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FDU PRESS
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| Scholarly Review |
 | Chaucer’s Agents: Cause and Representation in Chaucerian Narrative
ISBN# 0838640834
Reviewed by: Elizabeth Roberston, University of Colorado at Boulder
Journal of English and Germanic Philology, January 2009 |
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Carolynn Van Dyke's analysis of agency broadens rather than deepens the meanings of the term. Rather than explore the philosophical contours of agency as an individual's desire for and capacities for action, Van Dyke categorizes different forms of agency. She begins by importantly distinguishing between primary and secondary agency--that is, we can act for ourselves or on behalf of others. Rather than uniformly referring to an individual's ability to perform an act of his or her own will, agency, in legal contexts, she reminds us, can mean "to be bound by the will of another" (18). She argues that critical differences that locate Chaucer's commitments variously to "a lifelike character, a doctrine, a fragmented subject, or even an omnipotent author" can be resolved by shifting our attention to "a wider principle of which they are all variations: agency." She suggests that there may be an "irreducible ambiguity" in agency itself whereby "any agent may appear, and even be, simultaneously autonomous and determined."
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