Arthurian Narrative in the Latin Tradition by Siân Echard (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS113 medieval script. Ifits presentation is ultimatelyweighted more towards the calligrapher than the paleographer, and an English one at that, this does not diminish its value as a supplement to other works on medieval Latin hands. This colorful, clear survey of medieval Latin script is a fine introduction to the subject and invites the reader to explore it further. Paleography would benefit from more studies such as this. BRUCE C. BRASINGTON West Texas A&M University SIÂN echard, Arthurian Narrative in the Latin Tradition. Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature, No. 36. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998; Pp. xii, 258. isbn: 0-521-62126-7. $69.95. Arthurian narrative in Latin is a linguistic, not a geographical, phenomenon. The NewArthurian Encyclopedia contains entries forAmerican, English, French, German, Italian—and even Czech—Arthurian literature, but none for Latin. Instead, authors who wrote in Latin are grouped in the encyclopedia according to geography with those who wrote in the appropriate vernacular. And unlike the insular tradition in Anglo-Norman and Middle English medieval romance detailed by Susan Crane in her landmark 1986 study, InsuUrRomance: Politics, Faith, andCulture inAnglo-Norman andMiddle English Romance, the Latin tradition does not necessarily share a multilinguistic set ofliterary, political, or social concerns. What then is the Latin tradition? Acknowledging how her study differs from Crane's, Echard notes that most of the Latin texts she considers 'fit the term Angevin' (26), and that these texts share with other Latin texts which are clearly not Angevin 'a base of common material and a base level of intellectual culture' that allow for 'common themes, such as the central role of kingship, and common approaches, such as the use of the marvelous or the subversive or the playful to foreground these themes' (26). The arguments Echard advances to support her theories are logical, intellectually engaging, and convincing. Echard's book is divided into six chapters. The first and sixth study Geoffrey of Monmouth, or more properly first the Geoffrey who gave us the Historia regum Britannic and then the Geoffrey who also gave us the Vita Merlini. Echard's second chapter considers critical and literary reactions to Geoffrey. The anonymous author ofthe Vera historia de morteArthuri offered an alternate ending to Geoffrey's Historia; in his Draco Normannicus, Etienne de Rouen used Geoffrey's Arthur for his own political purposes; and William ofRennes attempted to do Geoffrey one better in his Gesta regum Britanniae by offering an Arthuriad modeled on the epic tradition surrounding Alexander the Great. Echard's third chapter considers works by such different writers as Johannes de Hauvilla, Andreas Capellanus, and John of Glastonbury. These works, according to Echard, attempted to go beyond the generic boundaries that have traditionally separated romance and chronicle. Two anonymous poems by the same author, the De Ortu Waluuanii and the Historia Meriadoci, are the subjects of Echard's fourth 114ARTHURIANA and fifth chapters. Echard covers much fertile new ground ¡n her study—her reading ofArthur and GorUgon (204-14) is especially enlightening—and she has had the good sense to acknowledge that her readers may be less familiar with her texts than she. Echard provides detailed plot summaries at the beginning of each of her analyses, and she places all her translations of Latin texts in the body of her study rather than in the footnotes. The result is a clearly written book filled with critical arguments readers can easily follow. In his plenary address at the Camelot 2000 Conference held at the University of Rochester in October 2000, Norris J. Lacy surveyed what had already been accomplished in Arthurian studies and then set forth a list of desiderata. High on that list was the need for more attention to what Lacy called 'second tier' Arthurian texts, texts less studied not because they were intrinsically less valuable than more well known texts in English and French. Rather, these texts present linguistic difficulties not easily overcome because ofthe unavailability ofreliable editions and translations. As we enter the twenty-first century, it is clear that interest in Arthur is hardly waning. It would be a great loss, however, if the only Arthur who survived was the Arthur ofmodern popular culture. There are medieval Arthurian...