Castration: An Abbreviated History of Western Manhood. Gary Taylor
work intends to reform "liturgical and devotional life" as well as theology and "patterns of leadership" (80) rather than to defend the church against heretics. A third group of essays are concerned with the use of the Bible as a source. "Strategies of Biblical Exemplarity in Gil Vicente" by Paulo Cardoso Pereira argues, mainly through numerous quotations, the influence of the Bible on Vicente's early Portuguese drama, especially by way of the medieval tradition of allegory. In a quite different context Luc Borot in "The Bible and Protestant Inculturation" argues that while the Certaine Sermons or Homilies — required reading from every pulpit — are intended to teach English congregations how to be Protestants, the texts are themselves heavily influenced by medieval thought. Another group of sermons — those preached by Savonarola in the two months before he became the leader of the new government in Florence — are analyzed in Michael O'Connor's article, "The Ark and the Temple in Savonarola's Teaching (Winter 1494)." Those sermons, the article argues, mirror Savonarola's discomfort in his roles as both friar and politician as he struggles with prophecy as both a literary and a political device. Taken together, these essays offer an impressively broad view of the way in which many political arguments were located in biblical commentary and translation during the Renaissance. The collection will be valuable to both historians and literary scholars. DOROTHY HUSON Wayne State University