Previous articleNext article FreeBook Review“Piers Plowman” and the Poetics of Enigma: Riddles, Rhetoric, and Theology. Curtis A. Gruenler. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2017. Pp. xii+586.Jennifer SiskJennifer SiskUniversity of Vermont Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreCurtis Gruenler’s “Piers Plowman” and the Poetics of Enigma: Riddles, Rhetoric, and Theology is a magisterial account of a heretofore unnamed poetics attuned to interpretive openness that is characteristic of much literature of the Middle Ages, particularly the work of William Langland. Gruenler names this “formative literary idea” the “poetics of enigma” (1). His book explores the enigmatic mode in three ways: as a literary form (the riddle), as a way of reading (theorized in medieval rhetoric), and—perhaps most significantly—as a mediation of the experience of reality, truth, and God (in other words, as a use of language that facilitates a particular theology). The book’s main argument is that the enigmatic mode in literature functions as a form of philosophically and theologically serious play that contemplates mystery and embraces ambiguity. It encourages interpretation, valuing the interpretive process over and above anything that might be called an outcome or the finding of a single or simple solution. It conveys meaning, yet also recognizes its own inadequacy in the face of transcendence, even as enigmatic language is a vehicle facilitating the very fullness of experience that brings one closer to truth and to God. The book is centered on analysis of the B and C texts of Langland’s Piers Plowman as the premier example of the poetics of enigma in Middle English literature, but it embeds its reading of Piers in a sophisticated discussion of other medieval texts and the writings of theologians that develop the poetics of enigma as realized by Langland. One of the organizing principles of Gruenler’s book is its repeated return to exegesis of 1 Corinthians 13:12: “For now we see through a glass darkly (in enigmate).” Treatment of this verse serves as a touchstone for how medieval authors thought about enigma as an approach to fullness of knowledge, to the as-yet inaccessible encounter with ultimate truth that Paul calls seeing “face to face.”The book begins with an introductory chapter focused on the theology of participation as it relates to the formation of the poetics of enigma. Rather than being a social term, as we generally use it, “participation” in this sense is a theological term that Chaucer introduced into Middle English in his translation of Boethius to express a way of thinking about how human beings relate to God that was prevalent in the Middle Ages. Gruenler traces this theology from Augustine to Bonaventure and demonstrates how for medieval theologians the enigmatic is precisely the kind of language “most suited to the goal of entering further into participation in the divine” (32). Part of the work of the book is to explore how this theological vision began to unravel in the Latin tradition in the fourteenth century under the influence of late medieval Scholasticism, a phenomenon that catalyzed its reassertion in the vernacular in poetry and mysticism. It is in this context that Gruenler places Piers Plowman, which he reads as using the enigmatic to probe contemporary theological controversies “not so much to resolve them as to find a way to move onward within the tensions between them” (76). The book thus participates in more widespread scholarly efforts to dismantle accounts of medieval orthodoxy and its discontents in terms of strict dichotomies. What Gruenler contributes to this growing body of scholarship is the specificity of his demonstration of the particular work of poetry in such theological efforts. Scholars of vernacular theology are thus among those poised to benefit from the book especially.After this theological introduction, Gruenler proceeds through three major sections of the book that are devoted to the three arenas he has identified in which enigma held significance for medieval writers: riddles, rhetoric, and theology. The richness of the analyses in these sections defies representation within the limits of a book review, but in each case, analysis of the enigmatic in Piers is richly contextualized in a larger discussion that ranges widely over other texts. Chapters 2 and 3 explore medieval traditions of riddling and set Langland’s plant of peace metaphor and the questions posed at and by Conscience’s banquet in relation to Latin and vernacular riddle contests and the riddling letters of John Ball. Chapters 4 and 5 explore enigma in terms of medieval rhetoric as it was taught in the curriculum of the schools and expressed in Augustine’s Confessions, culminating in a new reading of the tearing of the pardon in Piers. Chapter 6 considers how the enigmatic mode expresses the theology of participation in the fifth vision of Piers and in Julian of Norwich’s parable of the lord and the servant, and a final chapter rounds out the book with an exploration of how participatory thinking influenced the tradition of enigmatic poetic endings that Langland inherited from such works as The Romance of the Rose, Dante’s Commedia, and Chaucer’s House of Fame. Gruenler concludes the book with an epilogue that links the poetics of enigma to the interests of modernity, where it has come largely unmoored from the theology that instilled its original meaning, even as it retains an assumption of “the presence of an unrepresentable fullness of meaning” that we associate with what we now call literature (386).One of many insights of Gruenler’s book that will have widespread utility is the contrast he sets up between the enigmatic mode (his object of study) and two other modes of writing that imply very different things about language, knowledge, and community. The significance of the enigmatic, Gruenler asserts, can be understood by how this mode differs from didactic and esoteric modes of writing. The didactic and esoteric modes are those from which different sorts of institutions derive authority by distinguishing insiders from outsiders on the basis of possession of knowledge and understanding. The enigmatic is like the didactic in being open to those who wish to learn, but unlike the didactic the enigmatic communicates meaning that is finally “infinite, mysterious, and unpossessable” (220). The enigmatic mode is like the esoteric in that it works through obscurity, but it differs in that its obscurity invites noncompetitive interpretive effort and is not intended to separate elite possessors of knowledge from the unworthy and uninitiated in the manner of esotericism. And whereas both didactic and esoteric texts have completed their usefulness once understanding is achieved by a select group, enigmatic texts infinitely invite further exploration of their mysteries. There is an ethical dimension here, according to Gruenler, who argues that the enigmatic, unlike the didactic and esoteric, is productive of inclusive community: a poetics of enigma nurtures a community that is “oriented toward a center equally accessible to all and fully possessed by no one” (21). Here, interpretive work is the shared basis of “a community that is moving forward together” in work that continues to be fulfilling and meaningful even as it does not end (222).“Piers Plowman” and the Poetics of Enigma is remarkable in many ways, not least in being an extraordinarily rich example of a scholar’s first book. It is an exceptionally ambitious and well-executed monograph, the full flowering of work initially begun in a PhD dissertation at UCLA in the 1990s that was made possible by Gruenler’s fortunate position in an institutional setting that seems to have nurtured precisely this sort of work. The rhythms of the profession are such that it is rare indeed for a book to be allowed to reach this kind of maturity before publication. If Gruenler’s book is any evidence, then we would do well to reconsider the rhythms of professional advancement to allow more first books to ripen fully before going to print. Not only does his monograph shed light on Langland’s poetics and on medieval theology. It also makes a significant contribution to intellectual history by demonstrating the legacy of the Middle Ages to contemporary theology and to the development of what we have come to value as the literary. Previous articleNext article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Modern Philology Volume 116, Number 3February 2019 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/700409HistoryPublished online September 18, 2018 For permission to reuse, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.