Distant Voices Still Heard: Contemporary Readings of French Renaissance Literature

Modern Language Review, The, April, 2003 by Keith Cameron

Distant Voices Still Heard: Contemporary Readings of French Renaissance Literature. Ed. by JOHN O'BRIEN and MALCOLM QUAINTON. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. 2000. viii 232 pp. 32 [pounds sterling] (pbk 11.95 [pounds sterling]). ISBN 0-85323-785-9 (pbk 0-85323-795-6).

To provide a selection of interpretative essays, grouped in pairs, on Renaissance texts in prose and in verse, from the perspective of contemporary literary theory, is a bold undertaking. Aimed at the final-year undergraduate and early graduate levels, the collection seeks to give the 'maturing reader' an introduction to theoretical methodologies and their interpretative applications.

In a substantial introduction, John O'Brien examines and provides essential background for the theories to be illustrated. He does not fall into the trap of going into too much detail about the underlying principles or of using more than necessary the esoteric vocabulary of criticism. In fact, his chapter shows a masterly command of the topic and his ability to make a valid and convincing case for the study and use of literary theory. As he concludes: 'It is precisely these encounters between two historical moments (now and then) and two historical modes (literature and exegesis) that represent, for us in our time, the testing time of theory' (p. 44). Using literary theory must not be seen as belonging to the chosen few, but a way of gaining further insight into the enjoyment of reading. Perhaps, in many ways, literary theory is just an 'accepted front' for reading texts according to the preoccupations of the present. This is what we may end up doing usually, but not in that methodological way capable of revealing so much richness and interest in texts which often seem off-putting and difficult, not only because of the language barrier, but also because of the abundance of historical cultural referents. Methods, however, as Michel Jeanneret reminds us, have their limits, and while we 'recognise their necessity', we should also 'refuse their hegemony' (p. 82).

Franccois Rigolot and Michel Jeanneret look at Rabelais from the structuralist and literal 'sign' perspective. Here, and constantly throughout this volume, there is a conscious awareness of the so-called 'historical method', and both these contributions reveal a new facet of pleasure to be derived from the Rabelais experience. Ann Rosalind Jones and Carla Freccero develop what they see as feminist elements in Louise Labe's poetry; Floyd Gray and Nancy Frelick, in their studies of L'Heptameron, explore the role of author/narrator, reading/writing, and reader integration; Malcolm Quainton and Thomas Greene look at two Ronsard poems, the former dwelling on the effect of Ronsard's 'rewritings' and the latter, on Ronsard's art of orchestration; finally, Ann Moss and Lawrence D. Kritzman cast a critical eye at Montaigne--Moss interprets the 'contemporary reading' of the title as a way of looking at how Montaigne may have appeared to his contemporaries familiar with common-place books, whereas Kritzman deals with questions of narrative and subjectivity. It was with interest and profit that I read all the contributions. It is a book which has realized its objectives and more.

KEITH CAMERON GRASSE