The Arthurian Myth of Quest and Magic ed. by William E. Tanner (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS113 This is Queen Isolt's tale, not Gwenivere's, Tristans, not Lancelot's: but since men know This version best, I tell it also so. (136) This volume is a welcome addition to any Arthurian library and should help to place Masefield firmly in the tradition of Arthurian innovators and enthusiasts. If one were to use this work in a course, however, it would be useful—as it would be with the other volumes in this series—to see more editorial assistance, such as dates of composition and publication (when applicable) and even more important, explanatory notes for the less familiar references and details contained in the poems themselves. As it is, an insttuctorwould need to supplya great deal to undergraduates unfamiliarwith Masefield's predessesors and especiallywith his more obscure sources. REBECCA A. UMLAND University ofNebraska at Kearney William E. tanner, ed., The Arthurian Myth ofQuest andMagic. Dallas: Caxton's Modern Arts Press, 1993. Paper. Pp. viii, 145. isbn: 0-9635769-0-9. Honoring the pedagogical and scholatly achievements ofLavon B.Fulwiler, Cornaro Professor Emérita, Texas Woman's University, thisfestschrift offers disparate visions ofArthuriana, ranging from studies ofMalory, Tennyson, andTwain to explorations of Arthurian themes in contemporary novels and films. Apart from Fulwiler's autobiographical sketch, The Quest in Progress: A Twentieth-Century Enfances? TheArthurian Myth contains rwelve briefessays, several ofwhich (the works by Joe D. Thomas and Turner S. Kobler) provide no formal scholarly apparatus. Five essays are traditional literary applications, both medieval and post-medieval, of the Arthurian legend. While Fulwiler's The Myth Fulfilled' focuses on Arthur's identification with Christ and on the king's heroism and quest, notably in Malory's LeMorteDarthur, Donna Shelton's essay ("Malory's Use ofDream Vision' ) scrutinizes Malory's dream landscape so as to unveil 'the recurring themes ofstruggle, quest, and perseverance' (p. 26). Following these critical forays into Malory's world, James E. Barcus supplies a perceptive assessment of The Idylb ofthe King in '[Re]playing and [Re]writing the Quest inTennyson's "Gareth and Lynette."' Subverting any idealized reading ofthis tale as an affirmation ofVictorian pieties, Batcus claims thatTennyson at once embraces and challenges 'the bases for the founding ofthe Round Table, the authority forArthur's kingship, and the reality and stability ofCamelot' (p. 36). Two final tecastings of the Arthurian legend are found in Joe D. Thomas's ? Ball of Twain-Told Yarn' and in Frances Hernandez's 'Reflecrions on the Concept of the Grail.' While Thomas explores Hank Morgan's role in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, a satiric 'anti-romance' (p. 69), Hernandez attempts to unlock the mysteries ofthe Grail symbol in numerous English and continental works. The remaining seven essays in The Arthurian Myth focus on contemprary reweavings ofArthurian characters and themes into novels and films. In the Tangled Web ofTime,' William E. Tanner employs the semiotic theories ofEco and Kristeva 114ARTHURIANA as well as spatial-temporal frameworks to intepret both T. H. Whites The Once and Future King and The Book ofMerlyn. Tracing Merlyn's backward existence in time, Tanner offers a provocative argument for rhe novels' 'magical, curvilinear, webbed and chronological concepts oftime' (p. 52). The essays by Bob Dowell and Turner S. Kobler, on the contemporary Arthurian novel, are oflimited usefulness to Arthurian students and scholars. Dowell provides a conjectural analysis of John Steinbeck's preoccupation with the Arthurian legend, while Kobler ('King Arthur and Popular Culture') supplies general commentary, usually plot summaries, on the novels of Maty Stewart, Stephen Lawhead, Marion Zimmer Bradley, and Patricia Kennealy. More focused and illuminating readings, however, are penned by Paul A. Lister and Sallye J. Sheppeard. In 'Sir Walker and Sir Lancelot,' for example, Lister argues convincingly that Walker Percy repudiates 'Southern Stoicism' (pp. 79-80)—the contemporary offshoot of the Arthurian mythos—because this regional philosophy violates Christian principles and fashions a retreat from reality. Sheppeard ('Arthur and the Goddess: Cultural Crisis in The Mists ofAvalon), however, hears a feminist voice in Bradley's novel, 'the voice ofpre-Christian and pre-Cekic tradition in Europe and Britain' (p. 94). Then exploring Morgaine's complaint against 'patriarchal Christianity' (p. 102), Sheppeard demonstrates cogently that a mythological schism develops, wherein...