REVIEWS 267 debates surrounding Section 28 legislation “suggest that sodomy in modern history, no less than in medieval Italy, retains its status as the negative term in the construction of everything from individual subject status to party political identity and statehood” (103). He concludes that “medieval and modern touch in telling, if unsurprising ways” and “the medieval sodomy tableaux may partially chime with modern concerns” (104). Vague terms such as “touch” and “chime” render the similarity coincidental and avoid obvious queries such as whether the modern legislation may have modeled its homophobic expression on that of its medieval predecessor, or whether homophobia, as a cross-cultural response to threatened corporate identity, appears in a similar guise in medieval Italy and modern Britain as a result of similar political unrest. While further exploration of how medieval notions of body influence those of modern society would be useful, the omission of such discussions hardly overshadows the accomplishment of this imaginative and well-researched volume. The essays of Suspended Animation constitute a provocative and insightful meditation on human pain as a shared obsession in medieval and modern culture , an obsession that often signifies beyond the body itself to issues of gender, race, class, religion, and corporate identity. Mills writes as clearly as he thinks (the prose descriptions of the images that he examines are a special delight to read) and the one hundred color and half-tone plates are finely reproduced (the only exception being fig. 74, which is reversed). Mills’s methodology of antidisciplinarity encourages receptivity to a broad array of medieval voices and perspectives. This receptivity results in a fascinating and utterly credible portrayal of medieval culture, its concerns, how it communicated these concerns through word and image and how medieval people themselves may have interpreted—and misinterpreted—these messages. JESSICA ANDRUSS, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, Ohio State University Don A. Monson, Andreas Capellanus, Scholasticism, and the Courtly Tradition (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press 2005) 383 pp. Don A. Monson’s book is an attentive and diligent study of Andreas Capellanus ’s De Amore. In his introduction Monson observes studies of this medieval treatise have always started with the same implicit assumption: this work deals with “courtly love” in its positive connotation—promoting the type of Love convenient at Court—or negative connotation—ironic condemnation of love between sexes. According to Monson, even though De Amore, attributed to Andreas Capellanus, was a controversial topic among scholars, none of the previous studies analyzed the treatise systematically. He sees De Amore as very connected to scholasticism, both in structure and organization, and because of this he observes that in order to understand De Amore it is necessary to study organization of the treatise’s content. To accomplish this goal he applies his own formalistic analysis. At the basis of this study is a fundamental theoretical analytic principle taken from linguistics: “meaning is intimately connected to form” (2), not only with respect to simple sentences, “but also to infinitely more complex linguistic configurations, such as works of literature” (2). The book contains eight chapters divided in two sections: the first section, “Problems of Form: Andreas and the Scholastic Method,” deals with the format and essence of the work, which is identified as a scientific treatise (scientia) REVIEWS 268 and a practical manual (ars). The author observes that its inner scholasticism is dominated by a basic duality that makes this treatise very complex. It is a descriptive work, but also a prescriptive work; it is a work that uses nearly all the artifices of rhetoric, but it is structurally organized according to principles of philosophical dialectic, understood as veritable disputationes. Monson also considers the irony that seems to permeate the entire treatise. The second section , “Problems of Meaning: Andreas and The Courtly Themes,” deals with several important principles connected to the theme of love proper to scholastic tradition: vernacular poetry, feudal society, Christianity, and moral questions— such as carnal love versus spiritual love—opposing vernacular poetry to Christianity and to Ovid. Monson’s study is rich with interesting insights into De Amore; in particular it focuses its function as a compendium, offering a synthesis of conflicting traditions. This extremely original piece of...