Perceval: The Story of the Grail by Chrétien De Troyes (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS133 poem Piers Plowman. Before Clopper, the usual scholarly view was that the poem, especially in its longer B and C versions, bitterly attacked friars in general, and the Franciscans in particular, blaming them for much ofthe sorry state ofcontemporary Christianity. For example, the first major negative allegorical character in the poem, Meed, is fraudulently confessed by a friar, and at the end of the poem the English Church (Unity) is corrupted by the friar Sir Penetrans domos. Curiously, Clopper discusses neither scene in detail, but he does mount a complex, learned argument that Piers Plowman, instead ofbeing an assault on the friars from outside, is a reformist work written from within that 'systematically exhibits a Franciscan mentality, ideology, and spirituality' (3) and deliberately addresses a Franciscan audience (among others). The purpose of the poem is 'to hold a mirror up to the friars couched in terms that they would recognize as a reassertion of the ¡deal of Francis in order to bring them back to the intent of the rule' (298). In addition to an introduction and afterword, Songes ofRechelesnesse is divided into eight chapters. The first surveys the medieval debate on the friars, distinguishing the external criticism from internal reformist self-criticism among the Franciscans themselves. The second chapter looks at Langland's portrayal offriars in Piers and his discussion of issues such as begging and confession in mendicant terms. Chapter three argues for the poet's specific debt to the exemplarist spirituality ofBonaventure, which is used to resolve questions throughout the poem. The rest of the book is a Franciscan reading that generally follows the development oíPiers Plowman: chapter four treats the visio as a political treatise inspired by mendicant views of the three estates. Chapter five deals with figures in the poem who represent Francis's radical 'fools of God,' from the 'lunatyk lollares' to Piers himself, and the next chapter considers other ideal figures, including Patience and the Samaritan, who practice the careless lack of solicitude so valued by the Franciscans: the conflict between such 'rechelesnesse' and the pursuit oflearning is shown to be as intense in the poem as in the order. Chapter seven considers the friars' important role in history as renewers of the apostolic ideal, whereas chapter eight looks more narrowly at the poet's persona, Will, whose failures to live up to the values he professes challenge contemporary friars. Clopper's arguments for both the importance ofmendicant characters in Piers Plowman and for the value the poet finds in Franciscan thought and ideals are convincing and valuable. Many readers will be less persuaded by individual claims and special pleading, such as the afterword that makes the case for Langland himselfhaving been a member of the Franciscan order at some point. Nevertheless, in addition to useful analysis ofparticular passages that cannot be discussed here, Lawrence Clopper has earned the gratitude ofall readers ofPiers Pbwman for establishing how much the example and practice ofFrancis and his followers are at the center ofthis great poem. C. DAVID BENSON University of Connecticut chrétien de troyes, Perceval: The Story ofthe Grail. Trans., Burton Raffel. New Flaven: Yale University Press, 1999. Pp. x, 310. isbn: 0—300—07585-5 (cloth), $32.50; 0-300-07586-3 (paper), $16. 134ARTHURIANA This volume brings to a conclusion Burton Raffel's translations of the Arthurian romances of Chrétien de Troyes. (Previously he published Yvain in 1987, Erec in 1996, Cliges and Lancelot in 1997.) Like the other volumes, this one includes an informative afterword by Joseph Duggan, who discusses the possible sources or analogues for the elements of the Grail procession, the emphasis on kinship ties in the romance, and Grail texts following Chretien's. The present translation is done according to the method outlined in Raffel's Yvain but unfortunately not explained here. His approach is to offer an unrhymed text set into lines that contain three stressed syllables and a variable number of unstressed ones. In principle, I have found, and find here, that his method works. In practice, however, it is sometimes less successful than we might wish. Raffel's line breaks often divide closely linked grammatical units—adjective from noun, oneelement of a...