Chaucer’s Troilus: Essays in Criticism ed. by Stephen A. Barney

Abstract

STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER For all its promise, therefore, the high intelligence and ingenuity which has gone into its making, and the brilliance of the opening chapters, this book goes down as an exciting failure. Like a rocket, it shoots off dramatically, explodes in a dazzling display of intellectual fireworks, and then slowly descends, growing more dim and indistinct all the time. At the end there is nothing to be seen. DEREK PEARSALL University of York STEPHEN A. BARNEY, ed., Chaucer's Troilus: Essays in Criticism. Hamden, Connecticut: Archon Books, 1980. Pp. x, 323. $17.50. There seems to be a need perceived for re-assessing the significance of Troilus and Criseyde, a kind of critical stock-taking. Alice R. Kaminsky (Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde and the Critics, Ohio University Press, 1980) recently did her own sifting and the headings of her chapters­ "The Historical Hypothesis," "The Psychological Approach"-indicate the partial synthesis of her results. The papers collected by Mary Salu (Essays on Troilus and Criseyde, D. S. Brewer, Rowman and Littlefield, 1979) are original contributions, but the approaches-textual, 'real­ ism,' Chaucerian comedy-are often traditional enough. And now a substantial collection ofseventeen essays ranges from Kittredge in 1915 to the three original contributions which close the volume. Two, C. S. Lewis, "What Chaucer Really Did to 'Il Filostrato' " and M. W. Bloomfield, "Distance and Predestination" were included in the anthol­ ogy by Schoeck and Taylor (University of Notre Dame Press, 1961), but these have stood the test of time so well that they deserved reprinting yet again. Why this concentration on Troilus? I supposebecause it is a single long poem, more manageable therefore than The Canterbury Tales, and furthermore because its courtliness looks back to Chaucer's early poetry and the subtlety of its characterization right forwards into the nineteenth century and beyond. So far as I know, there is as yet no Casebook; I feel sure one is in course of preparation. In an admirably brief and modest Preface, Stephen Barney states that the essays he has chosen have been reprintedin their entirety, occasional­ ly lightly revised by the author. A few have an Afterword which seems to 140 REVIEWS me justified only where there have been important discoveries necessitat­ ing updating of the original. His consideration in providing the original pagination between slashes will be appreciated by anyone who has had to root in the periodicals stack to search for the original reference for a quotation discovered (or rediscovered) in an anthology. He has decided not to include extracts from books (with the exception of Kittredge and Empson), but his regret at the consequent exclusion of Muscatine and Payne shows something of what has been lost. His principle of selection is simply the best, the most intelligent, and the most sensitive. This is unexceptionable, of course, but his disclaimer that he did not intend to indicate variety of approach or to give a spectrum of opinion is less defensible. There is no overt Robertsonian criticism, for instance­ Schoeck and Taylor included "Chaucerian Tragedy"-perhaps because once you have argued that Troilus' love for Criseyde is idolatrous there is not much more to be said, but perhaps also because so many of the disciples are such pale reflections of their master. Yet the arrangement of the essays in order of composition makes the temptation to trace changes of emphasis well-nigh unavoidable. How simple it all seemed in 1915! Kittredge wants to persuade us to read the poem. His approach is wholly through the narrative and the characterization: this was, after all, the great psychological novel. Chaucer is still Chaucer, unencumbered by a persona which he must variously flaunt or conceal, but anyway manipulate. Mizener in 1939 is still concerned primarily with character. This would be a good essay to begin with, pragmatic and sensible yet already perceiving that Criseyde's character is essentially static. Between Kittredge and Mizener come Lewis on II Filostrato (which on re-reading seemed oddly academic in its manner, quite lacking the beguiling humanity of much of The Allegory of Love) and Empson. Empson begins the search for implicit meanings, in his case puns, in an attempt to...