Medieval Go-Betweens and
Chaucer's Pandarus.
By Gretchen Mieszkowski. The New Middle Ages. New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
2006. Pp. xi + 218. $69.95.
In the Fall 2007 issue of the Medieval Academy News, President
Bernard McGinn reflected on how essential comparative inquiry is and will
be to the future of Medieval Studies. Even though McGinn's comments may
be meant even more globally, I would argue that Gretchen Mieszkowski's incisive
book on Chaucer's Pandarus and medieval go-between traditions proves that
the future is already here, offering a rich and effective mix of source
study, cultural context, and feminist as well as close readings. Her monograph
focuses on "ethical issues raised by the actions of characters who bring
people together for sex or love, as Chaucer's Pandarus does" (p. 5). Drawing
on three centuries of Latin comedies, fabliaux, romances, allegories, exempla,
the Roman de la rose, El Libro de buen amor, and others, the work
aims to "establish the ideas about go-betweens and their roles that Chaucer
would have expected his audience to bring to Troilus and Criseyde,
and the conceptions of going between within which Chaucer himself worked"
without offering a "comprehensive reading" of the poem (pp. 5, 8). To that
effect, the book is organized into an introduction and three parts: Part
I, Choreographing Lust: Go-betweens for Sexual Conquest; Part II, Choreographing
Love: Idealized Go-betweens; and Part III, Choreographing Lust and Love:
Chaucer's Pandarus, demonstrating that Pandarus is Chaucer's unique amalgam
of two distinct traditions.
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