An unrulyparlement of ovidians

Abstract

As the preface to this collection of twelve essays indicates (pp. 7-8), Desiring Discourse began its gestation in a 1989 NEH summer seminar focused on Chaucer's Troilus in which some of the ultimate contributors took part but reflects ongoing conversation over several years which drew others into the project and saw it expand to make explicit the set of subtexts, Latin and French, that comprise a goodly portion of the medieval "literature of love" (pp. 7, 20). The volume itself affords a valuable opportunity for readers to think about the patch of discourse that stretched temporally from "Ovid through Chaucer," as the title has it, without claiming how could it? to have explored the terrain in an exhaustive fashion. Though the editors do not avail themselves of the medieval model, one might see them as presiding over a contemporary "council of love." If so, they are indulgent sovereigns. Though the introduction (by Paxson; on this more at the conclusion of this review) undertakes to explain how all twelve essays contribute to the overall aim and design of the volume, my experience of the collection is that while not a few do focus on the central theme, others seem to head in very different directions. They vary in other ways as well. While all are in English, they speak a great range of critical dialects, and while that is by no means a defect, the editors, who clearly perceived this (cf. Paxson on p. 20), did not attempt to provoke dialogue between and among the entries. Neither did the editors impose on their contributors regularity in the trivial matter of length. While the average length of the contributions (notes included) works out to just over sixteen pages, five of the essays are quite short (10-12 pp. each), while four are almost twice as long (21-23 pp.). This is neither here nor there, and as I shall have occasion to point out, excellent contributions fall at either end of this scale. But what I fear may underlie this, and what appears to me as the gravest consequence of the editors' apparent laissez faire approach, is that they did not decide, given the overall size of the book, to exercise stricter control and perhaps even exclude some chapters that did not contribute as directly to the volume's theme. I understand the personal and political difficulties that this editorial obligation entails, especially if the volume was intended to represent and commemorate a series of exchanges inspired by Robert Hanning, director of the originary seminar and acknowledged (p. 8) as tutelary divinity of the whole enterprise, but a more focused collection of perhaps 8-10 essays might have served readers better. Indeed, while length and quality do not always go hand in hand, my sense is that some of the contributors did not have sufficient scope fully to develop their arguments, and possibly for this reason do not appear in the best light. The editors seized the opportunity offered by the essays themselves and divided the collection, in "accord ... with chronological and linguistic or national tradition" (p. 20), into three parts each containing four pieces. Part 1 bears the subtitle "Desiring through Ovid, Ancient and Medieval," and includes the contributions of Sarah Spence, Joan G. Haahr, Warren Ginsberg, and Anne Howland Schotter. Part 2, "Desiring through the Troubadours, Desiring through the Lais of Marie de France," has pieces by Simon Gaunt, Charlotte Gross, Sanda Pierson Prior, and Robert W. Hanning. Part 3, "Chauce-