Approaches to Teaching the Arthurian Tradition edited by Maureen Fries and Jeanie Watson (review)

Abstract

84Arthuriana MAUREEN FRIES ANDJeanie WATSON, eds. Approaches to TeachingtheArthurian Tradition. Approaches to Teaching World Literature, 40. New Yotk: The Modern Language Association ofAmerica, 1992. Paper. Pp. xi, 195. ISBN: 0-87352-702-X $19.75. APPROACHES TO Teaching the Arthurian Tradition addresses many pedagogical needs. Much ofit is learned and sensible, ifoccasionally predictable, and both beginning and experienced teachers should find ideas worth trying. I'll try not to duplicate Miriam Miller's thoughtful review but will comment on a few of the essays and some issues they raise. Alan Gaylord's Arthur and the Green World' reaches deep to convey what is special, and perhaps most important, in the tradition. Phillip C. Boardman's 'Teaching the Moderns in an Arthurian Course' lists more recent works than I dreamed existed and organizes them according to a sensible taxonomy. He may exaggetate the quality of recent Arthurian fiction (an easy enough thing to do), but, whatever the period, Arthurian fans tend to mistake our own enthusiasm for the inherent quality of the writing. James E. Schultz's 'Teaching Gottfried and Wolfram' reminds me of the excitement ofteaching those two masterpieces simultaneously, someming I have not done since changing myArthur course from medieval to medieval/modern. Yet, Schultz prods meto acknowledge, teachingParzivalwithout Tristran may mean not adequately teaching Parzival. Robert L. Kindrick's 'Which Malory Should I Teach?' uses solid scholarly work to support a pedagogical position with which I cannot agree. When the Caxton edition vs. Winchester Cathedral ms (now British Museum Additional 59678) controversy first came to my attention about thirty years ago, arguments about the authenticity and merit of the two versions were already yielding diminishing returns. Then Lone Hellingaand Hilton Kelliherargued that, as Kindricksummarizes, 'Caxton apparently knew of the Malory manuscript and likely even had it in his possession yet largely rejected it, probably in favor of a more authoritative text.' If this is so then Caxton best represents Malory. Yet does this possibility demand either that 'for upper-division andgraduatestudents' we teach 'both' Malorysorthat forsuch students 'a consideration ofthese central dilemmas in Malory scholarship is essential' (105)? Many texts exist in two or more versions without their relative merits becoming a critical obsession. For the scholar the first step is to get the text right, granted, but for the teacher such 'dilemmas' in Malory need be no more 'essential' than similar dilemmas in Chaucer, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Wordsworth, or Auden. Why not just introduce the problem (doing so takes about ten minutes) and get on with interpreting the text at hand? Which Malory, then? Kindrick's own evidence favors a Caxton-based text. Even if Caxton is less true to Malory than the manuscript, his edition has been the Malory from the fifteenth to the mid-twentieth century. Most important postmedieval Arthurian works in English (Tennyson, Twain, White) derive from Caxton, and we teach the Arthurian tradition. I use Cowan's Penguin edition. Reviews85 Those for whom life without this Malory dilemma would be unlivable may find solace in Linda K. Hughess essay onTennyson. The IdylL· oftheKingwe know did not appear until 1908, when the revisions and arrangement authorized byTennyson were published by his son Hallam. Hughes advises having 'students re-create the reading order ofVictorian audiences who first received Tennyson's "serial poem"'(106) as it appeared, in pieces ofvarious length, over several decades. Doing so yields scholarly but also pedagogical returns. As Tennyson had to educate his audience about Arthur, Hughes shows, the original 'reading order' is easier for our students. Hughes's approach seems to me exactly right for a course in nineteenth-century British literature. Yet dare we deprive Arthurian students of Tennyson's own final vision of the IdylL·, as the narrative unfolds in its full chronological and symbolic richness? Although as Hughes notes, it would be ideal for students to read the Idylls first in serial then in chronological sequence, few ofus will take time for that. For the 1990's, which Tennyson may be a more productive question than which Malory. Whether it is or not, Hughes has disturbed my own complacency about how I teach, just as contributors to such a volume should. In 'Women in Arthurian Literature,' Maureen Fries...