Narrative Patterning and 'Guy of Warwick'

Abstract

The Auchinleck version of the Middle English Guy of Warwick (1330-40) is the earliest and has proved the most puzzling to critics.' It differs significantly from both its likely source, an Anglo-Norman Gui of about one hundred years earlier, and later Middle English versions in the way it presents the story; a story which is much the same in all the versions.2 It concerns the life of the hero, Guy, and falls into two parts. Firstly there are the events which lead up to Guy's marriage: these are mainly adventures undertaken away from home to win the love of his lord's daughter, Felice, and they earn him the reputation of being the best of knights. It is this status specifically which wins him Felice's hand in marriage. In the second part of the romance, Guy's realization that he has neglected God sends him out into the world once more, but this time as an errant pilgrim, and during this period his adventures are undertaken for God's love rather than a woman's. The briefest of reunions with Felice follows, and then the hero's death. This second part of the romance is also concerned with the story of Reinbrun, Guy's and Felice's son. Reinbrun also has heroic adventures away from home, and returns at the end of the story to take his place as lord of Warwick. There are two main surviving Middle English versions of Guy besides that in the Auchinleck manuscript: they are in Caius MS 0o7 of about 1475, and in Cambridge University Library MS Ff.2.38 of the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century.3 Traces of other versions survive, but only in fragmented