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The Cambridge Companion to John Donne

the meaning, the two poems present their readers with comprehensive catalogues of moral cases and possible outcomes in given circumstances in order that they can apply them to their lived experience. Mitchell’s evidence is that authorial encouragement to make use of the narratives in this manner is frequently found within the poems, and the Canterbury pilgrims’ reactions to each other’s tales exemplify their application further. This being so, the contradictions among the Confessio stories become secondary (Chapter 3) as does Griselda’s morality or monstrosity; the ‘‘Clerk’s Tale’’ can be read as being about the moral dilemma itself rather than its resolution, as being a critique of the genre (Chapter 7). Mitchell reads the narratives of the Wife, Friar, Summoner, and Pardoner, though not that of the Monk, in this light too (Chapters 5 and 6), and his conclusion rehearses the point. This conclusion is a disappointing two pages in length, and this structural imbalance is accompanied by a few presentational glitches, especially in the later chapters: for example, the name Žižek appears as ‘‘i ek’’ on page 138 of this reviewer’s copy and in the wrong font in the index, and page 103 contains a reference to the volume as a ‘‘[doctoral] thesis’’. Mitchell’s linguistic sophistication may appeal most to the literary-minded, as will his argument, though its presentation presupposes the reader’s familiarity with the two poems.