Astell, Ann W.

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ASTELL, Ann W.

PERSONAL:

Female. Education: University of Wisconsin, received degree; Marquette University, received degree; University of Wisconsin—Madison, Ph.D. (medieval literature), 1987.

ADDRESSES:

Home—West Lafayette, IN. Office—Purdue University, Department of English, 500 Oval Dr., West Lafayette, IN 47907; fax: 765-494-3780. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, currently professor of English.

MEMBER:

Secular Institute of the Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary.

AWARDS, HONORS:

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship in religion, 2001-2002.

WRITINGS:

The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages, Cornell University Press (Ithaca, NY), 1990.

Job, Boethius, and Epic Truth, Cornell University Press (Ithaca, NY), 1994.

Divine Representations: Postmodernism and Spirituality, Paulist Press (Ithaca, NY), 1994.

Chaucer and the Universe of Learning, Cornell University Press (Ithaca, NY), 1996.

Political Allegory in Late Medieval England, Cornell University Press (Ithaca, NY), 1999.

(Editor, with Bonnie Wheeler) Lay Sanctity, Medieval and Modern: A Search for Models, University of Notre Dame Press (Notre Dame, IN), 2000.

Joan of Arc and Spirituality, Palgrave Macmillan (New York, NY), 2003.

Joan of Arc and Sacrificial Authorship, University of Notre Dame Press (Notre Dame, IN), 2003.

SIDELIGHTS:

Ann W. Astell is a professor of English at Purdue University who specializes in Middle English language and literature, medieval rhetoric and politics, St. Joan of Arc, Marian cult and women mystics, medieval theo-aesthetics, and the works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Her first book, The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages, is an "informative and readable study" on the famous epic love poem from the Old Testament, remarked Elizabeth Archibald in the Times Literary Supplement. The book's subject, the "Song of Songs," has long been a puzzling anomaly; clearly an erotic love poem, it has caused considerable debate among scholars and clerics. "The Song of Songs posed a particularly troubling challenge to early Christians," Archibald further remarked. "What is this erotic lyric without any explicit reference to God doing in the Old Testament, and how could it be interpreted so as to be acceptable?" Astell's book explores, in depth and from a Jungian perspective, a number of allegorical interpretations of the "Song of Songs" put forth by both literary and religious writers during the Middle Ages. Among the relevant works studied are those by Origen, an early Christian commentator, who asserted that the "Song" must be interpreted in allegorical terms as a mystical union, as between the church, as Bride, and clergy. Other works examined include sermons, religious lyrics, medieval literary works such as Pearl, and plays. "Astell analyzes closely a number of selected texts, and she proves herself to be a very good close reader," concluded Lawrence Besserman in Speculum.

In Job, Boethius, and Epic Truth Astell argues that the literary genre of heroic epic poetry, often thought to have not existed in the Middle Ages, continued without pause from ancient times to the Renaissance. Astell uses the biblical book of Job and Boethius's Consultation of Philosophy as examples of epic tradition persisting through the Middle Ages. Her theory is that "despite the formal discontinuities between classical epic and medieval romance, an allegorical core of epic truth survived into the Middle Ages through the influence of the 'heroic' Book of Job" and Boethius's work, which also encouraged "patient struggle against hostile fortune," wrote Mishtooni Bose in Medium Aevum. Astell's work claims that "medieval readers knowingly associated Boethius and Job as heroic figures" of the type found in epics, commented Seth Lerer in Speculum. M. S. Stephenson, reviewing the book in Choice, also remarked, "The scholarship is prodigious, the argument convincing, and the Christian stance congenial to the subject." Bose concluded that Astell has "made an original, erudite, and admirably clear contribution to the study of medieval genre theory" with her work. And Lerer called Job, Boethius, and Epic Truth "a rarity in academic criticism: a study of great learning and great belief, whose arguments are voiced without the slightest tinge of pedantry or condescension." Marcia A. Dalbey, writing in Journal of English and Germanic Philology, concluded that the book is "a valuable study of the influence of classical and biblical literature on medieval vernacular texts."

