Theory and the Premodern Text. By Paul Strohm. Medieval Cultures, 26. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 2000. Pp. xvi + 269. $50.95 (cloth); $16.95 (paper).

This collection of short studies is, among many other things, a remarkably clear and candid introduction to the uses of theory in critical practice. Strohm defines his project as a departure from what Derrida called "respectful doubling," criticism which aims at understanding the work of art in its own terms, and proposes as a next step to "provoke" his chosen texts to the "unpremeditated articulation" of what they somehow know but are unable to say. Citing the "practice theory" of Giddens and Bourdieu, which "permits a text to be perceived as strategic, whether or not it is the product of what Bourdieu calls a 'strategic intention' " (p. 36), he aims to explore not just the literary "work " of the text, but the aspect in which it is in dialogue with the external world. To be attentive to this dialogue is "the critic's highest calling. "

Winthrop Wetherbee
Cornell University