Arthurian Fiction Research Articles

Medieval Iberian Crusade Fiction and the Mediterranean World by David A. Wacks

Reviewed by: Medieval Iberian Crusade Fiction and the Mediterranean World by David A. Wacks Albert Lloret Medieval Iberian Crusade Fiction and the Mediterranean World. By David A. Wacks. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2019. The introduction to Medieval Iberian Crusade Fiction and the Mediterranean World has two goals. The first is to assert the critical framework of the study—that is, researching the interaction of the territories, cultures, and politics of the Mediterranean basin—and, in subsequent chapters, the relevance of this Mediterranean-centered approach becomes apparent in the geographical background of the literary works under scrutiny as much as in their discursive and political relevance. The second is to define the place of the Iberian Peninsula with respect to the medieval wars of conquest of the holy sites of Christendom in the Middle East. The focus of this second goal is not so much placed on military or apologetical contributions coming from Iberia to the Middle Eastern Crusades. Rather, Wacks concentrates on explaining how the history of those contributions affected the way in which the military campaigns of the Iberian Christian kingdoms against Al-Andalus were ideologically conceived, imagined, and predicated as a holy war. Thus, medieval Iberian chivalric works engaged with the Crusades in clearly distinct discursive forms. Given the book’s focus on literary prose works written in Arabic, Castilian, and Catalan, the introduction pays particular attention to the ideology of the Crusades and to practices of proselytization and conversion of Muslim and Jewish populations in the Christian-dominated territories of the Iberian Peninsula. It ends with a cursory catalogue of mainly Castilian examples of Crusade fiction; and, in my opinion, a lyric subgenre such as the Occitan canso de crozada, a variety of sirventes, would also yield interesting responses to the kinds of questions the author entertains in the introduction. I mean this as a remark on the monograph’s relevance beyond its intended scope, not as critique of Wacks’s choice of works. Chapter 1 advances an interpretation of the Ziyad ibn ‘Amir al-Kinani—an Andalusi work written in Granada c. 1250—as an example of Crusade fiction. Ziyad is a significant but neglected example of the complexity of cultural hybridity in medieval Iberia. The work was generically indebted to both Arab popular epic and Arab popular narrative texts such as the 1001 Nights. But its anonymous author drew, too, on Christian Crusader and Arthurian fiction to create a narrative led, paradoxically, by an Arab and Muslim hero. This reliance on Christian [End Page 143] chivalric fiction explains many of the work’s features, from its detailed descriptions of combat to the mass conversion of pagans to Islam. For Wacks, Ziyad emerges as an outstanding work in its context because of the way in which it evinces a degree of cultural assimilation of Muslim Granada to the Christian north. He argues that this assimilation was an aesthetic choice, not an ideological one, because it is exemplified in other artistic and literary products of the time. The author of Ziyad maintained the religious values of Arab epic, negotiating and adapting them to the generic features of Christian chivalric fiction. Chapter 2 centers on the Castilian Libro del caballero Zifar, dated to the first quarter of the fourteenth century. A thorough reading of a fragment of Zifar’s prologue gives Wacks a starting point for unpacking the book’s political and ideological agenda. He contends that Zifar embodies a cultural translatio. Its Christian author’s appropriation of Andalusi culture is interpreted as spolia—that is, as a way of enhancing the cultural capital of his work, one that accounts for key formal aspects of the text, such as its Arabizing toponyms and anthroponyms and its transformation of Arthurian fiction into a vehicle for sapiential literature. At the same time, the prologue of Zifar is understood to be performing a vindication of the Mozarabic elites of the Church of Toledo over adventitious Castilian dominance. This political maneuver—the affirmation of Mozarabic identity—may have been allegorized in the plot of the romance. Finally, Wacks suggests how two of the Arthurian motifs that the book contains, the only fantastic ones in the work (whose source is debated), could...

The Danger of Romance: Truth, Fantasy, and Arthurian Fictions. Karen Sullivan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018. Pp. 299.

<i>The Danger of Romance: Truth, Fantasy, and Arthurian Fictions</i>. Karen Sullivan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018. Pp. 299.

