Abstract
14°ARTHURIANA of her essay. The reader wants more analysis of Cameron's artistic response to Tennyson's interpretation ofthe Arthurian story than this thin essay delivers. A substantial failing of this book (and not of its editor or contributors) is the skimpiness of the format Garland has provided. Larger type-face, margins and in general a more amply-sized volume seems in order for a collection ofthis sort. When I opened it I was unpleasantly reminded ofthe compact edition ofthe OxfordEnglish Dictionary, but—alas—no magnifyingglasswas included. As a bookno doubt destined to be put on library reserve and read and photocopied bygraduate students (at $35.00 one would not order this as a class text), the meagerness of its physical layout is disappointing and downright difficult to use and detracts from the vitality of its contents. CHRISTINE M. ROSE Portland State University norris J. lacy, ed., MedievalArthurian Literature:A Guide to RecentResearch. Garland Reference Library of the Humanities, vol. 1955. New York and London: Garland, 1996. Pp. xii, 471. isbn: 0-8153-2160-0. $73. As the annual volumes of the Bibliographical Bulletin ofthe InternationalArthurian Society are dangerously close to demanding a two-tome edition, periodical critical surveys ofrecent scholarship have become essential for individual scholars who can no longer possibly keep up to date with the developments in the complex world of Arthuriana. Aware of the possible pitfalls of attempting inclusiveness, Norris Lacy has wisely limited his volume's focus to the medieval vernacular literature ofwestern Europe and assembled an impressive list of specialists (James P. Carley: England; Marianne E. Kalinke: Scandinavia; Keith Busby and Karen A. Grossweiner: France; Bart Besamusca: Low Countries; JohnT. Koch: Celtic Lands; Christopher Kleinhenz: Italy; William C. McDonald: Germany; Harvey L. Sharrer: Spain and Portugal) to provide reviews ofessential trends for the major national/linguistic traditions within the last 15 to 30 years. Each of these critical discussions is accompanied by a bibliography including articles, books, editions, or translations 'that ought to be known by anyone' (p. xi) dealing with the texts in question. As might be expected, what 'ought to be known by anyone' is very much subject to the respective authors' choices. In general, the organization of the volume into national/linguistic traditions works well, especially when Besamusca's essay identifies how much Dutch and Belgian Arthurian scholars can gain from exchanging information about Middle Dutch litetature with colleagues who speak and write in other languages (an insight which will soon result in an exciting collection of comparative articles by a Romanist [Lacy], a Germanist [Haug], and an Anglicist [Riddy] on the Walewein in the ^dschrifi voor Nederlandse tall- en letterkunde). Similarly, Kleinhenzfootnotes pertinent dissertationson ItalianArthuriana both from the United States and Italy, and the bibliographies of all non-English traditions demonstrate the decidedly transdisciplinary and international spirit of Arthurian REVIEWS141 studies. In Carley's 'England' bibliography, however, foreign-language tidesfrom nonEnglish speaking countries—with the exception of two famous names (Crépin; Fichte)—are conspicuously absent. This tendency is even more palpable in the realm ofdoctoral dissertations, where only English titles from English-speaking countries have been included while not a single one of the numerous deserving dissertations written in other European languages made the cut. A controversial topic is taken up in Lacy's own concise section on 'Arthurian Translation.' Like McDonald, who reports a serious decline of training in Middle High German on both sides of the Adantic, Lacy pronounces a universal negative verdict about current medievalists' capabilities in dealing with sources in Latin and one or two more early languages with comparative ease' (p. 451). Although he expresses his regrets about this weakening ofphilological rigor, he appears to have given up on the possibility that this tendency can be mended. His reaction is to ask the rhetorical question whether it is better to make texts known through translation or simply leave them unread' (p. 452), to happily announce that the trend toward translations 'has made larger numbers of medieval texts accessible to a far wider public,1 and to find consolation—quite untealistically—in the hope that 'perhaps the pleasures of the [seil, 'translated'] medieval text will lead some...readers back to the original language' (ibid...
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