes enlightening comments on the types of literary production, and that explores the relationships between author and audience, and tradition and innovation. Eleven essays follow primarily concerned with aspects of Old English Literature. The first is Sarah Larratt Keefer's "Old English religious poetry," which introduces the parameters of its topic with a look at Caedmon's Hymn and a survey of the tradition before focussing on a detailed reading of (parts of) The Dream of the Rood and forms an interesting discussion out of the productive tension between heroic and Christian themes in the poem. In "The Old English elegy: a historicization," Patrick W. Conner offers a more specific study, treating only certain of the poems normally labelled "elegies" (primarily The Seafarer , plus The Wanderer , The Riming Poem and Resignation ) in order to advance the fascinating hypothesis that these texts should be read in the context of the "Exeter burial guild" statutes in BL Cotton Tiberius B. v, and of the value their audience would place on "monastic capital;" this is an engrossing piece of close reading in the light of a particular context of reception. Jonathan Wilcox, in "Tell me what I am": the Old English riddles," then presents a readable and witty guide to the essentials of the Riddle genre and what makes it tick, with particular forays into the sexual "double entendre" variety and the formal effects enjoyed by riddling poets. Jill Frederick's "Warring with words: Cynewulf's Juliana " deftly introduces Anglo-Saxon hagiography via a close reading of Cynewulf's poem, especially in the light of battlefield imagery and the themes of flyting, siege, and the lord-thegn relationship. Rolf H. Bremmer Jr. is then set the task of introducing "Old English
motherhood, and history") then supplies a fascinating introduction to the application of feminist literary theory to Old English verse, and aims in particular thereby to shed new light on "the myriad of gender stereotypes that have accrued to motherhood" (150); she focusses on Elene (with comparisons to other Old English literary presentations of women, and their contextualization in historical reality), to show that (151) "Cynewulf's account of motherhood both draws on and recasts the meanings typically assigned to mothering in Anglo- Saxon heroic poetry." The final chapter dedicated to Old English is then Thomas D. Hill's "Wise words: Old English sapiential poetry," which productively probes the definition of a 'sapiential" genre during the period and explores its background, suggesting ways of getting beyond the odd flavour many of these texts carry for a modern readership via a close reading of their contextual subtleties (with a focus on aspects of predestination in Solomon and Saturn II ). The following chapter, the first of thirteen on Middle English texts, finds James H. Morey introducing "Middle English didactic literature," a fascinating approach to a corpus whose attitudes Morey suggests can be taken as underlying everything else in Middle English literature, and which culminates in a close reading of four passages (from The Book of Margery Kempe , Sir Gawain and the Green Knight , The Pricke of Conscience and Handlyng Synne ) with reference to how different types of bodies "enact and represent" Christ's suffering. Similarly enlightening is Denis Renevey's "Middle English writings for women: Ancrene Wisse ," which focuses on the representation of communities and social networks, the spaces these create and the constructions of subjectivity that they permit, in the famous guide for recluses. Another crucially important early Middle English text, La3amon's Brut , is the focus of the next piece, "The Middle English Brut chronicles," in which David F. Johnson probes La3amon's treatment of his main source (Wace's Roman de Brut ), particularly in the light of the important relationship it manifests between wisdom and the use of
violence in the portrayal of kingship (especially that of Arthur). Peter J. Lucas's "Earlier verse romance" surveys the English romances of the pre-Ricardian period, with particular reference to the appropriation of the "Breton lay," focussing mainly on Sir Orfeo in order to explore its depiction of the bonds of love and loyalty (with some comparison to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight ). Another generic-sounding title, "Middle English debate literature," likewise gives Alan J. Fletcher the opportunity to home in on one particular representative (or, as he argues, perhaps not so representative) text, with its stimulating reading of The Owl and the Nightingale ; context is the focus here, as Fletcher deals in some detail with the circumstances of the poem's composition (advocating a date in the range 1272-84, and a clerical circle in Guildford), and ponders the issues thereby raised about the nature and social function of the text's dialectic. Another highlight of the volume comes next, in the shape of Mary Swan's "Religious writing by women:" this provides a useful introduction to(in particular) Revelations of Divine Love and The Book of Margery Kempe , including their nature as "mystical" texts and scholarly foci such as the tension between their authors' status as women and as spiritual authorities; but it is most notable for its exemplary, practical demonstration of close critical reading, with aneye on categories such as voice, vocabulary, syntax, etc., presentedin such a way that beginning students will find exceptionally helpful. The next chapter is the first to tackle one of the major canonical later fourteenth-century texts, as Michael W. Twomey takes on "The Gawain -poet": focussing on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight itself, Twomey carefully situates the work in its literary (and text-critical) context and examines its chivalric and religious themes from a variety of critical approaches, stressing the value of a close reading of its "rich and purposeful" language. Andrew Galloway's survey of "Middle English prologues" ranges more widely, in what is a compelling and learned meditation on the nature and role of the prologue in medieval
different) interest in the body of Christ and the Eucharist, with an emphasis on affective piety and the plays" theatricality and ability to provoke humour.