Karen Sullivan, The Danger of Romance. Truth, Fantasy and Arthurian Fictions

Au pied d’un lit, un couple semble embrasse dans une extase amoureuse. Mais la jeune femme a la pâleur et l’immobilite de la mort, et le jeune homme, qui l’ecrase de son poids, a dans le dos un poignard. La legende de cette illustration de couverture mentionne simplement son titre, The Lovers (2010) et le nom des artistes contemporains qui l’ont realisee : Tania Brassesco et Lazlo Passi Norberto. Cette image renvoie a l’histoire de Paolo et Francesca, amants celebres du deuxieme cercle de L’E...

The Danger of Romance: Truth, Fantasy, and Arthurian Fictions by Karen Sullivan

The Danger of Romance: Truth, Fantasy, and Arthurian Fictions by Karen Sullivan

The Prevalence of Verse in Medieval Dutch and English Arthurian Fiction

Chretien de Troyes produced a highly original corpus of works that proved to be immensely influential.1 Apart from providing later authors with a stock of Arthurian characters, themes, motifs, and narrative structures, he showed them the attractiveness and flexibility of the octosyllabic couplet. This is demonstrated by the impressive number of later Arthurian verse romances. With regard to this medium, however, we should remark that his successors, both French and non-French, explored other forms as well. Whereas many of his continuators stuck to couplets, others preferred to write in prose. In addition, in Britain there were authors composing, for instance, alliterative texts, as well as poets who produced the tail-rhyme stanza, characterized by Rosalind Field as “this jog-trot metric with its tendency to collapse in banality.”2 In the past, scholars have studied all these different forms, their origins, and their reception, mainly focusing on one particular linguistic area. In this article, I would like to broaden the scope of our research somewhat by looking at the use of the different media in medieval Dutch and English Arthurian literature in comparison to French literature. What catches the eye when we look at these forms from this comparative perspective? I will show that authors of both Dutch and English Arthurian narrative fiction had a strong preference for writing verse, and I will offer a speculative explanation of this common feature by incorporating the audiences of their narratives in my argument.

Grrrls and Arthurian Stories

Grrrls and Arthurian Stories Bonnie Wheeler Why do feminist scholars (men and women) keep reading and teaching medieval stories that, like most Arthurian narratives, reinscribe patriarchal sexism? Do our politics match our reading practices? Scholars in all pre-contemporary fields ask themselves this question. Teach Hesiod's Works and Days and you perpetuate the story of Pandora (who released all evil into the world through her stupid curiosity) no matter how strongly you urge your students to resist its woman-loathing. Sure, such works spark good 'teaching moments,' yet they insidiously get inside our heads. In the last several decades, radical feminists have urged us to blast away this past by avoiding it entirely; other feminists have suggested that the interrogation of 'canonical' texts through gender analysis might equalize the gender balance; yet others suggest that we might change the temperature by amplifying access to new texts, many of them written by women. In any case, whether the protagonists and readers are men or women, our love of good stories is enduring—and Arthurian tales provides a steady stock of great stories, well told, often intellectually invigorating. One friend says we read them because they 'shine' in our emotions like sunlight hitting armor, and we identify with male and female protagonists alike. Furthermore, women often have agency—and sometimes equal empowerment with men—in medieval Arthurian texts. Modern writers pluck from these texts whatever skeletal identities suit their imaginative purposes, but they often flatten the characterization of their inherited female characters to mere names. This collection of fine essays focuses both on how modern fiction and life represent girls and women in modern Arthurian and/or chivalric moments. Barbara Tepa Lupack's The Girl's King Arthur: Tales of the Women of Camelot is for me the strongest example of a writer whose fictive characters spring from traditional Arthurian narratives but who elaborate female achievement, thus allowing audiences of all genders to identify with women's choices. I was so impressed when Barbara showed me her draft that I immediately begged to publish this book in ARTHURIANA's Scriptorium Press series. Standing against Tepa Lupack's vision are those discussed by Laurie Finke and Susan Aronstein in their study of William Forbush's tawdry pre-World War I foundation of the 'Queens of Avalon' Club that paralleled his 'Knights of King Arthur' clubs. Like so many movements of the time (the Boy Scouts before them, [End Page 3] neo-Nazism later), these were attempts to teach both boys and girls how to submit and find contentment in rote obedience. Don't miss Amy Kaufman's hilarious yet appalling recounting of the ceremonies of contemporary 'modesty movements,' in which she argues that wounded American paternal masculinity can be assuaged by daughters who enact meta-incest rituals disguised in chivalric dress. In their essays, both Roberta Davidson and Fiona Tolhurst survey contemporary Arthurian fiction for girls. Here, the politics are depressingly mixed. None of us should be surprised that women writers are some of the worst offenders against equality. Many new fictions provide miserable female role models for girls (and, frankly, for boys also). In our era we might hope that all fiction writers and their publishers would push for stronger roles for boys and girls alike. In new Arthurian materials, we especially need strong grrrls who can think their way through situations without recourse to easy violence. Lots of 'younger reader' fiction, computer games, comics, etc. show powerful grrrls who can outrun and outmaneuver all the Evil Monkeys on my iPhone apps, but few are the new stories that show grrrls choosing strength and peace together. Perhaps we should ask such terrific writers as Sharan Newman and Bernard Cornwall to take a step in this direction. Their first question, reasonably, would be whether we warmongering tribes would buy enough copies. Would we? [End Page 4] Copyright © 2012 Arthuriana

