Noble and Joyous Histories: English Romances, 1375–1650 ed. by Eileán Ní Cuilleanáin, J. D. Pheifer

Abstract

REVIEWS EILEAN Nf CUILLEANAIN and J. D. PHEIFER, eds. Noble andJoyous Histo­ ries: English Romances, 1375-1650. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1993. Pp. ix, 292. $39.50. Lately interest in the medieval romance as a genre has been intensifying: witness most recently the foundation of the Medieval Romance Society and its inaugural sessions at Kalamazoo in May 1994, on top of books like W R. J. Barron's guide of 1987, Derek Brewer's collection of essays of 1988, Maldwyn Mills's of 1991, and Carol Meale's of 1994, among others. So one might expect a new collection of essays on romance to be fully engaged in the continuing dialogue. Curiously, it is only partly so. One of the central issues in recent discussion, for example, is the vety difficulty ofdefining the genre. The Medieval Romance Society's session on the topic ("Roundtable on Medieval Romance: Toward a Definition of the Genre and Questions for Further Research," Kalamazoo, May 7, 1994) featured Derek Pearsall's declaration that there is no such thing. That ques­ tion is not even raised in this collection, however; the editors' "Introduc­ tion: European Tradition and English Romances" traces the history of "ro­ mance," beginning with early Greek examples, for which this rather circular definition is offered: "a poetic narrative with a romantic plot in which love triumphed with supernatural help in a remote and exotic set­ ting" (p. 1). No further definitions appear, though the introduction's atten­ tion soon turns to such diverse examples as the works of Chretien de Troyes, the Queste de/ Saint Graal, Malory·s tale of Balin, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and others (only some of which are discussed in the contributors' essays). The contributors of the essays that follow define the term for themselves without response from the editors, so that Piotr Sadowski is able to speak of "heroic epic" as romance's "prototype" (p. 12) without further explanation. The introduction, then, does not actually in­ troduce the essays in the collection, much less make clear the topic of the book as a whole. The quality of the contributions varies also, but there are some very good pieces, well worth the price of the book in themselves. I would mention principally Helen Cooney's essay on The Knight's Tale, Cathalin B. Folks's on The Wife of Bath's Tale and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, David Scott-Macnab's on the audience of burlesque romance, Lesley John­ son's on the alliterative Morte Arthure, Peter Field's on Malory, and Marion Wynne-Davies's on the seventeenth-century successors to Spenser. Helen Cooney's "Wonder and Boethian Justice in the Knight's Tale" 245 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER poses a fascinating if controversial question: Is the dissatisfaction many readers feel with the ending of the Tale not only Chaucer's intended re­ sponse but his way of leading readers to question or even reject Boethius's ideas of justice in the Consolation? To quote her conclusion: ...that Chaucer has embedded a strictly Boethian reading of Arcite's death in the Knight's Tale at all is evidence that he did not wish to ignore entirely Boethius' teaching concerning apparently unjust suffering and the notion of how to reconcile it with the goodness of God: but that it is felt to be so at odds with the natural reading of the tale is, I would suggest, a measure of the extent to which he wished to dissociate himself from that teaching. [P. 58] The arguments leading to this conclusion are carefully constructed, build­ ing partly on ideas proposed by Edward C.Schweitzer (SAC 3 [1981}) but disagreeing with his conclusion that Arcite's death was deserved. Her con­ clusion is persuasive, then, for readers who agree with her "natural reading" ofthe Tale's ending but perhaps will be less so for those who find Schweit­ zer's conclusion satisfactory. Cathalin Folks compares the characters of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Wife ofBath's Tale with similar figures in popular romance, both the tail-rhyme tradition and the alliterative tradition. These compari­ sons make possible an insightful and well-nuanced...