Jean Renart and the Art of Romance by Nancy Vine Durung (review)

Abstract

146ARTHURIANA which much ofthe nineteenth-century criticism ofthe work was written. Happily, the essays here start at the beginning ofBeowulfscholarship. They are thus not only informative reviews of the poem's critical literature, but also interesting historical surveys tracing critical thought on Beowulffor the last 180 years—and they serve to remind the reader that critical perceptions ofthe poem have often been tempered by an individual critic's nationalism, professional arrogance, or personal philosophy. As John Niles remarks ofTolkien himself in his introductory essay: Tolkien saw the monster fights and the elegiac mood ofBeowulfas expressive ofthe artistic designs ofa deep thinker, religiously enlightened, who let his mind play over a lost heroicworld ofthe imagination. In short, theauthorwas aman likeTolkien himself, as we can say in retrospect. (5) This critical self-awareness permeates the entire Handbook and thus brings it a sense of matute reflectiveness that is welcome in any work dealing with medieval literature. Each contributor is well aware ofthe critical biases permeating his or her individual area and makes them part of the subject under discussion. This is a good book for scholars and graduate students working on Beowulfat any level and should become one ofthe poem's standard research tools. DAVID D. DAY Univetsity of Houston—Cleat Lake nancy vine DURUNG, ed.,Jean RenartandtheArtofRomance. Gainesville: Univefsity of Florida Press, 1997. Pp. 240. isbn: 0-8130-1495-6. $49.95. Nancy Vine Durling has assembled seven substantial essays on the work of Jean Renart, who, like Gautier d'Arras and others, has been largely and undeservedly lost in the glate of Chrétien de Troyes's greater glory. This collection is thus a welcome redress ofthat traditionl injustice; it is all the more welcome because the contributions are ofuniformly high quality. I regret only that the scope of the volume was not expanded to deal fully with both ofJean Renart's romances. It is natural that Guillaume de Dole should receive the lion's share of attention: not only is it a better romance than L'Escoufle, but it preserves partial texts of nearly fifty lyrics. L'Escoufle receives four pages in the first essay, somewhat more attention in the second one, and no mention thereafter. Since the announced subject isJean's art ofromance, the addition ofan essay or two devoted to L'Escoufle would have provided a far better balance. (It could similarIy be useful to have some discussion even ofJean's Lai de Tombrr, although it is not a romance, it could provide furthet insight into Jean's narrative att.) The volume opens with a section entitled 'Text and Context' containing two essays: Nancy A. Jones's 'The Uses of Embroidery in the Romances ofJean Renart: Gendet, History,Textuality' andJohn W. Baldwins '"Once there was an emperor...":A Political Reading ofthe Romances ofJean Renatt.' The former is a rich discussion of embroidery as a social and economic phenomenon, as a 'complex thematic element' (p. 39) inJean's work, and as a metaphor for the design ofthat work and especially for the arrangement of inserted lyrics. Baldwin authoritatively situates Jean's romances REVIEWS147 'within the context ofthe crisis over succession that profoundly disturbed the German Empire from 1197 to 1218' (p. 46). The central section, 'The Language of Lyric and the Language of Romance,' comprises four essays on Guillaume de Dole. Three deal with the lyric insertions. Maureen Barry McCann Boulton offers a fine study that addresses the genre ofthe inserted poems, observing that 'each lyric genre embodies a different ideology of love' (p. 100). Michel Zink emphasizes the insertion of lyrics as a means of textual enrichment and textual complication. Regina Psaki points out that the dissolution of generic borders offers Jean 'a strategy for enhancing the representational capacity of language' (p. 131). The last essay in this section is Patricia Terry's discussion of the problems oftranslating the romance. Although we may not agree withTerry that the romance offersa 'simplisticstory' (p. 143), herdescription oftheproblems oftranslating (e.g., the difficulty ofrendering resonances and echoes) is perceptive and informative. These essays are consistently strong and thoughtful, and some, particularly those of Boulton and Psaki, stand out as unusually elegant and incisive studies. This is an important and welcome...