Helping Girls to Be Heroic?: Some Recent Arthurian Fiction for Young Adults

Study of the female protagonists in several post-2000 novels for young adults reveals that Morris and Reeve provide healthy and flexible models of gender roles and gender identity. In contrast, McKenzie, Springer, and Wood provide restrictive and old-fashioned ones while Kemp presents a dangerously negative model of womanhood.

Writers of Wales: Geoffrey of Monmouth (review)

Reviewed by: Writers of Wales: Geoffrey of Monmouth Andrew Breeze Karen Jankulak , Writers of Wales: Geoffrey of Monmouth. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2010. Pp. 118. ISBN: 978-0-7083-2151-5. £16.99. University of Wales Press has over the years produced many volumes in its Writers of Wales series, a collection of booklets that describe Welsh writers from Taliesin to Dylan Thomas and beyond. They are meant for a wide audience and so assume no previous knowledge. Quite apart from information on their subject, they always accurately convey how Welsh writers are perceived in Wales (even on the few occasions when the booklet's author is not Welsh). A little thought suggests a possible disadvantage in books written about the Welsh, by the Welsh, for the Welsh. The result might be perennial one-sidedness, like a country where the same political party always wins the elections. That has its effect on discussion of Geoffrey of Monmouth in this attractively printed volume by Karen Jankulak. Like Henry V, Bertrand Russell, and Lawrence of Arabia, Geoffrey was Welsh only in the sense that he was born there. Nevertheless, by his Arthurian inventions he became the most successful literary propagandist that Wales has ever seen. The book's nine chapters start with the man and his work, and then turn to the difficult question of the sources for Historia Regum Britanniae. Chapter 3 is more general, engaging with models for historiography in twelfth-century Britain. Chapter 4 attends to questions of sovereignty, an active tradition in Britain from Gildas to this day, where it lies behind the very notion of a 'United Kingdom.' We are then directed to the theme of Rome and thereafter Magnus Maximus (a fourth-century usurper who became a figure of legend) and the founding of Brittany. Chapters 7 and 8 deal with the momentous subjects of Arthur and Merlin. We close with Geoffrey's historical legacy, both internationally (where it was challenged in the sixteenth century) and in Wales (where it lingered up to the nineteenth). Although long discredited as a chronicler, Geoffrey from the grave still molds the imaginations of millions, as the ever-retold Arthurian fictions of bestseller and Hollywood make clear. Jankulak is a learned writer, but unfortunately she is an incomplete one so that many who have written on Geoffrey and his times will find strange omissions in her book. Jankulak seems, for example, to be unaware of what has been going on in Mabinogion studies since the mid-1990s. She says that 'we can only speculate' on the audience and setting of these tales (7), when this reviewer has argued that the four [End Page 135] best-known of them are by a writer of royal blood from north Wales who moved to a court in the south: hence their positive and informed picture of royal power in both Gwynedd and Dyfed. Once grasped, this helps us understand better their social context. Elsewhere she calls these tales 'difficult to date' (57), oblivious to evidence that places the Four Branches of the Mabinogi to after about 1120 and before 1136 or so. They mention Oxford as a focus of royal power, which was hardly the case before the 1120s, when Henry I began issuing charters there. Yet they make no reference to Arthur, so surely predate Geoffrey's Historia of the later 1130s. A similar myopia applies to the ferocious political poem Armes Prydein, 'The Prophecy of Britain,' airily described as 'probably dating from the tenth century' (64), when David Dumville and others have related it to the post-Athelstan period, and probably to late 940, immediately after West Saxon capitulation to the Vikings at Leicester (which Armes Prydein mentions). If, then, one seeks a full and up-to-date account of Geoffrey and his relation to Celtic tradition, it will be found not here but in The Arthur of Medieval Latin Literature, ed. Siân Echard (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2011). Though published in Wales, that volume has the inestimable advantage of contributors from the wide-open spaces below blue skies of North America. One feels that if more volumes of the Writers of Wales series were written not in...

