Arthurian Texts Research Articles

The Language of Gender, Power and Agency in Celtic Studies eds. by Amber Handy and Brian Ó Conchubhair (review)

Reviewed by: The Language of Gender, Power and Agency in Celtic Studies eds. by Amber Handy and Brian Ó Conchubhair Lisabeth C. Buchelt The Language of Gender, Power and Agency in Celtic Studies, edited by Amber Handy and Brian Ó Conchubhair, pp. 290. Dublin: Arlen House, 2014. $39.95 (paper). Since its establishment as an academic discipline in the late eighteenth century, Celtic Studies has been conceived of as the study of the six designated cultures’ pre-Christian to late medieval pasts. The discipline has always been interdisciplinary, encompassing philology, linguistics, archeology, art history, history, and literature, but for the most part has remained a highly specialized area of the more broadly conceived disciplines of ancient and medieval European culture. Part of this conception has been driven, most likely, in a European intellectual history that perceived the Celtic as only archaic. The Bretons, the Irish, the Welsh, the Scottish, the Manx, and the Cornish were anachronisms to the modernity of the French and the English. Even within medieval European studies, “Celtic” sometimes becomes a convenient classification for motifs that have no readily identifiable (Classical) sources—a sort of box marked “Other”—and Celticists, and what they study, are often seen as radically different from their other medievalist colleagues. It is as if modern medievalists feel that in the twelfth century those Celtic cultures were already existing behind a curtain of mist, in their own Otherworld and separated from the broader cultural developments happening in the Middle Ages. Within Irish Studies, scholars working in the Irish medieval time period—the Celticists—seem to have no place at the table, a point made clear when the [End Page 141] post for the Celtic Studies representative was recently abolished by the American Conference for Irish Studies. In the last decade or so, the Celtic Studies Association of North America, along with the MLA Celtic languages and literatures discussion group, has been working to rend the curtain, as it were, and has been doing so with success. The association’s 2010 conference held at the University of Notre Dame, “Saints, Sinners, and Scribes in the Celtic World,” from which this collection of essays is drawn, purposefully created an intellectual community that brought together scholars working in every possible area of Celtic Studies. The conference presentations, in the words of the editors, represented “literary, historical, and linguistic studies on topics from the seventh through twenty-first centuries.” In the introduction, Joseph Falaky Nagy asks the questions and concerns that link these essays covering over nineteen centuries’ worth of Irish texts: whose voice, and which languages deserve to be heard? What constitutes authorized speech? How does speech or language confer agency, or protect those in danger of exploitation? The essays that explore these questions are grouped into two broad categories: medieval and early modern, and modern and contemporary. In the first section, there are comparative essays, such as Theresa O’Byrne’s work on St Patrick’s Purgatory as it appears in Irish and late medieval Hungarian texts; Hannah Zdansky’s on the character of Dido in the medieval Irish vernacular translation of Virigl’s Aeneid; or Lawrence Eson’s examination of the motif of Merlin’s mixed-race heritage across several Arthurian texts. There are also textual interpretations in various theoretical frameworks, mostly based in cultural studies: Kristen Lee Over’s discussion of the notion of sovereignty in the Arthurian Welsh text Culhwch ac Olwen; or Marina Smyth’s continuing insightful work on the relationship between early medieval scientific thought and the Hiberno-Latin text De mirabilibus sacrae scripturae by a writer known as “the Irish Augustine.” Two of the best essays here examine relationships between texts and material culture. Catherine McKenna traces—through textual sources, archeological records, and maps—the proliferation of holy wells in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Ireland and suggests that many, if not most, of these sites had not been in existence since the “age of Tírechán [one of St. Patrick’s medieval biographers] and beyond into the pre-Christian era.” Rather, the radical altering of the landscape because of the new economics of land tenure led to a communal re-creation of sacred sites and their accompanying dinnseanchas, or stories...

Eminent Arthurian: P.J.C. Field

Eminent Arthurian: P.J.C. Field K.S. Whetter All Malory scholars, and a good many Arthurian scholars in general, are familiar with the work of Professor P.J.C. Field. Peter is a former President of the International Arthurian Society, former host of a successful Society congress, winner of the North American Branch’s Lacy Award and, most significantly, author of an impressive array of publications exploring various aspects of many different Arthurian (and non-Arthurian) texts and topics. He is certainly an eminent Arthurian. The photograph that accompanies my tribute to Peter was taken at the formal launch of his edition of Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur, a launch that took place at the September 2013 meeting of the British Branch of the International Arthurian Society, by happy coincidence held at Bangor University, where Peter has made his home for the past fifty years.1 The appearance of this much-anticipated edition is an appropriate occasion to reflect upon Peter’s many accomplishments and his deserved eminence, not just in terms of his scholarly achievements, but also in the regard and affection of those who know him, worldwide. Peter has published interesting and convincing studies of (inter alia) Nennius, Arthur’s battles, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the alliterative Morte Arthure, Chaucer, and The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell. Obviously, however, it is Peter’s work on Malory and the text of the Morte which has won him the most renown. Many of Peter’s textual studies were revised and published together in his Malory: Texts and Sources, but other Malorian highlights include his Romance and Chronicle, a well-regarded monograph on Malory’s prose style, an edition of Tales VII and VIII of the Morte published initially in 1977, the revision of Vinaver’s three-volume critical edition, and the authoritative biography, The Life and Times of Sir Thomas Malory.2 It is a testament to Peter’s integrity that he revised Vinaver’s text in accordance with Vinaver’s principles; that is, he confined himself to correcting manifest errors and updating the notes but refrained from modifying the text or apparatus in any of the substantial ways Peter’s own scholarship had revealed should be done. Thus for many years Malory scholars could glean Peter’s textual-critical conclusions from his own publications, but it is only now, with [End Page 5] the much-anticipated complete edition of the Morte before us, that the scholarly community can at last see the text as Peter reconstructs it. In my opinion, that reconstruction is marvelous. For one thing, the edition itself is very attractive, including the endpapers with the arms of King Arthur juxtaposed against those of Thomas Malory. For another, we have the entire text in one very clean volume, with none of Vinaver’s various brackets detracting from Malory’s words. Finally and most substantially, there is the text itself. Peter has not been shy of modifying readings in either Winchester or Caxton; this is especially so in the contentious Roman War section. Not all textual scholars will agree with such emendation, just as not all scholars agree that the Newbold Revel Malory penned the Morte Darthur; but anyone who disputes the authorship question must rebut the considerable and convincing evidence marshalled by Peter. Likewise, there are also those who still feel that the Caxton Morte Darthur is at least as valid as the text contained in the Winchester manuscript—but anyone who upholds this view must deal with the collective weight of Works, Texts and Sources, and Peter’s introduction to the new edition. The apparatus and commentary are equally authoritative, detailing significant variant readings or scribal corrections, and—to take but one example—managing to offer a clear path through, and some new insights about, the critical debate regarding possible sources for the ‘Healing of Sir Urry.’ Peter’s text of the Click for larger view View full resolution P.J.C. Field with his New Edition of Malory. Photograph Courtesy of Samantha Rayner. [End Page 6] Morte is convincing, even Malorian, and I believe it will rightfully become the standard edition for scholars now and long into the...

