Objects of Affection: The Book and the Household in Late Medieval England by Myra Seaman (review)

Abstract

family line, leading, reuniting, and expanding their family. Viduvilt presents a very different approach to the Arthurian source material, but it is faithful to the source nonetheless, for the Viduvilt author draws on Wigalois as a model maintaining the diverse female roles but then makes unorthodox representational choices by granting them more power, thereby resolving the conflicted message around female gender roles of Wigalois. Oehme’s close reading of these stories through the lens of adaptation studies allows her to reveal how subtle changes in the basic plot structure expose very different views on female gender roles and female agency, thereby making a significant new contribution to Wigalois scholarship. There are three areas where I wish Oehme to have elaborated more: first, the choice of her title; second, including the woodcuts she discussed in the Wigoleis chapter; and third, a more extensive contextualization of the historical differences around women’s roles for each adaptation. The title choice “He should have listened to his wife!” raised specific expectations for me for what would follow, but the relevancy of this quote to each adaptation is not made clear. It is marginally addressed in the Viduvilt chapter where the story supports the claim, that Gabein should have listened to his wife’s advice so that he could have returned to their kingdom and see his son grow up (see p. 52), whereas in Wigalois the audience receives the exact opposite advice, namely, that a wise man is not governed by a woman’s advice. I found Oehme’s discussion of the text-image relationship of Wigoleis a very interesting and important contribution, but it would have been enhanced significantly had either an image or information about how to access the woodcuts been included. Oehme does allude to some of the cultural, political and religious circumstances of the times in which each of the adaptations was created as they pertain to women’s roles, but I found those too brief and not developed enough, especially since the book overall is relatively short. A more in-depth discussion of the socio-political, historical, and cultural contexts of each adaptation would have further strengthened her fascinating analysis of these differences and adaptations.