From Camelot to Obamalot: Essays on Medieval and Modern Arthurian Literature (review)

Reviewed by: From Camelot to Obamalot: Essays on Medieval and Modern Arthurian Literature Kevin J. Harty Joerg O. Fichte , From Camelot to Obamalot: Essays on Medieval and Modern Arthurian Literature. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 2010. Pp. 202. ISBN: 978-3-86821-256-3. £24.50. You can't tell a book by its cover, nor, it would seem, by its title. This intriguingly titled volume is simply a collection of a dozen essays in English by the author, eleven originally published, some in German and some in English, in collections of essays by diverse hands—and, in one case, in Connotations—since 1991. The final essay, from which the volume takes its title, is partially devoted to a brief frenzy in the American and foreign press once Caroline Kennedy endorsed then-candidate Barack Obama for president which speculated that an Obama presidency would usher in a new Camelot and worthy successor to her father's brief time in office. Six essays discuss medieval Arthuriana; six, modern. The usefulness of this slim and somewhat expensive paperback volume depends upon how valuable the reader finds a collection of a dozen essays in English by Professor Fichte on topics such as Arthurian verse romance, twelfth-century Arthurian history, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the death of Arthur, Middle English Gawain romances, the relationship between the Queste del Saint Graal and Malory, Galahad's depiction in modern Arthurian literature, the Grail in contemporary American fiction, the world of the Round Table in contemporary German drama, utopian and dystopian elements in Anglo-American Arthurian fiction in the last two centuries, and Tennyson's Idylls. [End Page 128] Kevin J. Harty La Salle University Copyright © 2012 Arthuriana

Characters and Narrators as Interpreters of Fidelity Tests in Medieval Arthurian Fiction

This article discusses a number of fidelity-testing tales and episodes, focusing on the function of characters and narrators who provide interpretations of the outcome of the tests. The testing of a series of characters takes place during a social gathering, involves a testing device, most often a mantle or a drinking horn, and discloses infidelity or other shortcomings. In most tales, ethical interpreters confront the spectators with social criticism and moral lessons, either seriously, as in Ulrich’s Lanzelet and Albrecht’s Jüngerer Titurel, or humorously, as in the Manteau mal taillé. In Heinrich von dem Türlin’s Diu Crône, however, the interpreters are innocuous. Kei the seneschal and the narrator participate in an intratextual as well as literary game. Their comments are meant to amuse other characters, and to challenge the literary expertise of the listeners to Heinrich’s romance.

Why Do Some Stories Keep Returning?: Modern Arthurian Fiction and the Narrative Structure of Romance

Why Do Some Stories Keep Returning?: Modern Arthurian Fiction and the Narrative Structure of Romance

The Use of History and Archaeology in Contemporary Arthurian Fiction

From the 1970s on, the majority of writers of narrative fiction who have turned to the Arthurian legends for their novels have chosen an historical approach. These novelists used history and archaeology to reconstruct the world of King Arthur.

