Looking Westward: Poetry, Landscape, and Politics in 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight' by Ordelle G. Hill

Abstract

MLR, 105.3, 2010 829 Looking Westward: Poetry, Landscape, and Politics in 'SirGawain and theGreen Knight\ By Ordelle G. Hill. Newark: University ofDelaware Press. 2009. 203 pp. $51.50. ISBN 978-0-87413-049-2. Looking Westward is not by some fledgling doctor of philosophy, but an emeritus professor of Eastern Kentucky University. Believing that old men should be ex plorers, Ordelle Hill blazes new territory (some of itCeltic) forGawain Studies. His courage and independence thus deserve praise. However regarded, his book is an unconventional but serious contribution to knowledge. He offers four chapters, with introduction, conclusion, and appendices. We start with accounts of Welsh poetry,Henry ofGrosmont's Livre de SeyntzMedicines, and theNero manuscript. Then comes Gawain's journey throughWales and north-west England, followed by discussion of the poem's people and places (illustrated by somewhat murky pictures of Lud's Church and similar sites).We conclude with beheadings in Welsh history and legend. Most English medievalists have zero interest inmatters Celtic. So it is refreshing to find an American Gawain-scholar who takes account of the Mabinogion, or the poems ofDafydd ap Gwilym and Iolo Goch. Professor Hill's attention toHenry of Grosmont is likewise welcome. Yet ifthe aim is lofty,the results are not as compel ling as they should be. Many statements inLooking Westward require qualification. Hill should have downplayed self-reliance, and consulted Celticists and others at Harvard or UCLA. They would have corrected a simplistic view ofWelsh history, and directed him towriters ofwhom he seems unaware. Among errors ormisleading remarks are the following. Anglesey, North Wales, andWirral are not 'the only identifiable place-names in the poem' (p. 13). Lom bardy, Rome, Tintagel, and Tuscany are also locatable, while the 'Holy Head' is surelyHolywell, Flintshire.Monmouth isnot an 'English' city (p. 14). It is in Wales, as Shakespeare makes clear inHenry V. To say that it is 'difficult to locate the castle prototype' of Hautdesert (p. 21) ignores parallels of itsname with those of Monthault orMold and Disserd or Diserth. These places in north-east Wales had castles (fragments survive) known to the Gawain-Poet. Similarities in accounts of storms (p. 33) by Dafydd ap Gwilym and Sir Gawain may be due to Le Roman de la Rose, a poem read by both authors. Comments on the Stanleys ofWirral (p. 68), which cite Edward Wilson ofOxford and this reviewer,misrepresent both. For linguistic evidence on the author of Sir Gawain and theGreen Knight, see this writer's 'Sir John Stanley (c. 1350-1414) and the Gawam-Poet', Arthuriana, 14.1 (2004), 15-30, which sets out verbal similarities between the poem and one of Stanley's letters,but appears unknown toHill. For all that, Looking Westward has many merits. Its author is an energetic re searcher, labouring infieldswhere he isnot a specialist. He has scrambled up slopes in theGawam-Country; he has a careful eye for castle furnishing and architecture (pp. 94~95> 98), though the phrase 'pared out of papure' (with an equivalent in Dafydd ap Gwilym) will not bear the interpretation he puts on it. What we lack is incisive finality,assembling thematerial to provide weighty conclusions. 830 Reviews Looking Westward is thus perhaps not for junior students,who may be confused bymodish postcolonial remarks in it,picked up fromwriters less able and honest thanHill. Yet itdoes merit attention fromprofessional scholars. Reinterpretation of itsclues and arguments will let them see theworld of theGawain-Poet more closely: his familiaritywith luxury; his expertise inhunting; his curiosity aboutWales; and his first-hand knowledge of France, especially the Toulouse region. By working on this and other evidence, theymay determine whether or not the Gawain-Poet was (as this reviewer proposes) Sir John Stanley (d. 1414), north-western magnate, courtier, huntsman, campaigner in the French wars, Garter Knight, and valued servant ofRichard II and Henry IV. University of Navarre, Pamplona Andrew Breeze The Origins of the 'FourBranches of the MabinogV. By Andrew Breeze. Leomin ster:Gracewing. 2009. viii+155 pp. ?9-99- ISBN 978-0-85244-533-2. After publishing his hypothesis on the authorship of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi in the third chapter of his book Medieval Welsh Literature (Dublin: Four Courts, 1997...