The Figure of Minerva in Medieval Literature by William F. Hodapp

Abstract

MLR, .,   pectations of feminine behaviour. Chapter  examines the collision of European and African literary traditions in Ngũgĩ’s Wizard of the Crow () to explore ongoing consequences of colonialism and tyranny’s potential to distort reality. Mack’s book offers a reading of conceptions of tradition more nodal than teleological . While the chapters on Gaskell and Ngũgĩ contain less of the close reading and comparative analysis than Mack provides for the other writers included in this book, there is a refreshing refusal to corral primary texts into a preordained model or theory. A great deal of familiarity is presumed not only with Chaucerian and Spenserian English, but also with the content and characters of many novels, poems, and plays. Nevertheless, Mack’s book is a deeply rewarding account of how ‘knowledge of tradition makes better writing possible’ (p. ). Reading Old Books succeeds in its aim to ‘indicate the richness, the spread, and the variety of uses of literary tradition’ (p. ) and serves as a timely reminder that, as Ferrante argues in her own essay collection about writing, Frantumaglia (), cited by Mack, ‘the writer must know literary traditions and be able to alter and add to them’ (p. ). Writing with traditions is just as instructive as reading old books. M  N I E e Figure of Minerva in Medieval Literature. By W F. H. Cambridge: Brewer. . xiv+ pp. £. ISBN ––––. It is cheering when a scholar packs a lifetime’s experience into a book of real erudition. e Figure of Minerva in Medieval Literature is no callow offering by a fledgling doctor of philosophy, but a densely written monograph that builds upon its author’s earlier work. Its proposition is this: ‘Shot through with allusions, echoes, paraphrases, ideas, and images from other texts, medieval poetry reminds us’ how medieval culture tended to be a ‘textual culture’ (p. ). Between Introduction and Conclusion, this foray into textuality has six parts, as follows. Part  is an examination of Minerva as embodiment of wisdom in the ancient world, and how medieval people regarded her in the context of classical myth. Part  relates this to Lydgate’s Reson and Sensuallyte and Gavin Douglas’s translation of Virgil, with the Judgement of Paris analysed as a theme common to both. Part  goes further into medieval learning through consideration of Martianus Capella, the fieenth-century Court of Sapience, teaching on the Four Daughters of God, and Skelton’s e Garland of Laurel. Aer that, the fourth part takes us from Walter of Châtillon and Joseph of Exeter in the twelh century via Guido delle Colonne, Christine de Pizan, and Lydgate to Stephen Hawes in the early sixteenth. Central here is Minerva as one who protects and gives benefits, particularly as regards the Trojan War. Part  is more theological; Part , more erotic. In the first are Jewish and Christian attitudes to idols, including patristic views of Minerva. Aer that is Minerva as idol in medieval texts, with reference to the catalogue of deities and the fieenth-century Assembly of Gods. ere follows consideration of Minerva as  Reviews Othea (goddess of prudence), and then discussion of Minerva–Athena in Dunbar’s e Golden Targe. Part  presents traditions of Ovid. Despite the ‘indifference if not outright conflict’ (p. ) between Athena–Minerva and Aphrodite–Venus in Graeco-Roman writing, they ally themselves as promotors of love in Lydgate’s e Temple of Glas, e Kingis Quair by James I of Scotland, and English poems by Charles of Orleans. e Figure of Minerva in Medieval Literature is a volume in the tradition of European literature and the Latin Middle Ages and its great names (Curtius, Auerbach, C. S. Lewis, J. A. W. Bennett, Peter Dronke, Douglas Gray). To discover Chaucer and English or Scottish Chaucerians here referred so naturally to ancient sources (scriptural, classical, patristic, scholastic) is refreshing. William F. Hodapp (professor at the College of St Scholastica, Duluth, Minnesota) belongs to an orthodox Christian humanism wherein allusion to classic authors (Homer, Virgil, Boethius, Alcuin, Eriugena, Hildegard of Bingen, Abelard, Aquinas, Dante, Boccaccio, Philip Sidney) comes effortlessly. When, therefore, many books on the Middle Ages impose modern views (oen profoundly unhistorical) on...