Review by Choice Review
In this chatty commentary on the pilgrims in the Canterbury Tales, Cullen seeks to answer questions like why are there no married couples, no children, and only three women among the pilgrims, questions that have "lain dormant for the last six hundred years." Dormant is scarcely a word for questions that no one other than the author has worried about, and indeed such questions are beyond any discussion or answer. The author answers these questions by extended use of astrological theory, which means that she reads the characters as representatives of classical myths. Thus, Chaucer's parson and his plowman brother represent the Gemini twins, surely a first in Chaucerian interpretation, and one that makes hash of "The Parson's Tale." Many readers of the Canterbury Tales do regard the characters as derived from real characters, but there the research terminates in educated guesses. Cullen uses digressions in a manner that is ultimately irritating, and she seems to write down to her reader (perhaps unwittingly). Phrases like "The poet has been kind enough to allow me to choose the sequence" will offend a serious reader. The bibliography is fair, but many of Cullen's most important sources are dated. Not recommended. J. R. Griffin University of Southern Colorado
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