A Bibliography of Modern Arthuriana 1500-2000 by Ann F. Howey, Stephen R. Reimer

MLR, 103.2, 2oo8 493 thatGawain is particularly associated with geographical areas which relate him to theWelsh hero Owain Glyn D'wr. Both represent themarginalized, associated in the literary and historiographical recordwith nature, magic/prophecy, and women. Whereas romances-and histories-mostly imagine centralized tradition,Owain and Gawain are 'local heroes'. Martin Connolly reveals the promise-postponement theme in The Awntyrs of Arthur tobe a popular one, with an English version tobe found in fourteenth-century sources. Awntyrs therefore represents a sophisticated version of a 'known' narrative. This is obviously a device which contemporary writers on the conflict between the secular and the spiritual found very useful. Norris J.Lacy studies identities bymeans of the character of Gauvain in the French romance L'Atre Perilleux, detailing the erasure ofGauvain's identityand his quest to recover it, which isalso a 'resurrection'. This is followed by Fanni Bogdanow's article on the 'handsome coward' theme, dis cussing refusals ofGalahad to fight.Bogdanow links thiswith thehumility specified as a knightly quality by St Bernard ofClairvaux. The difference between the appar ent and the actual demonstrates that true courage is a function of the inner, rather than theoutward, self.Tony Grand's article, examining thepossibility of a laterdate for the gift of a Perlesvaus manuscript to Jean de Nesle, isvery interesting in that it illustrates theextraordinariness of 'lesser' characters inmedieval history.These were real-lifeArthurian knights, theowners and readers of the legend and itsvariants, and theywere to be found all across Europe. In the finalarticle Robert Gossedge notes the importance, seriousness, and quality ofArthurian material from Scotland, Wales, and Cornwall in the early nineteenth century. Thomas Love Peacock was well connected toWelsh literary circles, and The Misfortunes ofElphin was translated from Welsh. Peacock used his translation ofWelsh material to challenge contemporary, Anglocentric, historiography. Welsh historians liked it. The value of thisbook lies in its individual contributions. These are not arranged inas satisfactory away as theycould have been, with some obvious connectivity being missed. The foreword does not communicate these relationships effectively,but the volume contains a variety of small gems, waiting to interestand inspire the enquiring reader. UNIVERSITY OF HULL LESLEY COOTE A Bibliography of Modern Arthuriana 1500-2000. By ANN F. HOWEY and STEPHEN R. REIMER. Cambridge: Brewer. 2oo6. ii+774pp. ?I25;$i8o. ISBN 978-I 84384-o68-8. The scope of this bibliography is an excitingly and commendably wide one, which makes the volume extremely useful and very welcome. It brings together biblio graphical items fromSpenser's Faerie Queene toFuqua's KingArthur, byway ofVan Morrison and The Moody Blues, in a 'one-stop' bibliography ofArthurian influences, references, and reworkings, a book that isunique in its field. The compilers' rationale admits that the definitions with which theyhave had to deal are difficult and contested ones. 'Arthurian Fiction', the stated content, is de fined as 'imaginative re-workings of the legend' (p. ix), although this is extended to references in songs as well as to longer works. Only material stored and available in libraries or other retrievable forms is listed. This has a practical purpose for the user of a bibliography inbook form, which cannot be easily updated when material is withdrawn from thepublic domain. The definition of narratives with plot structures which are demonstrably Arthurian has to be a subjective decision. However, that is 494 Reviews a danger inherent in bibliographical productions of this kind, and the authors cover thisby thedescriptive material which accompanies each entry. The entries are arranged, conventionally, in alphabetic order of author's surname/ familyname (if this isknown), and are divided according to thenature of themedium employed; hence sections on literature,on film,television and radio, onmusic, on fine art and graphic design, and on digital gaming. In addition to conventional bibliogra phical entries, giving name, date, author, editions, and other publication information, each entry is fullyannotated. The notes give not only an indication of plotlines, but also,where this is judged tobe relevant to the subject, information about theauthor's other works, and the context of thework (i.e. if it isone of a series, part of a collec tion, or relates in some way to other works, which may ormay not be listed in the bibliography). It...

