A Companion to Malory ed. by Elizabeth Archibald and A.S.G. Edwards (review)

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Elizabeth Archibald and A.s.G. edwards, eds., A Companion to Malory. Arthurian Studies, 37. Cambridge, U.K.: Brewer, 1996. Pp. xv, 262. isbn: 0-85991-4437. $53. This collection of original essays by mostly Canadian and British scholars aims 'to render Malory's achievement more accessible to modern readers' (xv), apparently mainly 'students' (xi). Its 'quite straightforward' plan includes the rubrics ofcontexts, art, and posterity' (that is, reception) and a bibliography. The need forsuch avolume is obvious. In the more than thirty years that I have been studying Malory, an increasing sophistication has permeated the study ofthe Works, and, while questions of textual provenance and authority continue to resonate (see arthuriana 5.2 and 7.1), more fruitful attention to the (words ofthe) text in whichever version moves on at an astonishing pace. Also increasingly, such trendy critical modes as feminist/gender/cultural studies have made their moves on Malory (Alas!, some will say, even into arthuriana!)— not necessarily a bad thing except for a concomitant tendency toward self-referential jargon. The presentvolume contains essays on the 'Tales' themselves, (its contributors are agreed on the Vinaver rescension), on the MS and edition controversies, and on style and sources as well as on political and social contexts, chivalry and women, but is refreshingly free ofsuch jargon. Part 1, 'Malory in Context,' includes Carol M. Meale's '"The Hoole Book"; Editing and the Creation of meaning in Malory's Text,' Richard Barber's 'Chivalry and the Morte Darthur,' Elizabeth Edwards's 'The Place of Women in the Morte Darthur,' Felicity Riddy's 'Contextualizing LeMorte Darthur: Empire and Civil War,'Terence McCarthy's 'Malory and His Sources,' Jeremy Smith's 'Language and Style in Malory,' and PJ.C. Field's 'The Malory Life-Records.' Meale's essay is an admirablyeconomical discussion ofthe onlyextant Malory MS, the structural and critical debates occasioned by its editing by Eugene Vinaver and its relations to its printing byWilliam Caxton, and (as is true with other aspects of Malory studies) the essentially 'open-ended nature' ofthe arguments. Barber's discussion ofchivalry is learned but less pointed: discussion of the Germans Gottfried and Wolfram, great poets but unknown to Malory, detracts from exploration of'the Anglo-French' tradition he admits was the formative one. He ignores, moreover, persuasive counter-arguments to his reading of the Grail Quest as 'a didactic weapon in the hands of the church, perhaps a Cistercian monk' (28), not only by Jean Frappier forty years ago ('les Cicterciens n'écrivaient pas des romans') but by Jill Mann later in this very book: 'the Grail romances use religion as a means ofexalting the dignity ofthe knightly class' (208). Similarly, in her sometimes perceptive article on Malory'swomen, E. Edwards depends upon a single specimen of feminist criticism—Catherine La Farge's 'The Hand of the Huntress: Repetition and Malory's Morte Darthur—without recognizing other recent work on his treatment of gender. A more inclusive and, indeed, excellent essay is Felicity Riddy's, which uses a dual examination ofhistory and literature to show how Malory's 'narrative ofempire and civil war' was both 'inherited' and 'invested with new meanings' (55), ultimately derived from Geoffrey of Monmouth's 'life written backwards' (61) through ARTHURIANA 8.1 (1998) ARTHURIANA intermediate representations of society and fiction into the Mortes memento mori. Also broader in scope than is usual is McCarthy's study ofsources: his Malory was a much better-read 'expert. . .in control ofhis task ofre-creation' than is usually assumed, but as a 'traditional writer' free to follow his sources 'slavishly ifhe so chooses' (81). Similar emphasis on the author's 'deeply conservative' (113) values, apparent in the (somewhat neglected) 'Englishness' of his style as well, emerges from Smith's close studyoflanguage, although this reviewer regrets his positing ofMaloryas 'simplythe ideological mouthpiece of his intended noble audience' (113). Field's biographical account ofthe Malory life-records, supplemented with a select bibliography, usefully divided into 'Printed Records and Calendars' and 'Scholarly Debate,' is a reminder (ifany ofus needed it) ofhow much all Morte afficionados owe to this energetic and meticulous scholar. Part 2s 'TheArt ofthe MorteDarthur offers treatment ofthe eight tales ofVinaver's edition themselves in six essays...