The ways in which language and money function as two related kinds of signs - two halves of the same coin, one might say - is unquestionably intriguing. As Cowell puts it, "they both become fertile producers of surplus value and sense - profit" (83). He argues, for instance, that in the tavern, words, often drunken and garbled or deceitful, correspond to the money used by the tavern-keeper or the various tavern gamblers and sharp dealers. There is always risk in making metaphors central to one's argument, however, and Cowell's analysis is not always unproblematic in this regard. One of the virtues of this book is that it may raise these issues to historians and those in the larger field of cultural studies.Ĭowell's discussion of tavern literature is detailed and nuanced. Other critics may want to take Cowell's ideas to their logical next step and explore the ways in which ideas of profit and semiotics were played out in the real-life institutions of which this literature is a more or less faithful reflection. If the development of profit-oriented sign theory did indeed constitute "a true crisis of the sign and of society," one would expect to find it reflected in the wider culture. ![]() The book is hence an exploration of these ideas as they appear in literature. In view of the wide net Cowell casts in examining culture, it is a little disappointing that he does not explore historical developments in greater detail the development of taverns occupies a brief section of less than a dozen pages, and developments in coinage and the money economy are mentioned here and there in passing. ![]() Much of the book thus involves close readings of prominent tavern texts and analysis of their semiotic systems in light of these arguments. Although all contemporary literature, in his view, expresses these developments, they are most explicit in the burgeoning literature of the tavern, the "locus of semiotic superabundance" (99). He argues that "language, ethics, and economics are all understood and represented in terms of a single, Neoplatonic sign theory" (90) which is disrupted as the desire for profit begins to take hold in medieval culture. Cowell's mode of analysis, focused on semiotics and the ways in which texts reflect linguistic and semiotic capabilities, has many affinities with the work of Howard Bloch, and those who have found Bloch's works useful will find Cowell's analysis equally valuable.Ĭowell's central thesis relates slippages in the economic system, such as the variable value of coins and the profit-oriented efforts of tavern-keepers, gamblers, and other fraudsters, to linguistic slippages such as those produced by drunkards, liars, and jongleurs. These are set into the larger context of twelfth- and thirteenth-century culture, where, according to Cowell, the rise of profit in the economic and linguistic realms produced "a true crisis of the sign and of society" (104). The texts under discussion include Le Jeu de Saint Nicolas, Courtois d'Arras, the poetry of Rutebeuf, and shorter works in French and Latin. Cowell discusses the twin manifestations of these forces, profit and play, in medieval "comico-realism," the genre that examines these elements most explicitly. The increasing importance of the marketplace, Cowell argues, was accompanied by an essential change in sign theory, in which "Romanesque" models were replaced by a new profit-oriented system. His analysis focuses on a historical shift, the development of the tavern as a commercial facility and the emergence of coinage as a central force in the medieval economy. In this stimulating but densely argued analysis, Andrew Cowell explores the semiotic interrelations of taverns, literature, and the profit economy.
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