Cloaks of Invisibility: The Status of Arthurian Studies

The ongoing film, print, and merchandizing phenomenon surrounding J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series makes for a timely interrogation of medievalist, and particularly Arthurian, work. While many university scholars lament the dwindling attention and funds given to medievalist projects, the Middle Ages seems very much alive and well in its popular formations. Both youth and adult cultures are obsessed with the Middle Ages, even beyond the indication that we might perceive from the castle-inhabiting, wizarding narratives of Rowling that have made Harry Potter the best-selling series in publishing history. The fanaticism prompted and fueled by the Star Wars franchise and the Lord of the Rings film trilogy, the cult following of Monty Python and the Holy Grail and its recent re-vivication in the Broadway production of Spamalot, also provide obvious signs of the popularity of the Middle Ages in the contemporary imagination. But there are numerous others to be found in television advertising: IBM, the U.S. Marines, Capital One Credit Cards, and Jack-in-the-Box restaurants each use medieval, and specifically Arthurian, ad campaigns. An IBM commercial, in which a patient relays an Arthurian dream of pulling the sword from the stone to a Freudian psychoanalyst may be the most telling in terms of the location of our medievalist fantasies in our dreams of work, functionality, and computer-assisted productivity. For all its vast distance and cultural displacements, the Arthurian fiction fully inhabits our post-Freudian unconscious and reappears in our dreamwork as well as our enjoyments. Most pervasively, and most consistently, the Arthurian dream inhabits our childhood and the enjoyments we produce for our children. Lego, Playmobile, Playskool, and Barbie have elaborately developed medieval world-building products. With Playmobile one can choose a multi-unit, elaborate 'King's Castle,' or a Viking ship, and re-enact Danish raids on the Angles or the Norman conquest. Playmobile's miniature accessories, which include crossbows, longbows, quiver with removable arrows, frothing beer steins, various helmets (some with nose plates), shields, plate armor, and detachable facial hair, enable a wide variety of historical play. (My children use the 'Fairy Tale Castle,' which appears to be a semi-Restoration-cum-Cinderella affair, to represent the French and mock up the Hundred Years' War with the very English King's Castle noted above.) This is but one example. Children's culture is saturated with medieval dolls, toys, books and imaginative costume of all kinds and levels of elaborateness (take especial note of the Magic Cabin catalogue and its array of medieval dolls, dress, and equipment for Waldorf educational play). Perhaps most recently and potentially most importantly, the world of video gaming takes the re-vivication of the Middle Ages to its greatest possibilities. Operating beyond the annual 'Renaissance Faire' that might be close enough to attend or the 'Medieval Feast' theme restaurants at various tourist attractions we might visit, we are able to inhabit medieval worlds to the furthest extent that our digital imaginations can reach through games like Everquest and Final Fantasy. Where such virtual medievalism poses technological anxieties, we can always turn to the back of the latest airline shoppers' magazine to buy a letter opener in the form of Aragorn's reforged sword, Anduril. Should one want a full-sized replica, one need only get on the mailing list (or website) for 'Museum Replicas Limited,' 'a division of the Atlanta Cutlery Corporation.' The array of 'historically accurate, battle-ready swords, daggers, axes and helmets,' as advertised on the cover of catalog #83, allows for a grown-up, real time version of any kind of Playmobile universe (pirates, vikings, etc.) or full participation in the detailed Hollywood visualization of one's favorite medieval book. These adult devices are not very different from children's products. …

The Song of Sir Rod the Long: A Gay Romance of the Round Table by Larry Howard (review)

