Le Jeu de Robin et Marion by Adam de la Halle

Abstract

Reviews399 exactly seem earned by the preceding analysis. A close explication of the opening scene oí Laforza del destino, for instance, ends with this not uninteresting non sequitur: "Far from being a linear, steady itinerary, Verdi's artistic development follows a tortuous, intermittent path" (p. 139). And Petrobelli grandiosely concludes from Bellini's ransacking of a French play for his / puritani that the composer thus "discovered ... his cultural roots. And he connected himself to them, made use of them, kept them as a model with a clarity of vision we find only in the true artist" (p. 189). A more full and up-to-date bibliography of Verdi scholarship from this author would have been a valuable addition to this volume, and some repetitious passages stating his methodological principles should have been edited out. It is odd that a learned book like this should appear without an index. No one would accuse the author—on the basis of this book, at least—of possessing a sense of humor. There is one moment of unintended glee, however, that his editor or translator might have saved him from: his remark about "the only leading character in the entire Verdian corpus who has no first name, who is merely 'Lady Macbeth '" (p. 143). Verdi, of course, was following his idol "Schaspeare," who famously failed to specify either how many children she had or her name. A good thing, too, since the first name of the historical Lady Macbeth would have been the devil to sing. According to Lord Haile's Annals of Scotland, it was Gruach. GARY SCHMIDGALL New York City Adam de la Halle. Le Jeu de Robin et Marion, ed. Shira I. SchwamBaird (text) and Milton G. Scheuermann (music). Garland Library of Medieval Literature, 94A. New York: Garland Publishing, 1994. Pp. xxxiv + 153. The enduring fascination on the part of audiences and scholars alike for Adam de la Halle's late thirteenth-century Play of Robin and Marion is evident in the continuing emergence of editions, recordings, and live performances of this work. The most recent addition to the play's bibliography is Shira Schwam-Baird's scholarly performing edition with English translation for Garland's extensive Library of Medieval Literature under the general editorship of James Wilhelm and Lowry Nelson, Jr. Schwam-Baird's effort adds to a growing number of accessible editions and English translations of the text of the play, many of which were produced by renowned scholars. With reliable editions and translations generally available, one may wonder at Garland's decision to undertake such a project that appears, on the surface, to be 400Comparative Drama essentially redundant. Certainly, the publication of Schwam-Baird's edition must solicit expectations of fresh insights into the play based on significant new scholarship. In the "Literary Introduction" to the edition, Schwam-Baird claims to have "freshly transcribed" the text from MS. P "with little editorial emendation" (p. xxii). The choice of MS. P is in keeping with all but a few published editions, most notably that of Ernest Langlois1 who arrived at his text through an attempt to exploit the Picard dialect and a conflation of all three known manuscript sources of the play (P, Pa, and A).2 Indeed, with the exception of adding modern punctuation, Schwam-Baird does appear to stay with the text of MS. P even when the reading may not scan properly or make sense. In such cases, explanatory notes are provided in a section following the play to help clarify the reading. Following the "Notes" section is an exhaustive list of manuscript variants compiled in an easy-to-read tablature format. Schwam-Baird's edition also includes the anonymous Jeu du Pèlerin and the two interpolations inserted in the MS. P version of Robin and Marion. Despite claims of "freshness," Schwam-Baird's transcription differs only in the slightest degree from that of Jean Dufournet's comprehensive 1989 edition3 and of Kenneth Varty's earlier publication.4 Dufournet chose to emend the few confused verses of the MS. P text while providing the original readings in footnotes on the page; thereby Dufournet made sense of the text and documented his alterations while avoiding the...