Archipelagoes: Insular Fictions from Chivalric Romance to the Novel (review)

Reviewed by: Archipelagoes: Insular Fictions from Chivalric Romance to the Novel Daniel Nemser Keywords Medieval, Fiction, Novel, Chivalry, Romance, Isolario, Cartography, Maps, Space, Island, Ínsula, Insularity, Amadís, Cervantes, Quijote, Barataria, Colonialism Simone Pinet. Archipelagoes: Insular Fictions from Chivalric Romance to the Novel. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2011. 272 pp. Simone Pinet’s new book offers an innovative take on the relationship between space and fiction by mapping the uses of islands in medieval and early [End Page 247] modern literature and cartography. Her interest lies primarily in two genres, the book of chivalry and the isolario or book of islands, which, she argues, follow parallel historical trajectories: “they emerge, develop, and fade into history at almost exactly the same time” (xi). Beyond tracing representations of islands over time, Pinet argues convincingly that insular space constitutes a sort of bridge that arises in response to a crisis regarding the representation of truth and enables the transition to modern forms of fiction. Inaugurated in the late fifteenth century in what she calls an “insular turn,” this island form is eventually abstracted and transformed into metaphor by the beginning of the seventeenth century with the emergence of modern literary and cartographic forms—the novel and the atlas. Pinet’s medievalist roots are evident in the enjoyment with which she engages in close readings of the Amadís de Gaula, but Archipelagoes crosses both disciplinary and chronological boundaries. Drawing on the work of theorists of space like Michel de Certeau and especially Henri Lefebvre, she strategically privileges space over time in order to destabilize the premodern/modern divide, complicating standard histories of the novel (which often begin, tellingly, with an insular fiction by Daniel Defoe). For Pinet, the rise of the island in the late medieval period is already tied to an “uncommonly ‘modern”’ treatment of space (xxviii). The first two chapters offer historical introductions to the emergence of the island in medieval literature and cartography. Tracing the circulation of medieval romance from the British Arthurian texts to the Iberian Peninsula through translation and appropriation, chapter one examines the trajectory sketched out concisely in its title: “Forest to Island.” Romance is characterized by adventure, which for its part is tied to particular spatial forms. Leaving the court, the locus of civilization, the knight necessarily embarks on a quest that takes him into the space of unpredictability, savagery, and, most importantly, the marvelous. What changes between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, according to Pinet, is the location of the marvelous, which shifts from the dense and flourishing forests of the Arthurian cycle to the open yet threatening seascape, where coastlines and eventually insular spaces begin to materialize in the worlds generated in its Iberian counterparts. Tied to changing material and ecological conditions, the taming of the forest pushes the search for adventure out to sea. Chapter two, “Islands and Maps,” turns to the history of cartography, which, Pinet argues, “has a direct relationship with the development of the romance” (30). Medieval cartography evinces a clear relationship between map and language, image and narration. The argument is not that maps can or should be read as texts—this is no longer a controversial point—but that the history of cartography can and should be read alongside and indeed as part of the history of fiction. The emergence of the isolario in the fifteenth century coincides with the “insular turn” in chivalric romance laid out in the previous chapter. As island books became increasingly popular, new technologies related to mapping and printing were incorporated into and helped consolidate the genre. By collecting multiple islands under a single cover and situating them in spatial and textual relation to each other, the isolario facilitates totalizing representations of [End Page 248] insular space while at the same time enabling the imaginative work of travel from island to island, experience to experience. The following two chapters focus on two canonical works of Spanish literature proper. This is where the most detailed textual analysis takes place, and Pinet’s treatment of the Amadís de Gaula is especially illuminating. In chapter three, “Adventure and Archipelago,” Pinet zooms in on three insular episodes that appear in the Amadís, the first...

Revivalist Fantasy: Alliterative Verse and Nationalist Literary History (review)

