Otherworlds: Fantasy and History in Medieval Literature. Aisling Byrne. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Pp. xi+212.

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Previous articleNext article FreeBook ReviewOtherworlds: Fantasy and History in Medieval Literature. Aisling Byrne. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Pp. xi+212.Kathy LavezzoKathy LavezzoUniversity of Iowa Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreOf late, theorists such as Rita Felski have advocated an approach to literature that supplements criticism with an appreciation of literary texts for their specialness and aesthetic richness.1 In certain respects, Aisling Byrne’s first book meets Felski’s call for “a greater receptivity to the multifarious and many-shaded moods of texts.”2 The fictional status of texts depicting otherworlds is front and center in Byrne’s study, which contends that before we consider the historical uses of medieval otherworlds, we would do well to carefully assess them as fictions. The medieval otherworld is “primarily an imaginative” field that—in keeping with the designation “otherworld”—opens up “wholly new horizons of expectations within the texts” (21). However, as Byrne admirably demonstrates, if otherworlds prove strange to the fictional characters who enter them, those places were hardly foreign to medieval readers. Rather, otherworlds produced in different texts throughout the Middle Ages share distinctive motifs and literary conventions.If Byrne’s stress on the literary complements Felski’s injunction to appreciate texts, she departs from Felski when it comes to issues of agency. While Felski draws on actor-network theory to construe texts as nonhuman actors, Byrne follows medievalists such as James Wade in her stress on authorship. Byrne views the makers of medieval otherworlds as autonomous and highly creative artists.3 Her first chapter appreciates that authorial role by carefully considering how authors render their fantastic otherworlds believable via thick description. What some readers might view as mere ornament—for example, “the profusion of visual detail” used to describe the fairy pavilion in versions of the Lanval story (32)—encourages the reader to suspend her disbelief in the existence of the world conjured by a medieval writer. The presence of thick description, what Byrne identifies as a “pseudo mimetic” effect (31), continues to figure prominently in subsequent chapters. For instance, in a discussion in chapter 2 of the Irish text Eachtra Thaidhg Mhic Céin (ca. 1300–1499), which describes legendary hero Tadhg’s visit to a paradisiacal island, she stresses how the author uses elaborate details to render believable an “elaborately fictive ‘edifice’” that is still further buttressed by biblical citations (104).Taking as her purview an archipelagic context for medieval writing, Byrne reads the otherworlds of vernacular and Latin texts from England against those imagined in Latin and Celtic texts from Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and other territories in the British Isles. The large body of primary material Byrne discusses ranges from the eighth to fifteenth centuries and includes highly popular texts like the Navigatio Sancti Brendani abbatis (ca. 700–899), canonical texts like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (ca. 1400), and rarely discussed works such as Gilbert Hay’s The Buik of King Alexander the Conquerour (ca. 1460). Sir Orfeo (ca. 1250–1330) enjoys special prominence; Byrne opens with the Middle English romance and returns to it in all but one chapter.Byrne’s study, which contains a good deal of plot summary, description, and comparison, reveals themes that define and distinguish the literary otherworlds portrayed in English archipelagic texts. Those themes help organize the book, whose first chapter tracks the fraught figuration of desire in such texts, where wish fulfillment sits in uneasy relation to narratological exigencies, such as creating a worthy hero and fashioning a tight plot. Subsequent motifs analyzed by Byrne include mortality as well as the closely related issues of kingship and authority.Byrne’s discussion of themes and narrative strategies employed in medieval depictions of otherworlds make clear the shared traits that set them apart from other literary texts and aesthetic forms. But even as medieval otherworlds possess distinctive generic qualities, authors manipulate those conventions in unique and ingenious ways. For example, while other accounts of Alexander’s journey to Eden portray an old man who hands the king a stone that symbolizes his greed, Gilbert Hay’s version has an angel give Alexander an apple, an alteration that intensifies the “lapsarian symbolism” of the story (136).Byrne eventually incorporates history into her analysis while maintaining her emphasis on the primacy of the fictive. Examining in chapter 3 the use of otherworlds for royal propaganda, she explores how such practices “are grounded in the properties presented by the literary motif itself” (110), namely, representations of the transfer of authority from an otherworld to the “real” world depicted by a text. The more a text realizes “imaginatively” a singular authoritative presence in its otherworld (112), the greater its influence on real-world politics. Particularly fascinating is Byrne’s nuanced discussion of cautionary tales about historical rulers, all centered on Alexander’s mythic journey to the terrestrial paradise. The Macedonian conqueror’s ability to see but not enter Eden poignantly speaks to the limits of earthly authority.If chapter 3 considers how medieval otherworlds helped people conceive of political authority in the world, Byrne’s final chapter explores how medieval otherworlds “may have provided a model for thinking about insular geography” throughout the British Isles. While Byrne acknowledges that the distinctive geography of the English archipelago may have encouraged writers to imagine otherworlds, she stresses how the line of influence also moved in the opposite direction, with fictive motifs being reapplied onto accounts of Britain and other islands. Ultimately, Byrne brings politics to bear on her readings. In particular, an extensive analysis of the Middle English poem Of Arthour and of Merlin (ca. 1250–1300) reveals how the association of fantastical elements with Ireland—namely, giants—forms “part of an apologia for conquest” that implies that Ireland “is still awaiting its definitive settlement, much like Britain before Brutus’s arrival” (173). In such moments, Byrne’s work shifts from appreciation to critique.Since Howard Rollins Patch published The Other World (1950), no book-length analysis has emerged on the topic.4 Byrne admirably fills this scholarly void. Elegantly written, smoothly argued and highly informative, Otherworlds is the first book that anyone who wishes to learn about medieval otherworlds should read.Notes1. Rita Felski, The Limits of Critique (University of Chicago Press, 2015).2. Ibid., 12.3. James Wade, Fairies in Medieval Romance (New York: Macmillan, 2011).4. Howard Rollins Patch, The Other World according to Descriptions in Medieval Literature (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950). Previous articleNext article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Modern Philology Volume 115, Number 1August 2017 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/691336HistoryPublished online February 17, 2017 For permission to reuse, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.