Distant Voices Still Heard: Contemporary Readings of French Renaissance Literature by John O'Brien, Malcolm Quainton

Abstract

456 Reviews dominant culture while none the less seeing and perhaps even revelling in its inter? nal tensions, paradoxes, and absurdities. Minnis points out that a paradox central to medieval education, in which Ovidian love poetry played a prominent role, was that boys were simultaneously taught to desire and to shun women. Jean de Meun, as he sees it, exploits these tensions with a characteristic 'donnish humour' that promotes the heterosexual mastery of women as essential to the definition of male subjectivity. The book sheds much light on the reception of this very important text and on late medieval literary practices in general. It will be welcomed by students and scholars alike. Pembroke College, Cambridge Sylvia Huot Distant Voices Still Heard: Contemporary Readings of French Renaissance Literature. Ed. by John O'Brien and Malcolm Quainton. Liverpool: Liverpool Univer? sity Press. 2000. viii + 232 pp. ?32 (pbk ?11.95). ISBN 0-85323-785-9 (pbk 0-85323-795-6). To provide a selection of interpretative essays, grouped in pairs, on Renaissance texts in prose and in verse, from the perspective of contemporary literary theory, is a bold undertaking. Aimed at the final-year undergraduate and early graduate levels, the collection seeks to give the 'maturing reader' an introduction to theoretical methodologies and their interpretative applications. In a substantial introduction, John O'Brien examines and provides essential background for the theories to be illustrated. He does not fall into the trap of going into too much detail about the underlying principles or of using more than necessary the esoteric vocabulary of criticism. In fact,his chapter shows a masterly command ofthe topic and his ability to make a valid and convincing case forthe study and use of liter? ary theory. As he concludes: 'It is precisely these encounters between two historical moments (now and then) and two historical modes (literature and exegesis) that repre? sent, forus in our time, the testing time of theory' (p. 44). Using literary theory must not be seen as belonging to the chosen few,but a way of gaining furtherinsight into the enjoymentof reading. Perhaps, in many ways, literarytheory isjust an 'accepted front' forreading texts according to the preoccupations of the present. This is what we may end up doing usually, but not in that methodological way capable of revealing so much richness and interest in texts which often seem off-puttingand difficult,not only be? cause of the language barrier, but also because of the abundance of historical cultural referents. Methods, however, as Michel Jeanneret reminds us, have their limits, and while we 'recognise their necessity', we should also 'refuse their hegemony' (p. 82). Francois Rigolot and Michel Jeanneret look at Rabelais from the structuralist and literal 'sign' perspective. Here, and constantly throughout this volume, there is a conscious awareness ofthe so-called 'historical method', and both these contributions reveal a new facet ofpleasure to be derived fromthe Rabelais experience. Ann Rosalind Jones and Carla Freccero develop what they see as feminist elements in Louise Labe's poetry; Floyd Gray and Nancy Frelick, in their studies of L'Heptameron, explore the role of author/narrator, reading/writing, and reader integration; Malcolm Quainton and Thomas Greene look at two Ronsard poems, the former dwelling on the effectof Ronsard's 'rewritings' and the latter, on Ronsard's art of orchestration; finally,Ann Moss and Lawrence D. Kritzman east a critical eye at Montaigne?Moss interprets the 'contemporary reading' ofthe title as a way of lookingat how Montaigne may have appeared to his contemporaries familiar with common-place books, whereas Kritzman MLR, 98.2, 2003 457 deals with questions of narrative and subjectivity. It was with interest and profitthat I read all the contributions. It is a book which has realized its objectives and more. Grasse Keith Cameron Etudes Rabelaisiennes, Vol. xxxix. Geneva: Droz. 2000. 175 pp. ISBN 2-60000478 -5 This latest volume contains nine lengthy articles, all of a very high calibre, the majority of which referto two broad areas of investigation. First of all come the monsters, animal, human, and linguistic. Francois Rigolotsets the tone with an important piece that begins with an investigation of the unnatural qualities of Quaresmeprenant, the monstrous Physetere and Andouilles, but...