Reviewed by: Revivalist Fantasy: Alliterative Verse and Nationalist Literary History Mary Kate Hurley Randy P. Schiff , Revivalist Fantasy: Alliterative Verse and Nationalist Literary History. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2011. Pp. 276. ISBN: 978-0-8142-1152-6. $47.95 In Revivalist Fantasy: Alliterative Verse and Nationalist Literary History, Randy P. Schiff argues that the 'Alliterative Revival'—what scholars traditionally argue is a re-emergence of the Old English alliterative style of verse in the fourteenth century—is a 'medievalist rather than medieval phenomenon' (2). Schiff balances his analysis between the alliterative poems he examines and the Alliterative Revivalists who interpret them, tracing both the critical history of the form and its (possibly obfuscatory) effects on the interpretation of the texts at its center. For Schiff, scholars in Alliterative Revivalism adhere to a literary historical narrative of a prosodic last stand of a northern, neo-Saxon, nostalgic alliterative verse form against a southern, Francophilic, rhyming, 'Chaucerian' poetic style. In Revivalist analyses, this Chaucerian style ultimately succeeded in blending monolithically understood 'English' and 'French' literary sensibilities. Such a view of alliterative verse, according to Schiff, constitutes a powerful but fictive critical frame that 'depends upon the barbarization of Saxon identity, whose backwardness is used to highlight the English ascent to a racially hybrid modernity' (5). In organizing his work, Schiff eschews the totalizing narratives that he argues characterize other accounts of alliterative poetry. The introduction and first chapter lay out the stakes of the argument, defining Alliterative Revivalism and tracing its roots in nineteenth-century nationalist discourses as well as its continued effects on modern literary analysis of alliterative poetry. The four remaining chapters examine the specific results of Alliterative Revivalism in the historical reception of particular texts while consciously avoiding a reliance on a single explanatory model of poetic form as he provides his own alternative readings. Schiff carefully outlines the methods by which a 'Revivalist insistence on a unifying aesthetics distracts from poets' contemporary concerns, redirecting attention either to a Saxon past or the fantasy of an organized, national movement' (35). His analysis of texts lays bare the resulting impoverishment of our modern understanding of alliterative poetry. Schiff 's argument demonstrates an impressive breadth of theoretical knowledge, supplementing his careful historicization of the poetry with a range of frames that might help scholars reassess alliterative verse, including transnationalism, sovereignty, gender, postcolonialism, and media theory. Each chapter of Revivalist Fantasy engages both Alliterative Revivalism and the other possible readings that it obscures. In his analysis of Guillaume de Palerne and its English translation (chapter two), Schiff examines the Revivalist emphasis on the equation of language and ethnicity. Situating the text in its historical milieu of increased socio-economic mobility, Schiff argues that rather than a simple dissemination of a 'French' narrative of animal transformations in an English literary translation, William of Palerne participates in a 'Western consolidation' that links the English and French texts in a shared project of reinforcing the boundary that marked off the elite from the lower classes (71). In the case of Sir Gawain and the Green [End Page 99] Knight (chapter three), the martial emphasis of Alliterative Revivalism 'conflat[es] Morgan and the Lady [Bertilak]' as doubles and as a result 'foregrounds male-male conflict' (78). Schiff 's corrective reading situates Morgan as a regional overlord figure who provokes the Arthurian court in an attempt to consolidate her own power. Rather than figuring as a typical Loathly Lady, then, Morgan 'seeks to drive away the knight, asserting sole control over her domestic space' (95). Schiff 's study of three other Arthurian texts, the Awntyrs off Arthure, Golagros and Gawane, and the Alliterative Morte Arthure (chapter four), demonstrates the transnational competition for dominance unearthed when Revivalism's emphasis on a proto-modern nation is relinquished in favor of a careful reading of the operations of imperial impulses in the texts. Finally, he argues that the 'center-periphery logic' of Revivalism ignores the 'simultaneously rural and metropolitan culture' that produced the Piers Plowman tradition (134, chapter five). Schiff suggests that the Langlandian works participate in 'recursive' analysis (a term drawn from N. Katherine Hayles), demonstrating 'self-reflexive treatment of material textuality' by engaging with writing technologies available...

Chrétien de Troyes and the Dawn of Arthurian Romance (review)

Reviewed by: Chrétien de Troyes and the Dawn of Arthurian Romance Laine E. Doggett William Farina , Chrétien de Troyes and the Dawn of Arthurian Romance. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2010. Pp. ix+245. ISBN: 978-0-7864-4866-1. $35. William Farina seeks to address the problem that although Chrétien de Troyes' five romances are Western literature's first extant corpus to crystallize the Arthurian legend and incorporate love relationships and the grail, there is a 'lack of familiarity with his name in the English-speaking world' (212). Farina's intended audience is the non-specialist reader of Arthurian literature who knows primarily English texts. The guide offers an introduction to Chrétien and the twelfth-century French social, political and literary contexts in order to 'heighten awareness of Arthur's 'Frenchness' among readers' (7). The book contains three parts, each with seven to nine short chapters. Part I, 'Literary Themes: The Poet,' opens with presentations on Lancelot, the influence of Arabic love poetry on Arthuriana, and Chrétien's Welsh sources (upon which he greatly expanded). Next come chapters on the representation of romantic love and its depiction in Cligés. Chapter 6 describes the variety and complexity of ideas in the changing twelfth century from Spain, Wales, Byzantium, Rome (especially Ovidian works), the large Angevin empire, and Brittany that shape Chrétien's world. The unique combination of these factors helped produce the literary genius of Chrétien's oeuvre. Discussions of Aquitaine (a short-lived link between Islamic Spain and northern France destroyed in the Albigensian crusade), Arthurian geography, and Geoffrey of Monmouth follow. While Geoffrey's works helped popularize the Arthurian legend, Farina shows that Chrétien had more influence on it than did Geoffrey. Part II, 'Historical Themes: The Knight,' treats chivalry: its development across Europe, Chrétien's complex representation of knights and knighthood, and its depiction in Erec and Enide. A chapter on Sir Thomas Malory, who like Geoffrey is far better known today than Chrétien, examines Malory's debt to Chrétien. Farina attributes Malory's darker Arthurian world to the waning of chivalry in Malory's time. Chapter 13, 'Restless Second Sons,' considers parallels between the Arthurian corpus and historical examples of the sons who cannot inherit. Chapter 14 posits that crusader knights passing through Italy may have shared stories that sparked an early Arthurian sculpture and a mosaic there. In the chapters that follow, Farina suggests that Viking expansion and assimilation in Normandy, followed by the then-assimilated Normans into Spain, and then England during the Norman Conquest, [End Page 96] helped set the stage for the development of the Arthurian materials. He also points out how Henry and Eleanor's wedding extended the Angevin realm. Part II concludes with chapters on Yvain and Perceval, contextualizing the latter as an indirect response to the loss of the crusader kingdom. Part III, 'Religious Themes,' first discusses the expanding role of clerics (in literary and other domains) and then summarizes arguments for and against Chrétien's authorship of Guillaume d'Angleterre. A chapter on Merlin points out that the wizard, although important in other Arthurian texts, plays but a small role in Chrétien's writings. Chapter 20 argues for general influences of twelfth-century theology (Bernard of Clairvaux and others) on Chrétien. Perceval forms the subject of Chapters 21-23: the uniqueness of the character of Perceval in Chrétien's work, possible interpretations of the grail and lance and potential contributions from the extensive Jewish community of Troyes. The last chapter in the section reminds us that in light of all the contextual material available for the romances, we know very little about Chrétien himself. This rapid overview of the numerous chapters may suggest a haphazard approach on the part of the author, but that is not the case. Farina presents the extensive and varied social, geographical, and historical background in lively, engaging prose that succinctly links many topics including some Arthurian films, although there is occasional repetition. The maps and timeline of the High Middle Ages are useful. However, the study relies on very few literary critics and/or translators (among them Urban...

