Medieval Lyric: Middle English Lyrics, Ballads, and Carols by John C. Hirsh

Abstract

I98 Reviews themselves inwhat is effectively a cultural void at the heart of vernacular utterance, outside of the totalizing and homogenizing pull of literaryhistory and tradition. In a moving and sharp-eyed reading of theFirst Worcester Fragment, Cannon explicates a sense of history as 'an image created by a desiring mind' (p. 22): 'As a mode of knowing, history is truly formidable in its capacity tomake what has vanished so vivacious thatwe feelwe have not lost it' (p. 33). Cannon listenshard tohis texts, in the manner of a sympathetic but forensic confes sor, teasing out the tensions and anxieties, drawing out their confusions and probing behind their taciturn defensiveness. La3amon's Brut provokes a discussion of the centrality of the 'londe' ofBritain in the poem, and of the importance of a jurispru dential fascination with good governance, where the law emerges as a force capable of outliving and stabilizing the transience of individual kings and tribal groups. His reading of theOrrmulum explores its linkswith preaching and related discourses, and analyses its fascinationwith correctness and 'right writing'. Cannon's brilliantly gendered reading of The Owl and theNightingale is a par ticular highlight. He argues that the poem represents the birds not just as women but asmainly talking (arguing) about women: 'thepoem's feminism consists ofwhat misogyny knows but refuses to acknowledge' (p. 129). The birds offer an inverted perspective on antifeminist discourse and tactics, exploring their impact on women. Their full agreement to preserve thewhole of the debate at the end of the poem is about thepotentially ethical and ameliorative forceofwomen's speech. The richness and subtlety of thisdiscussion are exhilarating. Equally impressive is themore topographical discussion of theAncrene Wisse. The texts of theAB group are about setting and defending boundaries, policing borders, and defining thresholds. Cannon's reading is infusedwith a sense of place and land scape. But landscape is ametaphor just asmuch asmetaphor is a landscape. Subtle deployments ofAristotle's Physics aswell asHegel allow Cannon tomove towards the idea that the Ancrene Wisse not only describes an anchorite but is insome sense itselfan anchorite. The finalchapter, on the spirit ofRomance, explores what Cannon sees as 'theconsolidation of a general idea of literaturewhich reined inboth theboldness and experimentation thathad characterized English writing after theConquest' (p. 172). 'Middle English romance is responsible for the set ofmetaphysical pretensions that made English literaturewhat itremains today' (p. I76). This chapter returns energeti cally to theHegelian andMarxist ideas of theopening of thebook, and theiremphases blend stylishlywith telling invocations ofNietzsche, Butler, and Foucault and with Cannon's own metaphysics of form (his discussion of romance as holograph is a fas cinating exercise in creating a new critical perspective) to create a boisterous finale. The myth of post-Conquest suppression and loss requires that 'things that sur vivemust be made to say "nothing survived"' (p. i i). By listening hard and putting difficultquestions to these scatteredwitnesses ofEarlyMiddle English literaryendea vour, this exciting and important book reveals that theyhave much more interesting things to say. LADY MARGARET HALL, OXFORD VINCENT GILLESPIE Medieval Lyric: Middle English Lyrics, Ballads, and Carols. Ed. by JOHNC. HIRSH. Oxford: Blackwell. 2005. XiV+220pp. ?I7.99. ISBN 978-I-405I-1482-0. This attractively produced volume offers a new generation of students poems which are old favourites (such as 'I syng of a mayden' and 'Ich am of Irlaunde') as well as fourwhich have previously been available only in academic journals, all ofwhich deserve thewider audience that this anthology will probably secure. MLR, 102. I, 2007 I99 There isalways a danger with anthologies that the individual poems may not quite come together as awhole. This is a particular problem with medieval lyrics,since the term is commonly used to include material which is diverse in both subject-matter and form. John C. Hirsh's section division, based on themes, is refreshing and cuts across the usual sacred/secular divide. However the sections become more and more discrete. The ballad section moves beyond the Middle Ages altogether with modern American versions printed alongside versions drawn fromChild's English and Scot tishPopular Ballads. The inclusion of the latter is justified on the grounds that some scholars have been over-cautious indating many ballads and thatat least...