Todorov

Review: [untitled]
Author(s): John King
Reviewed work(s):
La Conqute de l'Amrique by Tzvetan Todorov
Source: The Yearbook of English Studies, Vol. 13, Colonial and Imperial Themes Special
Number (1983), pp. 299-301
Published by: Modern Humanities Research Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3508133
Accessed: 05/05/2010 17:32
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Reviews
Reviews

299
299

John the Baptist, which is celebrated on 29 August. It could not have been the epistle
of the mass for that day, but it might well have been one of the lessons of matins in
late fifteenth-century Spain. In another place in the same play (11.253-54), a
character says: 'Phylozophers say the matter is less worthy | Thanthe forme; so is
woman to man surely.' There is no need to assign this idea to 'Christian neo-Platonic
philosophy'; it relies on the usual Aristotelian hylomorphism of scholastic philosa
8
ophy and theology. In GentlenessndNobility(11. 40-42) the Plowman insists that the
conclusions of philosophy often contradict those of theology: 'For the phylozophers
a
f
agre here unto: | Quodmundusuitsemper b eterno, And devynys: quodin principio
d
e
T
omnium Creavit eusterram t celum.' he comment 'The first statement is typical of
I
Aristotelian scholastic philosophy in the Middle Ages' might be misleading, since
medieval philosophy and theology did not accept the Aristotelian thesis of the
world's eternity, though theologians asserted that creation could only be known
I
t
throughfaith (Aquinas, Summaheologica,. q. 46. aa. 1-2). Finally, one may wonder
whether some of Rastell's lines on the causes of thievery and the punishment of
1
thieves (CalistoandMelebea, 1.107 I-80) ought to have been referredto his brotherin-law's Utopia(ed. E. Surtz andJ. H. Hexter (New Haven, 1965), pp. 61-63).
In the glossary, it is surely right to give the meanings of two homonyms for one1
usage of 'totyth' (FourElements, . 1195), for Humanity's 'tayle' both 'toots' and
'protrudes' from his hiding place. But the same is not true of'ennewyd' (Calistoand
1
Melebea, . 241), which means only 'tinted', not 'restored'. A few words and phrases
1
which are not in the glossary should be there: 'err' (ere, FourElements, .827), 'praty'
1
(clever, CalistoandMelebea, . 493), 'worth ofpraisyng' (worthy of praise, Gentleness
andNobility,1. Io8), and 'wylfull poverte' (voluntary poverty, GentlenessndNobility,
a
1.563, a direct borrowing from Chaucer's Wifeof Bath'sTale,1. 323).
But these are the merest dust specks on a well-wrought edition.
YALE UNIVERSITY

CLARENCE H. MILLER

T
La Conquetede l'Amerique. By TZVETAN ODOROV.Paris: Editions du Seuil.

I982.

283 PP....