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

The Queens of Avalon: William Forbush's Arthurian Antidote

William Byron Forbush founded The Queens of Avalon in 1894 as a parallel organization to his Knights of the Round Table, to construct courtly ladies worthy of his chivalric knights. This essay examines the group's interpretation of Arthurian legend, founding principles, rituals and material culture in the context of Forbush's own anxieties about 'modern' girls and larger early-twentieth-century discussions of the 'girl problem.' For Forbush, the Queens of Avalon was the perfect 'antidote' to this problem as it returned girls to an idealized medieval past to teach them to perform their 'role in modern chivalry': inspiring and refining knights.

Être à table au Moyen Âge ed. by Nelly Labére

works by Flaubert, letters written to and by Flaubert, opinions about him written by his contemporaries, and sometimes comments written by contemporaries on contemporaries, such as the inclusion of Guy de Maupassant’s description of Zola in the Zola entry. This makes for fascinating reading: one can read straight through an item, or follow a series of asterisks, somewhat like following an Internet thread. To give some examples, one might enjoy the comments by Flaubert on Bouvard et Pécuchet, which reveal his ups and downs, exuberance and despair. Or perhaps one might enjoy the entry, “Dimanche,” composed of the impressions of writers who went to Flaubert’s ‘dimanches’ on the rue du Temple. Some long entries contain sub-entries, such as the one for Flaubert’s versions of the Tentation de Saint-Antoine. It contains a first sub-entry for the “Version de 1849,” with its own sub-entries, “Lecture à Bouilhet* et Du Camp*” and “Appréciation.” This is followed by second and third sub-entries for the 1856 and 1874 versions, the latter of which includes again its own sub-entries, “Résumé par Émile Zola,” “Gestation ,” “Rédaction,” “Dernières corrections,” “Publication,” and “Réception.” All combined, this one large entry takes up more than seven dense pages filled with different aspects of and points of view on this Flaubert text. Flaubert’s words are italicized, whereas other voices appear in plain text. This selection of themes is necessarily limited and subjective, because it would be an impossible task to give every instance of every theme in all of the works. I find this dictionary to be useful and interesting, and it may well generate fruitful investigations of some of the myriad themes and concepts in Flaubert’s world. Boston University Dorothy Kelly LABÈRE, NELLY, éd. Être à table au Moyen Âge. Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, 2010. ISBN 978-84-96820-49-4. Pp. xvii + 277. 24 a. Scholars’ growing appetite for the study of culinary themes has resulted in a number of recent publications centering on food or drink. This collection participates in the trend yet is innovative in scope: it unites essays focusing on eating in medieval texts from France and the Iberian peninsula. Contributors consider their subjects through a variety of lenses, some taking a linguistic approach, others privileging a literary or historical perspective. While the literary works—which represent diverse genres and languages—are not traditionally studied together, juxtaposing them enriches the reading of each and creates a productive dialogue concerning the role of eating in medieval literature. Each of the three main sections—“Les règles de l’appétit,” “Découper le texte,” “Manger le texte”—gathers articles on assorted texts. The first part illustrates the collection’s range. Katy Bernard examines the depiction of the jealous husband in Le roman de Flamenca, arguing that food and eating are closely tied to Archimbaut’s feelings and behavior. Estelle Doudet’s essay explores feasts in memoirs and official chronicles of fifteenth-century Burgundy, specifically those by Jean Chartier, George Chastelain, Olivier de La Marche, Jean Lefèvre de SaintR émy, and Philippe de Commynes. She concludes that meals serve both narrative and political causes. In his study of eating and late medieval French theater, Jelle Koopmans demonstrates that food served during festivities surrounding performances was as integral to the spectacle as the meals in the plays themselves . Other essays in the group treat women and desire in the Vita Christi and Reviews 389 Tirant lo Blanch (Beatriz Ferrús Antón); spiritual food in the Flos Sanctorum (José Aragüés Aldaz); greed and lust in sapiential literature (Marta Haro Cortés); ritual in El Cantar de Mio Cid (Francisco Bautista); and fasting in a Portuguese work, La plainte de Maria la Noiraude (Maria José Palla). After the second section—all contributors focus on El Libro de Buen Amor (Santiago Sánchez Jiménez, Bienvenido Morros Mestres, Labère) or La Celestina (Nathalie Peyrebonne, Carlos Heusch)—the final part begins with María Cuesta Torre’s essay on food in Castilian Arthurian texts before featuring a series of analyses of French texts. Messages conveyed by food in tales from the twelfth to...

Anglicising Romance: Tail-Rhyme and Genre in Medieval English Literature (review)

