Philippe de Remi, Le Roman de la Manekine, Edited from Paris BNF fr. 1588 and Translated ed. by Barbara N. Sargent-Baur (review)

Abstract

86ARTHURIANA (of warrior types, of the heroic 'life grid,' of the trickster and others) that suggest themselves both as useful teaching tools and as heuristics for further investigation. The first chapter, on the other hand, is the longest, the most dense with academese and learned quotations, and the most off-putting. The reader moves with difficulty through unhelpfully subtitled sections, reductivist history, and the occasional dubious claim. For example, Lucan's Pharsalia did not 'set the pattern' for imagining the East in signs of 'threatening and unmanning femininity' (17). The Aeneid had already set that pattern firmly, following hints as early as the Iliad itself. This last, however, leads to serious questions about the editing ofthis long book. One might excuse Louis Carroll, rather than Lewis Carroll or Charles Dodgson, dropping his Alice down a rabbit hole (156). Or the odd surfacing ofancient chivalry in European 'cavalry regiments as late as the ninth century,' rather than the nineteenth (13). But we also discover strange characters like 'the "proud maiden" Oryo in Beowulf (112). Perhaps Modthryth is the character meant, but, like the references to five columns in a table that has only four columns (48-49), it is the kind oferror which leads us to question other aspects of the scholarship. Perhaps I ask too much. The Epic Hero may adjust the terms of our struggle, but we are still left to wander with our dragons in the dark. JEREMY M. DOWNES Auburn University barbara N. SARGENT-BAUR, ed. and trans., with contributions by alison stones and Roger middleton. Philippe de Remi, Le Roman de la Manekine, Editedfrom Paris BNFfr. 1588 and Translated. Faux Titre No. 159. Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi, 1999. Pp. x, 675. isbn: 90-420-0614-5. After over a hundred years of relative neglect, suddenly we have two editions, each with facing English translations, of Philippe de Remis Roman de la Manekine. This, the second, while acknowledging considerable debt throughout to Hermann Suchier's 1884-85 SATF edition, only mentions Irene Gnarra's 1988 edition/translation for Garland in the bibliography. The present review will address two considerations: a) what is the interest ofthis text for Arthurians? And, b) should this edition replace its predecessors? La Manekine relates in 8590 octosyllabic lines the tale of the Hungarian princess, Joie, who cuts offher own hand to avoid an incestuous marriage with her father. She then flees Hungary for Scotland, where she marries the young king, incurring thereby the queen mother's enmity. La Manekine is betrayed by the latter and set adrift with het infant son. She lands in Rome, where a senator rescues her. After seven years of searching, the king ofScotland reaches Rome and the couple is reunited. Meanwhile, the king of Hungary repents of his behavior toward his daughter and journeys to Rome to seek absolution from the pope. Miraculously, Manekine's severed hand appears in a well and is reattached by the pontiff. Eventually the king and Manekine return to rule happily in Scotland. REVIEWS87 Nothing here is particularly Arthurian, although certain motifs (e.g., the rash boon) and episodes (Manekine's meditation on her name is similar to Soredamors's in Chrétien deTroyes's Cligés) have vaguely Arthurian parallels. However, as the editor has shown at length in a contribution to Philippe Ménard's Meknges ('Echos de Chrétien de Troyes dans les romans de Philippe de Rémi,' 1998: 1193-1201), the thirteenth-century poet was intimately familiar with his by then illustrious predecessor's five Arthurian romances, employing many precise verbal echoes and paraphrases. Lines 4-29 of Philippe's prologue, for example, seem to harken back to Yvain, 150-74. This edition is considerably more attractively printed than Gnarra's and provides, in addition, a detailed analysis of the manuscript's illuminations by Alison Stones (pp. 1-39) and a useful 'History of BNF fr. 1588' by Roger Middleton (pp. 41-68). Sargent-Baur herself contributes information on Philippe's life, his language usage, dating, a summary and chronology of the poem, and an exposition of its principal themes (pp. 69-127). This material is both more detailed and more authoritative than that provided by Gnarra...