The Genesis of Narrative in Malory's 'Morte Darthur' by Elizabeth Edwards (review)

Abstract

152 Reviews the tested woman, Eve, turn up in Adam Bede?and Bueler's readings refresh one's sense of how archetypes operate in historical moments. More importantly, she wants to explain why. The challenges of such a project make this book as interesting as its success in meeting them. King's College London Clare Brant The Heege Manuscript: A Facsimile of National Library of Scotland MS Advocates ig.j.i. Intro. by Phillipa Hardman. (Leeds Texts and Monographs, New Series 16) Leeds: Leeds Studies in English. 2000. lvii +436 pp. ?85. ISBN o902296 -26-4; ISSN 0075-8574. Phillipa Hardman's early article on National Library of Scotland MS Advocates 19.3.1, 'A Medieval "Library In Parvo"' (Medium Aevum, 47 (1978), 262-73), was one of the firstintimations of a new interest in the codicological and contextual study of Middle English manuscripts. It has established itself as a standard, much-cited study. It is therefore particularly appropriate that she should now undertake a full facsimile edition of this manuscript. The 'Heege' manuscript (so called after its principal scribe) is a collection of largely Middle English texts, mainly in verse. It comprises a collection of nine dif? ferent booklets, by several copyists, constituting what is termed 'a household library of diverse material relating to various aspects of family life: devotional, practical, and recreational' (pp. 16-17). A large collection refiectingsuch variegated preoccupations clearly warrants reproducing in facsimile. And the execution of this work is all one could have wished. The introduction gives a detailed and accurate account of the manuscript's contents and physical structure, and the distribution ofthe scribal stints. There is, as well, much helpful analysis of the distinctive nature of the versions of the texts in the manuscript in comparison with others that survive elsewhere. My only complaint is the occasional lack of quality of the facsimile reproduction, which is at times fartoo muddy to be helpful, particularly at the tops of leaves (see e.g. fols 63-66). But in every important respect this volume in an important contribution to Middle English manuscript study. London A. S. G. Edwards The Genesis of Narrative in Malory's 'Morte Darthur'. By Elizabeth Edwards. (Arthurian Studies) Cambridge: Brewer. 2001. x + 201 pp. ?40; $75. ISBN o8599I -596-4Elizabeth Edwards's book laudably addresses that perennial question in Malory cri? ticism: what is the significance of Malory's 'narrative abbreviation and uncanniness' (p. 23)? Her study answers this question in the light of the recent literary theory of Genette, Barthes, and others. Chapter 1, 'Symbolic Structure', defines structure as 'an internal logic which generates [Malory's] selection of incidents and stories' in relation to his sources (p. ix). Freud's notion of cathexis enables Edwards to see in Malory the 'haunting or haunted' symbolic object (such as Arthur's sword) as 'a condensation ofthe narrative' that unravels or completes it (pp. 5-6, 62). Edwards's book, then, focuses on the structuring and eventual fortunes of such symbols across Malory's Arthuriad, in relation to his use of sources. Chapter 2 argues that in order 'to allow the unlikelihood of Gareth's total success, [the tale of Balin] exorcizes the demonic potential of the very materials he was dealing MLR, 99.1,2004 153 with' (p. 53). Chapter 3 deals with 'the mechanics of symbolic structure' (p. 55), emphasizing that 'Fictionally, the Arthurian world has naturally or supernaturally occurring meanings in it', whose 'already-signifying' pre-empts the author (p. 64). In Chapter 4 Edwards argues that while 'Malory retains the model of signs and their explication' from his source (p. 108), Galahad's achieving the Quest 'extinguish[es] [those] semiotics of the marvellous that constitute Arthurian narratives' (p. 91). Thus, as Chapter 5?the strongest in her book?proposes, in the final tales all that is leftto 'the Arthurian scene' is 'conventional signs and the accidents of reading them' (p. 142), a doubtful enterprise in stories which focus 'on the means of obtaining knowledge' of the Queen's adultery (p. 123). Malory's privileging of 'antiquated law', such as trial by battle, emerges as intense nostalgia for authoritative 'immanent knowledge' (p. 164). This unusual degree ofdialogue with his...