Reviewed by: Anglicising Romance: Tail-Rhyme and Genre in Medieval English Literature Rosalind Field Rhiannon Purdie , Anglicising Romance: Tail-Rhyme and Genre in Medieval English Literature. Studies in Medieval Romance. Woodbridge, Suffolk: D.S. Brewer, 2008. Pp. ix + 272, 6 plates. ISBN: 978-1-8438-4162-3. $95.00. The Middle English tail-rhyme romances have long been regarded as a problem, an awkward regional response to the genre, patronized for their metrical clumsiness and derivative narratives. Rhiannon Purdie's previous work as editor of the Ipomadon equips her to provide the authoritative study that should once and for all re-orientate them as a focus of intelligent and important questions. In order to examine the origins and literary associations of tail-rhyme, Purdie takes the enquiry back across two centuries and into the tri-lingual culture of medieval England, arguing that while tail-rhyme may originate in Latin hymns and Victorine sequences, its use for narrative is a feature of insular literature, both Anglo-Norman and Middle English. There are earlier traditions of tail-rhyme for pious literature— hymns, sermons, hagiography—in Anglo-Norman and Middle English and the indication is that romance writers adopted tail-rhyme stanzas for their association with piety and moral seriousness. There is also a significant association with figures of English history and sanctity in texts that have direct influence on Middle English romances of English heroes, as in the case of the Vie de Thomas Becket and Bevis of Hampton. A thorough analysis demonstrates the variety of meter and stanza form to be found in the tail-rhyme corpus, one which is throughout the period recognized as distinctive, irrespective of genre (as the grouping of poems in the Vernon MS indicates). This is further illustrated by an account of what Purdie dubs 'graphic tail-rhyme,' an 'unusual, inconvenient and instantly recognisable' manuscript lay-out used by English scribes to display Anglo-Norman and Middle English tail-rhyme poetry. The use of graphic tail-rhyme in numerous manuscripts of Sir Thopas shows Chaucer deliberately using this manuscript convention to deepen his parody of the experience of reading romances—even the bob lines work as a visual joke. The pre-history of Middle English tail-rhyme has been largely invisible to readers of the romances but establishes a firm basis for a review of the Auchinleck manuscript in which tail-rhyme romances make their first appearance, accompanied by several non-romance texts in the form. It is shown that 'anglicisation' goes beyond translation in Auchinleck, as tail-rhyme is used for the romances of English heroes in a way that confirms it is understood as an English form, whatever its linguistic inheritance. That this contrasts with the metrical forms used for Arthurian texts in the manuscript may illuminate the scarcity of tail-rhyme Arthurian romance until the insular development of later Gawain romances. Her discussion of the close relationships amongst the tail-rhyme romances of Auchinleck confirms an untidy history of borrowings, compilation and movement of texts and writers around and beyond the metropolitan literary circuit. Through a detailed assessment of the prosodic, philological, and manuscript evidence, Purdie finally lays to rest the stubborn 'school of East Anglia,' proposed by A. McI. Trounce (Medium Ævum 1.2-3.1). Her final chapter on the geography [End Page 130] of tail-rhyme moves the discussion away from any single center of origin or activity. Tail-rhyme is a feature of fluid and overlapping regional literary centers, across much of England. A later development gives more elaborate tail-rhyme romances no longer derived from French or Anglo-Norman but original productions of a northern literary culture. This book is underpinned by a much-needed, updated survey of the date, language and provenance of each of the thirty-six tail-rhyme romances in an Appendix that is in its own right a rich resource for future researchers. Tail-rhyme romance has been under-appreciated and misunderstood—the responsibility for this shared between Sir Thopas and Trounce. Purdie's study provides the first comprehensive account of the form and its romance texts and wider cultural contexts. It is meticulous in its detail and convincing in its arguments, but above...

Illustrating Camelot (review)

Reviewed by: Illustrating Camelot Kevin J. Harty Barbara Tepa Lupack with Alan Lupack. Illustrating Camelot. Arthurian Studies LXXIII. Woodbridge, Suffolk: D. S. Brewer, 2008. ISBN 9781843841838. Pp. xii, 265 pp. (with 40 black and white illustrations and 32 full color plates). $60.00. Both separately and jointly, the Lupacks continue to publish important Arthurian scholarship that breaks new ground, that reintroduces us to versions of the legend of the once and future king in multiple genres that we already thought we knew so well, or both. Their jointly authored King Arthur in America (1999) remains the definitive study of the American Arthur. Alan Lupack’s The Oxford Guide to Arthurian Literature and Legend (2005) is an exhaustive and comprehensive survey of the Arthuriad, likely to be unrivalled any time soon, and Barbara Tepa Lupack’s Adapting the Arthurian Legends for Children: Essays on Arthurian Juvenilia (2004) brings into the mainstream an Arthurian genre too often in the past overlooked, marginalized, or dismissed In their current study, Illustrating Camelot, Barbara Tepa Lupack with Alan Lupack turns her attention to yet another genre of Arthuriana. Separate chapters in Illustrating Camelot assess the works of Arthurian illustrators from Gustave Doré to Anna-Marie Ferguson in a detailed, well-reasoned, richly illustrated study that will again remain the definitive reference for yet another Arthurian genre. The thesis of this present study is simple enough: a distinctive group of artists have through their imagery reinterpreted the Arthuriad or brought new insights into ‘even the most familiar works’ (xi). Quoting Norris J. Lacy, Geoffrey Ashe and Debra N. Mancoff ’s observation in The Arthurian Handbook (2nd ed. 1997) that ‘[O]f all the visual arts, book illustration has played the greatest role in bringing the Arthurian legend to the widest audience’ (1), the Lupacks makes the case for that observation’s almost being an understatement. Illustrating Camelot convincingly argues that ‘representation is always a form or revision or rewriting of text’ (2). Illustration does more than simply represent text; in the hands of the more than two dozen artists whose works this study examines, illustration glosses and reinterprets text. Dan Beard’s illustrations for Twain’s Connecticut Yankee are a good case in point. King Arthur in America presented a lively and thoughtful reading of the text of Twain’s novel. Illustrating Camelot enhances that earlier discussion by reading the novel’s text through the lens of Beard’s illustrations, noting Twain’s close personal and professional relationship with Beard—this study finds an equally compelling and complex relationship between Tennyson and Julia Margaret Cameron and their interconnected interpretations of the Arthuriad. Illustrators have enhanced our knowledge and understanding of the Arthuriad by reproducing and reinterpreting scenes illustrated by their predecessors, thereby making the previously uncommon a commonplace. At other times, illustrators have [End Page 84] singled out narrative scenes to enhance, contradict, or emphasize differently tropes and narremes in ways that writers have not. While illustrators continued to interact with Arthurian texts, they did so in ways unique to themselves. Howard Pyle, for instance, neither edited nor retold the stories of Arthur for his juvenile audiences. Instead, he created ‘entirely new versions of the legend…clearly intended for children but…that never patronized them’ (185). Other illustrators saw for reasons of politics in the widest sense of that term an opportunity to reflect contemporary concerns by linking them with the Arthuriad, as Arthur Rackham did in his The Romance of Arthur, a work which brought ‘delight to wounded soldiers and their families’ (158) during the First World War. Aubrey Beardsley’s illustrations in contrast aimed to upset rather than comfort, as the young illustrator set out to ‘flabbergast the bourgeois’ of his day (91). Not the least of the important contributions Illustrating Camelot makes is to rescue from the archives or from obscurity the work of a number of women illustrators, whose contributions to (post-)modern readings of the Arthuriad, the Lupacks rightly argue, are without parallel. Thus while separate chapters are devoted to Cameron, Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale, and Ferguson, we are also (re)introduced to the work of Margaret Gere, Helen Urquhart, Catherine Donaldson, Dora Curtis, Bertha Corson Day (Bates), and others. Illustrating...

