Reading Romance: Literacy, Psychology, and Malory's 'Le Morte D'Arthur.' by Margaret DuMais Svogun (review)

Abstract

144ARTHURIANA Margaret »uMais svogun, Reading Romance: Literacy, Psychology, and Malory's 'Le Morte D'Arthur' Studies in the Humanities: Literature—Politics—Society 51; Bern, New York: Peter Lang, 2000. Pp. 144. isbn: 0-8204-4522-3. $45.95. Margaret duMais Svogun attempts to dovetail an archetypal view ofthe functions of romance with speculations on the psychology of reading and the impact of printing on literacy. Malory's Morte, here presented unproblematically as a romance, attracts such analysis by virtue of its having been 'one of the first works reproduced by the new technology of typography' (2). Few scholars, probably, would disagree that certain mythic patterns underlie chivalric romance, and Svogun has some interesting insights to offer about episodes such as the 'Knight with Two Swords.' Moreover, she has put her finger on an important issue in noting the Morte's position on the cusp between manuscript and print. Her book, however, cannot be considered a work of medieval scholarship. The fact that the Morte is cited in modernized spelling, from outdated editions, is overshadowed by the astonishing fact that it is the only primary source cited. Secondary sources on Malory are hardly more numerous. Moreover, the work is shockingly out of date. A perusal of the short bibliography turns up few sources published after 1980, and none published after 1985. The shock wears offa bit once one decides that Svogun's book is, really, a form of pop psychology. A variety ofpleasant ifrather dated theories are patched together to produce the ambitious conclusion that Malory's Morte helped transform human consciousness at the eve of the modern age. The logic is, briefly, that romances, as archetypal narratives, concern and lead the reader on a quest for evolved consciousness. The development of writing and later ofprint 'revolutionized human thought processes and self-concepts,' while 'the comparatively lately [sic], universally accessible mode of private, silent reading' promoted critical thought and interiority. The Morte, as one ofthe first romances published, brought all these consciousness-transforming features together, vastly amplified by the expanded literacy and wide readership created by print (49). These principles are laid out in three short chapters of theory, while a long final chapter examines the psychology ofsome Malorian characters and episodes. The argument as presented begs innumerable questions, and relies on the broadest of generalizations. Any detailed acquaintance with Malory, Arthurian and romance tradition, the Middle Ages, or the history of written and print culture would have vastly complicated Svogun's thesis. Even as psychology the argument falters. The chapter on Malory tries to identify archetypal patterns ofpsychic integration in various heroes, while at the same time searching out dualities as evidence ofthe mental crisis and extreme ambivalence of medieval man induced by the literacy-inspired cleavage ofconsciousness' (109). Not only does Jung sit uneasily with Ong, but literacy was of course a cultural given in England many centuries before Malory, and Malory can hardly be reflecting the impact of a technology that arrived in England five years after his death. Svogun's is a short work—113 pages of text—and even at that length padded out with repetitions and plot summaries. Technical oversights and errors abound. REVIEWS145 Eisenstein is given as Eisentstein (26, 133), for example; the famous article on literacy by Goody and Watt is credited to Watt and Goody (21, 25, 133). Articles in anthologies are not cited separately, making them impossible to locate in the bibliography. Since the illumination on the cover is nowhere identified or discussed, some readers may assume that the man shown writing in the Tower is Malory; it is, ofcourse, Charles d'Orléans (from British Library Roy. 16 F.ii). JOYCE COLEMAN University of North Dakota Richard UTZ and Tom shippey, eds., Medievalism in the Modern World. Essays in Honour ofLeslie Workman. Making the Middle Ages Vol. 1. Turnhout: Brepols, 1998. Pp. xiv, 452. isbn: 2—503-50166—2. Price unavailable. The word 'medievalism' has been coined to describe the construction ofthe Middle Ages in the post-medieval period in both 'high' and 'popular' culture. Medievalism in the Modern WorU is a welcome addition to medieval scholarship because it requires us to think about the extent ofmodern debts to the...