136arthuriana unrcsolvable 'dichotomyofsecularandspiritual desires' (58) in Malory, shecontends, has remained a popular theme in modern Arthurian literature, especially in the narratives she examines here. With respe« to issues of gender, Hildebrand argues that Malory's text, unlike Geoffrey's, is 'remarkably free, for its time, ofmysogynist depictions ofwomen' (59). Chapters three, four, and five represent the core ofHildebrand's study, providing detailed comparative analyses ofArthurian fiction byStewart, Bradley, and Lawhead. Such a process, by its very complexity, risks losing the reader in a welter ofdetail, but the chapters are carefully organized in parallel structure. Beginning with an overview, each then discusses the reader's relationship to the events and central figure(s) ofeach volume, followed by units on gender and religion, in that order, and concludes with a concise summary. While this unvarying pattern may be perceived by some readers as rather mechanical, it is reasonably effettive from a mnemonic standpoint. Hildebrand has selected these authors for the variety oftheir representations of religion and gender and for the consequent responses their works elicit from the Christian feminist standpoint. 'Stewart's, Bradley's, and Lawhead's novels portray different religious traditions: respectively, an ede«ic monotheism, Neo-PaganWicca, and Christianity' (Abstra«). As to gender, Hildebrand describes Stewarts Merlin as 'gender neutral,' while Bradley's overt attack on patriarchal religious and gender structures is answered by Lawhead's equally unsubtle reinscription ofa patriarchal value system. Although the feminist reader's response to these texts may be readily inferred from their relative gender positioning, Hildebrand interestinglycomplicates her readings by factoring in the Christian element. TheFemaUReaderattheRoundTabUis asolid, well-organizedstudy. Hildebrand's treatment ofboth religion and feminism is scholarly, well-informed, and blessedly non-polemical. Additionally, this is one ofthe few full-length studies I have seen to accord popular Arthurian fiction the sort ofscholarly and critical attention usually reserved exclusively for the products ofhigh culture. In this respect, it is not only a timely contribution to the field, but also one that should establish a model for similar studies in times to come. ELIZABETH S. SKLAR Wayne State University Larry Howard, The Song ofSir Rodthe Long: A Gay Romance ofthe Round TabU. New York: Writers Club Press, 2000. Pp. 212. isbn: 0-595-00599-3. $12.95. Larry Howard's 'gay romance' runs the gamut from the twee to the precious to the witty to the romantic to the pornographic, but it is not equallysuccessful in each of these modes. The epigraph (1I know myqueen would neverwish/To see a knight in armor swish') fairlywarns the readerwhat to expe« in some ofthe queasier moments of the romance. It is not, however, made up entirely of twee and twaddle. The narrative docs have its high points and often displays a cleverlyskewed awareness of REVIEWS137 traditional Arthurian legends. For example, the opening scenes ofRod's unusually close attachment to his mother and his not-quite appropriate approach to Camelot echo the story ofPerceval. The sadism ofCarados ofthe Dolorous Tower (who, in Malory, is first seen whipping a naked and bound Sir Lionel) may have inspired the most unpleasant character in the romance, the accurately, if unsubtly, named Reverend Rectal. Olga, the unbeatable Lesbian knight (knightess?), may have been inspired less by Arthurian exemplars than by such martial women as Spenser's Britomart and Vergil's Camilla, but she too has literary antecedents. While the allusion game may briefly entertain readers ofArthuriana, it is not really crucial to the delight or distaste that Sir Rod may inspire in the reader. The plot is a relatively traditional story ofa country lad, who goes to Camelot to become a knight and pursues a quest that involves his maturing into selfunderstanding and universal acclaim. The basic twist is that Rod is a very effeminate young man, who is taken under the wing (and other appendages) ofthe lovely Sir Bruce, who disappears in the course ofan adventure in Scotland. Rod undertakes the quest ofSir Bruce, acquiring a new more muscular persona in the process, and, along the way, involving himself in a number of adventures of a comic and/or erotic variety, involving lovers and monsters, sadists and lesbians in a somewhat prodigal confusion. The story ends, charmingly, if unusually, with...

Qui croit au retour d'Arthur ?

It has often been stated that a belief in King Arthur's return was commonly held among twelfth and thirteenth-century insular and continental Britons. Nevertheless, the medieval sources used as evidence seem to repeat a stereotype, rather than report an objective fact. Examination of other literary and historical sources (medieval Welsh literature, historical studies on Wales and Brittany, studies on messianic movements) do not show that this belief was significant outside of Arthurian fiction. Who believes in Arthur's return ? Always someone else.

Warwick Deeping's Uther and Igraine

In Uther and Igraine , Warwick Deeping creates an elaborate narrative context for the tale of Uther Pendragon's great love for Igraine, the wife of Gorlois, the Duke of Tintagel. Deeping thoroughly re-inscribes the novel's three main characters, and in so doing anticipates several developments in Arthurian fiction that we tend to associate more with the second half of the twentieth century, especially with the novels of Mary Stewart and Marion Zimmer Bradley.