Writing Arthur, Writing England: Myth and Modernity in T. H. White's The Sword in the Stone

The tendency in previously published work on T. H. White's Arthurian texts has been to consider either biography or educational aspects and to consider nationalism (if at all) in terms of White's pacifism. The Sword in the Stone (1938) represents the first installment of White's fictional series of works based on Arthurian mythology, specifically Sir Thomas Malory's fifteenth century romance Le Morte Darthur (1485) and this article will argue that it offers a paradigmatic example of Rosemary Marangoly George's assertion that a home is as political an act as imagining a nation. Establishing either is a display of hegemonic power (George, 4) and betrays the cultural unease and uncertainty of the British interwar experience. The novel recounts the boyhood of King Arthur, also known as the illegitimate Wart, under the stewardship of his foster father Sir Ector in the Castle of the Forest Sauvage and details his education for kingship through a series of fantastical lessons under the tutelage of Merlyn the magician. This article will suggest that far from offering simplistic laudatory allegories of English identity or a return to the known as personified by place, White's narrative is a hybridized and metalinguistic construct that incarnates the fragmentation English identity underwent during the period of its composition. Noting that the text's evo- cation of medieval English pageantry, the pastoral and the fantastic turns on the question of legitimate and illegitimate identities, this article will argue that the narrative examines the late-imperial interwar difficulties of articulating national and individual models of identity. In this context, the text's representational strategies will be interrogated as being simultane- ously contiguous to the traditions governing the recycling of Arthurian mythology and the reprocessing strategies employed by twentieth-century

Violent Passions: Managing Love in the Old French Verse Romance (review)

TRACY ADAMS, Violent Passions: Managing Love in the Old French Verse Romance (Studies in Arthurian and Courtly Cultures) NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Pp. 311. ISBN: 1-4039-6294-4. $69.95. Tracy Adams's study of love in the twelfth-century Old French romance offers much of interest to Arthurian scholars. In addition to her analysis of Tristan et Iseut and two of Chretien de Troyes's romances, Adams's larger argument about the representation of love in twelfth-century romance clearly has the potential to infl uence studies of other Arthurian texts. The volume is divided into six chapters, with an introduction and conclusion, bibliography, and index. The main premise of Adams's argument is that, as portrayed in twelfth-century Old French romances, Love is neither an unreservedly positive force nor is it idealized or idealizing. Rather, she argues, the texts she considers attempt to grapple seriously with passionate love, depicting it as an overwhelming emotion, and as a personal and societal problem that requires solving by being channeled into an acceptable and productive form. As she puts it in her introduction, 'romances do not offer a distillable doctrine, but rather a wide array of different possibilities for recuperating sexual desire. Thus they should be seen as laboratories wherein passionate love is analyzed and different ways of integrating that emotion into a society that offi cially eschews it are tested' (p. 3). This summary of her view of romance presents two major facets of her argument: fi rst, that romance authors actively worked through the 'problem of love' in their texts and second, that passionate love was offi cially eschewed by both clerical and feudal culture-by clerical culture because of its ever-greater emphasis on celibacy, and by feudal culture because the politics of marriage left little or no space for passion. Both points are clearly debatable, but Adams's well-argued monograph does an extremely effective job of substantiating her position and challenging many of our received notions about 'courtly love' in romance. After a short introduction presenting her methodology, Chapter One lays out Adams's primary argument. The fi rst part of the chapter critiques earlier work on love in Old French verse romance, in particular the concept of courtly love, arguing that love episodes in the Old French verse romances of the late twelfth century 'should not be read as products of an idealizing discourse of courtly love, but rather as sophisticated responses to uncritical ecclesiastical condemnations of sexual desire' (p. 2). The bulk of the chapter then discusses the 'problem' of love in clerical writings, passing in rapid review Church teaching (from Augustine to the Gregorian reform to Anselm, among others) and medical writings. Chapter Two turns to the major alternate authoritative voice on love in the Middle Ages, that of Ovid. Here, Adams argues that medieval romance authors read Ovid as a serious neoplatonic philosopher of love as well as the magister amoris of the Amors, et. al. The combination of the two Ovidian voices Adams calls the 'super Ovid' (an un happy choice of terms), and this key fi gure becomes a dominant thread, structuring most of the book's readings of romance texts. Analyzing the lais reworked from Ovid's Metamorphoses (Pyramus et Tisbe, Narcisus, and Philomena et Procne), Adams demonstrates effectively that they represent love as a violent emotion, as one nearly impossible to control and thus in need of repression, yet they demonstrate simultaneously that this concept of love is not suffi cient in a secular context. Chapter Three continues laying out the philosophical and historical groundwork for Adams's thesis. 'Marriage and Amor' proposes reading the love-stricken romance hero as an almost direct response to imposed clerical celibacy, and the romance genre more generally as a 'safe' place in which to present the argument for passionate love. …

Artus im ›Krieg der Sterne‹

It has long been noticed that George Lucas' ›Star Wars‹ hexalogy is to a high degree influenced by medieval literature, especially by Arthurian romance. This is clearly visible in the concept of Jedi knights. However, there also exists an analogy between the ›Star Wars‹ movies and Arthurian texts concerning narrative phenomena: Both the romances of Chretien de Troyes or Hartmann von Aue and Episode IV (the first ›Star Wars‹ movie) create a rather inflexible fictional world: It lacks profound historical processes, shows consistent values, and is crowded by rather schematic characters. When it comes to␣cyclification—and cyclification soon becomes an important issue both in ›Star Wars‹ and in the Arthurian tradition—, this inflexibility proves to be a severe problem, as cyclification needs a dynamic structure per se. The different solutions provided by the ›Star Wars‹ hexalogy and the Arthurian Vulgate cycle and their narratological implications are thoroughly discussed in this article.

