David Williams's challenging study of the monster in medieval thought and literature goes well beyond the catalog-style discussion that seems to be a typical feature of books and articles in this subject area.Williams offers a framework of understanding for monstrosity, contending that in medieval cosmology, and specifically in Pseudo Dionysian thought, the idea of the monster has a centrality to the scheme ofthings that postmedievals have to recover.The monster is not contra naturam, but rather extra naturam. Montreal and Kingston London and Buffalo: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1996.Pp.xiv, 392. Deformed Discourse: The Function of the Monster in Mediaeval Thought and Literature. HELEN PHILLIPS University of Nottingham DAVID WILLIAMS.
REVIEWS ralizations are a fashionable precaution for the ideologically circum spect author here Theresa Tinkle convincingly displays the multiple, discordant, and creatively chaotic nature of her subjects and the deep historical roots of their conflicted meanings, while in no way dissolving, but on the contrary strengthening, her readers' awareness of the pro fundity of medieval poets' engagement with the figures of Venus and Cupid and the philosophical importance of the poetic structures cen tered upon them.
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