Bartlett, 'Feminist Readings in Middle English Literature: The Wife of Bath and All Her Sect', Bryn Mawr Medieval Review 9510
URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/bmmr/bmmr-9510-bartlett-feminist

@@@@95.10.2, Evans/Johnson, edd., Feminist Readings in Middle English Lit.

Ruth Evans and Lesley Johnson, edd.  Feminist Readings in Middle English 
Literature: The Wife of Bath and All Her Sect. London and New York:
Routledge, 1994.  257 pp. ISBN 0-415-05818-X Cloth Text $59.95; ISBN 
0-415-05819-8 Trade Paper $16.95
	Reviewed by: Anne Clark Bartlett
		Department of English, DePaul University.

This collection represents a diverse assortment of critical methods and
issues in the growing field of medieval feminist studies.  It will prove
useful for students and teachers in medieval survey courses and
particularly in Chaucer seminars. (If this collection as a whole has a
weakness it's that many--perhaps too many--essays focus on Chaucer,
perhaps at the expense of less widely- known texts.) I received my review
copy of this text while I was teaching a survey course in British
Literature to 1500.  If I had been able to read the collection a month or
so earlier, I probably would have added it to the list of required texts
for the course. 

One of this book's great strengths is its deft handling of difficult
critical issues. The introduction, written by Evans and Johnson, is a very
lucid presentation of current theoretical problems in medieval feminist
criticism.  Now, the book's advertising material claims that it is
designed to appeal to "the student reader." We all know, though, that
there is no template student reader, and that students--grauate and
undergraduate--approach medieval literature with a variety of scholarly
strengths and weaknesses.  But the introduction, and the essays
themselves, do a remarkable job of conveying theoretical debates--and
their relevance for medieval literature--clearly and cogently.  The
introduction, for example, does not sacrifice technical language for
clarity, but neither does it wallow in trendy jargon.  I was convinced
that my graduate students would devour the introduction and essays
eagerly, while some of my undergraduates might require some coaching.  All
things considered, this seems to me to strike an effective pedagogical
balance between complexity and simplification. 

A few of the essays found here are reprinted from earlier sources (e.g.:
Carruthers, Delany, and Schibanoff), but many are new.  All offer ample
opportunity for classroom discussion, and several produce controversy
intratextually.  For an example of the latter, consider the widely
differing assessments of the economic and cultural status in Carruthers'
and Delany's views of the Wife of Bath. 

My favorite essay of the collection is Evans' contribution, "Body
Politics: Engendering Medieval Cycle Drama." This analysis identifies a
variety of potential disruptions associated with female characters and
feminine qualities in male characters, such as a sexually-ambiguous
Christ. This essay also has terrific bibliographic and discursive endnotes
and takes issue with a number of established schools of criticism.  In
every way, it provides not only an important contribution to the study of
medieval drama, but it also offers a magnificent model of scholarly
decorum for students.  Although I don't regularly include medieval plays
in my medieval surveys, I might consider adding a selection, in order to
teach them along with this exceptional essay. 

Other highlights in this collection include essays by Felicity Riddy,
"Engendering Pity in the Franklin's Tale" (which argues that "both pitying
and being pitied are, for men, positions of power"; 57) and Jocelyn
Wogan-Browne's "The Virgin's Tale" (which examines the voyeurism inherent
in medieval legends of female virgin martyrdom).  Let me note that
singling these essays out for special comment is not meant as implied
criticism of the others.  All of the essays in this collection represent
some of the finest work being done in contemporary medieval feminist
criticism. 

There are inevitibly a few questions that arise in the compilation of any
collection, particularly involving the criteria for inclusion and
exclusion. I wished, for example, that an essay on Arthurian literature
had been added, and I was surprised to see so little attention paid to the
work of medieval female authors.  Margery Kempe is the obvious exception,
but the repeated summaries of her biography grow tedious.  I was also
surprised to find the pessimism regarding women's learning and literacy in
so many of the essays included here.  Riddy, for example, argues that
women possessed little learning (55); and Long claims categorically that
Kempe was illiterate (89).  This is particularly questionable in a book
whose subtitle is "the Wife of Bath *and All Her Sect,* suggesting the
sub-communities of female readers that Riddy's later work (and more recent
medieval feminist scholarship in general) identifies.  But these are small
quibbles and can be usefully exploited in the classroom scenario for which
this book is designed.  The essays in this collection, with their many
strengths and minor weaknesses, illustrate productively the explosive
growth--both quantitative and qualitative--in medieval feminist studies
during recent years.