The Chameleon Principle: Reflections on the Status of Arthurian Studies in the Academy

As an historian of the disciplines of medieval philology, medieval studies, and medievalism, I am used to a certain amount of 'cloaking.' After all, I often abandon recognized academic work on the so-called 'nitty-gritty' of literary or linguistic study 'proper' for the somehow 'improper' realms of meta- or paraliterary observations. In order to be accepted by those who stay within the established boundaries of literary and linguistic study, I have to make sure that the grail keepers at the gates delimiting those boundaries (journal editors, publishers, bibliographers, indexing specialists, conference organizers, hiring committees) realize that I am capable of wearing two hats: one that makes me recognizable as one of theirs (Uther Pendragon's normal headgear, so to speak), and one that I may put on when I write 'on' linguistic and literary study (Merlin's camouflage gear). Securely grounded in this, my own, academic role playing experience, I should like to propose that the status of Arthurians in the academy is intimately entwined with the interdisciplinary, international, and non-class specific nature of Arthuriana on the one hand and with the history of the academic study of literature and language on the other. What I would like to suggest, then, is that Arthurians, in order to survive in the competitive scientistic habitat of the academy, tend to practice a form of chameleonic mimicry. Although Arthurians investigate what may well be the largest thematically unified body of secular literature in what is commonly universalized as the western tradition, they often shift academic identities until they are hired and/or tenured, upon which time they feel at liberty to uncloak and reveal themselves as the motley-colored 'saurian reptiles' they often are.1 I should like to make three short observations to support my thesis and historicize the current situation: 1) The study of Arthurian texts suffers from the separation of academic from nonacademic reading and interpreting practices accompanying the birth of the modern university in the early nineteenth century. Thus, while Arthurian texts themselves thrive and reach large reading audiences nonspecific to social class and education, the very popularity of these texts appears to be an obstacle to their open and acknowledged study at the university. The career paths of Tolkien scholars in the contemporary academy (I am thinking for example of Jane Chance, Verlyn Flieger, Tom Shippey) provide an illuminating parallel. 2) The separation of serious academic 'work' from the non-academic enjoyment of Arthurian literature by more or less educated dilettantes and journalists (those who write on the quotidian matters of the 'jour' instead of producing 'lasting' texts for posterity, i.e., scholarship) begins-at least for English Arthuriana-during the Renaissance, when proponents of the New Learning (commencing with Polydore Vergil and Roger Ascham) expose the mythographic nature of foundational Arthurian texts from Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae through Thomas Malory's Morte D'Arthur and attack the problematic morality propagated by medieval romances as unfitting for the ideal of the educated gentleman. John Leland's and Michael Drayton's desperate attempts at bridging the emerging chasm between the popular/national attraction of Arthuriana and Renaissance scientism are fascinating case studies which demonstrate this process.2 3) While recent and current cultural climates outside the academy and the advent of postmodernism in the academy would allow for scholars' reading and studying of the various historical and contemporary popular Arthurian traditions, the longue duree of academic mentalities still suggests to scholars that they select those areas, periods, genres, or authors within their respective disciplines commanding sufficient cultural capital for finding jobs, securing promotion and tenure, or obtaining a book contract with a publisher. …

The Pleasures of Arthur

The pleasures we take in King Arthur-and the popularity of literary renditions of Arthurian tradition-are as visible as they ever were. And yet, the fact that Arthurian texts delight us, whether or not they offer edifying wisdom, the fact, in other words that Arthur's pleasures and our pleasures in Arthur remain on regular display has sometimes seemed to raise problems for those working in the field.1 One need recall only the massive quantities of ink spilled over the Wife of Bath's Arthurian tale as 'wish fulfillment,' the condescension read into Chaucer's painting of tale with teller, to hint at scholarly discomfort with the enjoyment of Arthurian material. Of course, there is a long medieval tradition, dating back at least to William of Malmesbury, of discomfort with the overweening pleasures expressed by Arthur's devotees, and of the 'trifles' and 'ravings' produced about him. Passionately convinced of Arthur's worth as historical figure, Malmesbury nonetheless frets over the misguided, mad, undisciplined manner in which he is remembered. Arthur is 'not to be dreamed in false myths,' nor 'raved' about in 'trifles,' but 'proclaimed in truthfull histories.'2 Malmesbury particular gripe is, of course, with the Welsh Bristons; his critique has his own material history, one that I have discussed elsewhere and is outside the limits of my topic here. Yet I raise it so as to stress the ways in which the specter of mad or trifling pleasures associated with Arthur have long been the focus of anxiety about the propriety, the righteousness, or the moderation of our responses to stories about him. That is, of course, both the blessing and the curse of Arthutrian Studies. I will outline briefly what I take to be the current stakes in this longstanding anxiety, and how it might help to explain the production of 'invisibilities' that are the subject of our current conversation. One problem has of course to do with the capacious quality of Arthurian material, a tradition that is varied, diffuse, and controversial. On the one hand, the diversity of the tradition puts special pressure on questions of audience and scenes of reading; on the other, some uses of things Arthurian continue to be controversial, and are regularly, if at times rightly, critiqued as ideologically suspect. While nearly every Arthurian text has its own array of devoted readers, some are nonetheless ready to run to the barricades over whether Thomas Malory, Geoffery of Monmouth, or Marion Zimmer Bradley misremember Arthur's best attributes, or mistreat the tradition is irritating ways (the elegant poetry of Chretien de Troyes or the sparky prose of T.H. White alone seem able to escape such critique). Furthermore, Arthur's crossover appeal, whether temporal (medieval or postmodern), linguistic (Latin, French, Welsh, Middle English, to name only a few), or cultural (deployed both by sovereign power and in resistance to it) means that the pleasures of tales of Arthur extend beyond a canon that is easily controlled or even managed. To some, it may seem, readers find Arthur and his knights too captivating, too entrancing; we might, that is, be too easily seduced into the apparently light and easy pleasures of Arthurian fantasy. Over thirty years ago, Stephen Knight's fascinating materialist account of Arthurian Romance read the genre's persistent interest in fantasy and magic as ideological, a vehicle for false consciousness, a flight from materialist hard-thinking.3 Approaches like Knight's constitute important ideology critiques, interventions into our understanding of power, class, and history. Yet they nonetheless imply the critical superiority of texts and traditions that do not indulge quite so obviously in such fancies. Nicola MacDonald has recently made a similar point with regard to the scholarly condescension toward popular culture generally: 'The view that popular culture serves as as opiate is widely held by critics who otherwise adhere to divergent theoretical schools. …