Arthurian Fiction:

Arthurian Fiction:

Approaches to Teaching the Arthurian Tradition edited by Maureen Fries and Jeanie Watson (review)

84Arthuriana MAUREEN FRIES ANDJeanie WATSON, eds. Approaches to TeachingtheArthurian Tradition. Approaches to Teaching World Literature, 40. New Yotk: The Modern Language Association ofAmerica, 1992. Paper. Pp. xi, 195. ISBN: 0-87352-702-X $19.75. APPROACHES TO Teaching the Arthurian Tradition addresses many pedagogical needs. Much ofit is learned and sensible, ifoccasionally predictable, and both beginning and experienced teachers should find ideas worth trying. I'll try not to duplicate Miriam Miller's thoughtful review but will comment on a few of the essays and some issues they raise. Alan Gaylord's Arthur and the Green World' reaches deep to convey what is special, and perhaps most important, in the tradition. Phillip C. Boardman's 'Teaching the Moderns in an Arthurian Course' lists more recent works than I dreamed existed and organizes them according to a sensible taxonomy. He may exaggetate the quality of recent Arthurian fiction (an easy enough thing to do), but, whatever the period, Arthurian fans tend to mistake our own enthusiasm for the inherent quality of the writing. James E. Schultz's 'Teaching Gottfried and Wolfram' reminds me of the excitement ofteaching those two masterpieces simultaneously, someming I have not done since changing myArthur course from medieval to medieval/modern. Yet, Schultz prods meto acknowledge, teachingParzivalwithout Tristran may mean not adequately teaching Parzival. Robert L. Kindrick's 'Which Malory Should I Teach?' uses solid scholarly work to support a pedagogical position with which I cannot agree. When the Caxton edition vs. Winchester Cathedral ms (now British Museum Additional 59678) controversy first came to my attention about thirty years ago, arguments about the authenticity and merit of the two versions were already yielding diminishing returns. Then Lone Hellingaand Hilton Kelliherargued that, as Kindricksummarizes, 'Caxton apparently knew of the Malory manuscript and likely even had it in his possession yet largely rejected it, probably in favor of a more authoritative text.' If this is so then Caxton best represents Malory. Yet does this possibility demand either that 'for upper-division andgraduatestudents' we teach 'both' Malorysorthat forsuch students 'a consideration ofthese central dilemmas in Malory scholarship is essential' (105)? Many texts exist in two or more versions without their relative merits becoming a critical obsession. For the scholar the first step is to get the text right, granted, but for the teacher such 'dilemmas' in Malory need be no more 'essential' than similar dilemmas in Chaucer, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Wordsworth, or Auden. Why not just introduce the problem (doing so takes about ten minutes) and get on with interpreting the text at hand? Which Malory, then? Kindrick's own evidence favors a Caxton-based text. Even if Caxton is less true to Malory than the manuscript, his edition has been the Malory from the fifteenth to the mid-twentieth century. Most important postmedieval Arthurian works in English (Tennyson, Twain, White) derive from Caxton, and we teach the Arthurian tradition. I use Cowan's Penguin edition. Reviews85 Those for whom life without this Malory dilemma would be unlivable may find solace in Linda K. Hughess essay onTennyson. The IdylL· oftheKingwe know did not appear until 1908, when the revisions and arrangement authorized byTennyson were published by his son Hallam. Hughes advises having 'students re-create the reading order ofVictorian audiences who first received Tennyson's "serial poem"'(106) as it appeared, in pieces ofvarious length, over several decades. Doing so yields scholarly but also pedagogical returns. As Tennyson had to educate his audience about Arthur, Hughes shows, the original 'reading order' is easier for our students. Hughes's approach seems to me exactly right for a course in nineteenth-century British literature. Yet dare we deprive Arthurian students of Tennyson's own final vision of the IdylL·, as the narrative unfolds in its full chronological and symbolic richness? Although as Hughes notes, it would be ideal for students to read the Idylls first in serial then in chronological sequence, few ofus will take time for that. For the 1990's, which Tennyson may be a more productive question than which Malory. Whether it is or not, Hughes has disturbed my own complacency about how I teach, just as contributors to such a volume should. In 'Women in Arthurian Literature,' Maureen Fries...

Arthurian Fictions: Rereading the Vulgate Cycle

Arthurian Fictions: Rereading the Vulgate Cycle