Astell's Chaucer and the Universe of Learning analyzes whether or not "the ordering of the fragments of the Canterbury Tales in the Ellesmere Manuscripts reflects Chaucer's intent for his work, or results merely from the hand of an editor," reported John B. Friedman in the Journal of English and Germanic Philology. For the author, the Ellesmere order of the Canterbury Tales serves as an encyclopedia-like compilato "uniting, like Dante's Paradiso, a philosophical journey of the soul through planetary spheres with a topical survey of the divisions of knowledge" outlined by John Gower, wrote Karla Taylor in Modern Philology. Further, Astell argues that Chaucer's intent was to pass on academic and esoteric knowledge to a varied audience of vernacular readers, particularly other lay clerks like himself. By placing Chaucer in such a context, "Astell both accounts for his learning and argues that the Canterbury Tales is a social and philosophical encyclopedia thoroughly indebted to academic culture for both structure and meaning," Taylor remarked. "Whether one finds the overall scheme Astell has adduced to explain the Ellesmere ordering fully convincing or not, there is much of profit and pleasure to be found in this learned and ingenious book," Friedman concluded.

The book on Chaucer was followed by Political Allegory in Late Medieval England, which is a "learned and lucid study of political allegory" in the time period, according to Gerald Morgan in Modern Philology. Authors of allegories "are constructed as artful dodgers; using every kind of narrative sleight of hand safely to encode political commentary for those in the know which would be blithely ignored by those not skilled to see," commented Helen Barr in MediumAevum. Astell analyzes a number of medieval political allegories in this context, including works such as Piers Plowman, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Ovid's Fasti. "Many of the political allegories unearthed here are forced," Barr commented. Although Morgan stated that problems with the book arise from "the simple absence of secure historical knowledge" and "the lack of detailed correspondence in the political analogies proposed," he found much to admire about the book, commenting that the first chapter, exploring the "importance of invention for a theorist such as Geoffrey of Vinsauf," will "prove to be of permanent value."

With Lay Sanctity, Medieval and Modern: A Search for Models, edited by Astell and Bonnie Wheeler, a number of contributing scholars examine "with academic reverence the lives of some holy lay people, how some became saints and why others of dazzling virtue didn't," commented Clarence Thomson in National Catholic Reporter. Since medieval times, "the most unspoken but persuasive criterion for saints is that they be as like monks as possible," Thompson observed. But laypeople are not participants in the monastic lifestyle. There are no requirements among them for miracles; obedience to a church or an order is immaterial; and there is no institutional background leading toward sainthood. But the book's contributors argue that saintliness is not always measured strictly by the ways in which sanctity is traditionally interpreted—good works, professional competence, dedication to a cause, and sincere spiritual practices can sometimes be enough. "This is inspiring reading," Thompson concluded.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Belles Lettres, spring, 1991, review of The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages, p. 55.

Choice, October, 1994, M. S. Stephenson, review of Job, Boethius, and Epic Truth, p. 276.

Journal of English and Germanic Philology, January, 1996, Marcia A. Dalbey, review of Job, Boethius, and Epic Truth, pp. 104-107; April, 2000, John B. Friedman, review of Chaucer and the Universe of Learning, p. 255.

Journal of Religion, April, 1992, Bernard McGinn, review of The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages, pp. 269-275.

Medium Aevum, fall, 1995, Mishtooni Bose, review of Job, Boethius, and Epic Truth, p. 297; fall, 1997, Norm Klassen, review of Chaucer and the Universe of Learning, pp. 39-41; Volume 69, number 2, 2000, Helen Barr, review of Political Allegory in Late Medieval England, pp. 305-306.

Modern Philology, February, 2000, Karla Taylor, review of Chaucer and the Universe of Learning, p. 445; August, 2001, Gerald Morgan, review of Political Allegory in Late Medieval England, p. 78.

National Catholic Reporter, June 2, 2000, Clarence Thomson, review of Lay Sanctity, Medieval and Modern: A Search for Models, p. 12.

Religious Studies, December, 1995, review of Divine Representations: Postmodernism and Spirituality.

Review of English Studies, November, 1992, Marjory Rigby, review of The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages, pp. 543-544.

Speculum, April, 1992, Lawrence Besserman, review of The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages, pp. 367-371; October, 1995, Seth Lerer, review of Job, Boethius, and Epic Truth, pp. 869-871.

Times Literary Supplement, April 3, 1992, Elizabeth Archibald, "Of Love and Custom," pp. 6-7.

Virginia Quarterly Review, spring, 1997, review of Chaucer and the Universe of Learning, p. 48.