The Fourteenth Century English Mystics: A Comparative Analysis by George Wood Tuma

Abstract

STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER in large or little, are matters of ultimate indifference to the author. Very well, then. Any non-Humanist still wishing to attend, may do so; but the "curious humanist" has no further reason to look over such a cold shoulder: "[this semeth} rather a foul confusion/ Of werk than any fair creacion." ALAN T. GAYLORD Dartmouth College GEORGE WooD TUMA, The Fourteenth Century English Mystics: A Compar­ ative Analysis, 2 vols. Salzburg Studies in English Literature, Elizabethan and Renaissance Studies, 61. Institut for Englische Sprache und Literatur, Salzburg, 1977. Paper. Pp. 400. Like most of the volumes in the Salzburg series, Tuma's study is a recent dissertation, and it does not appear to have been revised signifi­ cantly. Since most of the readers of the study will have committed dissertations themselves at one time or other, they will be prepared to forgive some of the more annoying features of that scholarly genre­ turgid style, prolixity, methodological posturing-if virgin territory is explored here, or if familiar terrain is exposed in an illuminating or provocative way. Even by these standards, however, Tuma's book is a disappointment; for in spite ofelaborate methodology, it remains pretty much on the surface of the familiar. Tuma's work begins with great promise, citing accurately the need for a study of the English mystics from the perspective of a literary critic (as opposed to a theologian or Churchman) and the need for a more penetrating analysis of the various ideas and expostulations that one encounters in these Middle English texts. What one might hope for, given these needs, would be a more thoroughgoing analysis of the meditative/mystical genre-of the various literary and stylistic as well as intellectual and exegetical traditions in which these writings might find a place. Or one might hope for a more illuminating approach to the meaning of these texts, such as might be provided by studies of imagery, iconography, or even as might be provided by modern speech-act theory. Though we do not get these things, it would perhaps be unfair to judge the work on the basis of intentions it never had; it will be more useful to look directly at Tuma's particular strategies. 218 REVIEWS To the promise ofproviding a systematic approach to meaning Tuma is meticulously faithful, and in fact his principal motive is to provide what he terms a "contentual point ofview" (p. 9) which will lay a base for further studies. The failure ofprevious studies to provide such a base is blamed partly on "the past and present state ofsemantic theory, which is an enormously complex subject" (p. 9). About as far as Tuma gets in exploring the complexities ofsemantic theory, however, is to note the shortcomings ofpure reference theories ofmeaning and the need to take account ofthe context in which words and phrases appear. In order to fill this need Tuma borrows and adapts a methodology of"conceptual fields" from Jost Trier. In Tuma's application what this amounts to is reading through each ofthe mystical writers and collecting words, phrases, and quotations under the headings of Purgation, Illumination, and Union for each writer. The next step is to construct "secondary conceptual fields," composite characterizations ofconcepts (covering all the English mystical writers) for each ofthe three major headings. The primary and secondary conceptual fields are then used as a basis for comparing the writers and assessing their indebtedness to earlier mystics. The notion that concepts derive their meaning partly from the other concepts whose company they keep in a text hardly represents an advance in semantic theory, and sensitive readers have always managed to account for this reality without benefit ofmethodology. Even so, the systematic clustering ofideas, words, images, and phrases as a means ofdiscovering and elaborating an author's meaning could be useful ifproperly applied in a comprehensive interpretive enterprise that also took account of genre, tradition, social circumstances, audience, and individual person­ ality. But in Tuma's hands the method becomes mechanical and reduc­ tive-a charge that he rather lamely attempts to forestall in his conclud­ ing chapter (pp. 356-57). The basic problem is that Tuma does not use the...