Medievalism in Technology Old and New by Karl Fugelso, Carol L. Robinson

Abstract

136 Reviews Thisbook isrichingains toourunderstanding and inquestionsitopensup. In additiontothehardly surprising absenceofpictures ofauthorsinheroicliterature (where we find gestures oforality depictedinstead) we areconfronted with their unexpected absence, withbut fewexceptions, in thetransmission of thecourtro mance, including evenChretien himself. Despite the pictorialrange ofthe Manesse codex,itcontains onlya few pictures ofauthorship, giving us admittedly pictures of authors, but rarely explicitly as authors. LikeHuot,Petersstresses theperformative qualityof the medievalbook and devotesa valuablesectionto theParisArsenal manuscript3142with itspictorialcombination ofwrittenauthorship (parchment scroll)andoraldelivery (speechgesture, listeners). Among the Germanworkscon sidered, particular valueattaches topictures ofthe narrator as amediator, discussed with reference to Wolfram's WillehalmandThomasin's Welscher Gast. Of by far the greatest interest iswhat Peters has to say about Christine de Pizan in what isthelongest section of thelongest chapterinherbook.The large volume ofChristine's work ismatchedby thelarge numberofauthorial portraits, by the first-person emphasisinherwork,andbyan iconographically wide variety ofways ofpresenting heras an author(dedicating her finished book,workingon itather desk,discussingit withothers, beinginstructed to workon it byallegorical figures). With this writer, aswithotherstoo,the medievalauthor, so farfrom beingdead, is visibly aliveandkicking. For thisenrichment ofourunderstanding Petersis tobewarmlycongratulated, as are also her publishers forproducing a volume whose many illustrations are a delightto workwithandwhosepriceishappilyfarfrom excessive nowadays. Much, perhaps even the greater part, of thiswork is devoted to French literature, along side German. It is to be hoped that the language barrier will not prevent French scholarship from deriving asmuch profit from itas can German. TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE D. H. GREEN Medievalism inTechnology Old andNew. Ed. byKARLFUGELSO withCAROLL. ROBINSON. (StudiesinMedievalism, 16) Cambridge:Brewer. 2008. xiv+ 207 PP. ?45. ISBN 978-1-84384-156-2. Once again, perceptions of the Middle Ages are thewide umbrella of a volume edited byKarl Fugelso.Itshelters elevenchapters(someactuallyrelating to technology). Alicia C. Montoya learnedly discussesmedieval themesin seventeenth-century Frenchfairytales,includingtraditions ofRichard theLionheartand supposed ProvenSal verse by him. She admits that,while analysis here reveals much of the modern era, it tells us littleof theMiddle Ages. (The same applies to other papers inthis book.)AlbertD. Pionke memorably describesthat waterlogged Victorianex travaganza, theEglinton tournament of 1839. His view of itspolitics contrasts with that in Michael Alexander's Medievalism: TheMiddle Ages in Modern England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007). Pionke sees itas a fiasco, aptly symbolizing the last stand of a beleaguered Tory aristocracy. Alexander (who calls the tournament MLR, 104.1, 2009 137 a success, once itstoppedraining)is more conservative, seeingits medievalismas vitaltothe politicalstability andgradualism ofnineteenth-century Britain. In a brief but significant paper (withillustrations), Gretchen Kreahling McKay examines Byzantinereligious artinnineteenth-century France, where itoffered al ternatives toa prevailing nationalistic harking-back to medievalFrenchorFlemish schools. CheneHeady analyses Yeats's rewriting (in an early poem) ofTennyson onMerlin andVivien.Yeats,as an Irishpatriotand visionary, there cuthimself freefromthe'plots ofempireand the materialistic web ofcapitalism'(p.78) that enmeshed poorTennyson. BruceC. Brasington shows American morale-builders of World War I reaching for themedieval to defend their cause. He represents Stars andStripes(1917-19), the AmericanExpeditionary Force'snewspaper, asnomere propaganda sheet, so that itsallusions toChartres and Joan ofArc had theirplace in the perennialidealism ofUSmilitary forays. He thus offers comparisons withStefan Goebel's The Great War and Medieval Memory: War, Remembrance and Medieval ismin BritainandGermany, 1914-1940(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007),where theimage ofaTeutonic knightina coal-scuttle helmetimplies other agendas.Stefano Mengozziwriteson theafterlife of the Guidonianhand,a dense and technical piecewhich ishard workfor non-musicologists. The latter partofFugelso'scollection has contributions byCarol L. Robinson, Oliver M. Traxel, AmyS.Kaufman, Brent MoberlyandKevin Moberly,andLauryn S.Mayer.Theyall discussmedievalisminvideo games.Theydealwith pseudo medieval elementsincomputer role-playing, thefeminine inNeverwinter Nights, ethicsofempireinStarWars:Knights of the Old Republic,'Rethinking ofGender in MMORPGs', and thelike. Theirexpert discussiondoes notmaterially advance ourknowledge of the Middle Ages. It mightimply that videogamesare(as snooker once was) a way tomisspend one's youth. But they potently suggest the allure of the medieval.Like everycontribution in thisbook, theyshowthatitsappeal to theimagination or intellect cannotbe stifled: a point worthremembering, when so many turn resolutely deaf ears to it. UNIVERSITY OF NAVARRE,PAMPLONA ANDREW BREEZE La Posteritede la Renaissance. Ed. by FIONAMCINTOSH-VARJABE'DIAN with VERONIQUE GEILY. (UL3,Travauxet recherches) Lille:Universite Charles de-Gaulle-Lille3. 2007. 316pp. ?18.50. ISBN978-2-84467-o96-6. This isa volumeofarticlesinFrenchon varioustopicsrelated to thereception of the RenaissanceinEuropeup tothetwenty-first century. It isdividedintosixsec tions, dealing withpolitics,thearts...