Latin Arthurian Literature (review)

Reviewed by: Latin Arthurian Literature Gillian Polack Day, Mildred Leake, ed. & trans., Latin Arthurian Literature (Arthurian Archives, vol. XI), Woodbridge, D.S. Brewer, 2005; hardback; pp. 290; R.R.P. £50.00; ISBN 1843840642. Latin Arthurian Literature is primarily an edition and translation of four key Arthurian texts: 'De ortu Waluanii nepotis Arturi'; 'Historia Medriadoci regis Cambrie', 'Narratio de Arthuro rege Britanniae et rege Gorlagon lycanthropo'; and 'Epistola Arturi regis ad Henricum regem Anglorum'. This book is a useful addition to Brewer's Arthurian Archives series. The three romances in it complement the romance editions and translations available in other languages and help make the Latin texts more widely available. The volume will assist in making clear some of the implications of the role a variety of texts play in disseminating and creating an acceptance of the authority of certain aspects of the Arthurian tales. The book's greatest flaw is its limited approach to contextualisation. From some angles Day provides effective analyses and detailed contexts but other angles [End Page 194] are oddly neglected. A more balanced approach would have significantly enhanced the usefulness of the book, though what it contains is worth looking at. Some aspects of the volume could have been better treated. Fewer parallels with modern authors and greater evidence of the claimed links between the Meriadoc tale and Robert Graves' theories of dual kingship would have given the discussion more gravitas, for instance. In addition, the volume would have been enhanced if the volume had included more contextualization of the romances with romances in other languages. Day writes an introductory essay that relies heavily on the theories of Loomis and misses some important advances in modern Arthurian scholarship. This is not an approach that will appeal to all researchers. The general introduction and the introduction to the texts do not analyse the manuscripts sufficiently. If Day had given more information about other works that appear alongside these in the manuscript record, the contexts would have made the dating arguments more substantial and helped explain the literary contexts of each work. Likewise, analogues and links to other works could have been used more fully. The statement that werewolf tales were popular in the twelfth century (p. 1 and again p. 42) neglects to factor in later werewolf tales several of which she mentions, or just how similar some aspects of the story of Arthur and Gorlagon (subtracting the frame tale) were to Marie de France's Bisclavret. Inclusion of later tales (for instance in the Ma'ase Book) and a close analysis of Bisclavret might have led to quite different dating arguments. The earliest part of the introduction is somewhat marred by its imprecise language and its lack of follow-through of ideas. Day identifies two of the works in this volume as the only two full-length Latin romances from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. This is quite sufficient reason to have a newly edited/translated version of them; she does not clarify the relationship of these versions with her own earlier editions, however. A longer introduction would have demonstrated better how these two romances fit into the vernacular romance tradition of which they are so clearly a part. The introductions for each work cover the general background comfortably. For 'De Ortu Waluuani' in particular Day presents a good bibliography based on a literary survey of scholarly discussion, covering earlier editions. This discussion is particularly interesting, as it introduces quite a few of the major players in the field and some of their positions. The introductions to the werewolf story and to the excerpt from 'Draco Normannicus' are far less substantial (six pages for the latter as opposed to twenty-three pages for 'De Ortus') which means these works are not explored quite as thoroughly. [End Page 195] A small irritant is that Day refers to Bod. Rawl. B149 as undated, then gives sufficient evidence of provenance to show it can be dated, but only approximately. A closer analysis of the hand and page format and how it was bound, in an attempt to date it more precisely, would have significantly enhanced this discussion, but 'prior to the sixteenth century' is still more useful from...

The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Romance edited by Roberta L. Krueger (review)

ROBERTA L. KRUEGER, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Romance. Cambridge Companions to Literature Series Vol. 41. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, Pp. xix, 190. ISBN: 0-511-55342-3, (hard cover); 0-521-55687-2, (p/b). $70, $25.99. Despite the broad scope of this volume, Arthurian scholars will find much of interest, as the vast majority of the essays consider Arthurian texts and many focus on them. Indeed, the only essay that does not touch on Arthurian matters is Baswell's On the Romances of Antiquity.' Kruegcr has assembled a stellar line-up of scholars from the UK and USA as contributors. Overall the volume offers an excellent study of various facets of medieval Romance and, for the most part, the individual essays are cogent and eminently readable; they are often insightful and thought-provoking as well. The volume should be in every university library. My caveats to this glowing review are not trivial, but neither do they obviate the volume's worth. The volume opens with an introductory essay by the editor and then offers fifteen essays divided into three sections. The first section, Origins and Contexts,' contains Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner's examination of the 'shape' of French romance; Christopher Baswell's article on the romances of Antiquity, where he considers not only the Eneas, Troie, and Thebes but also the Alexander romances; Simon Gaunt's look at Old French romance's inter-generic relationships; and Sylvia Huot's comparative study of the manuscript contexts of French and German romances. The second section, entitled 'European Romance and Medieval Society: Issues for Debate' opens with Sarah Kay writing authoritatively on 'Courts, Clerics and Courtly Love.' Next, Richard Kaeuper examines chivalry's relation to violence, religion, and politics. Jeff Rider provides a survey of the Other worlds' of romance, while Roberta Krueger and Sheila Fisher examine issues of gender, Krucgcr looking primarily at Old French verse romance through the lens of the Roman de Silence and Fisher focusing exclusively on Chaucer, the Gawain-poet, and Malory. Part Three widens the focus, with essays by Ann Marie Rasmussen on German romance, F. Regina Paslci on Italian romance, and Marina S. Brownlee on Spanish romance up to Cervantes. This section also contains Norris Lacy's survey of French prose romance through the centuries, and two essays on Middle English texts: Thomas Hahn on the figure of Gawain in popular romance and Felicity Riddy on the household context for family romances. The volume concludes with a chronology of romances, a collective bibliography of editions and translations, and an index. As the preceding list makes evident, studies focused on French and to a somewhat lesser degree Middle English romance form the heart of this book. This is a source of strength, for the depth offers readers not only an introduction to the subject but access to elements of major critical issues. However, it is regrettable that romance in other languages receives relatively short shrift, and comparative approaches are mostly absent. One of the most interesting aspects of the volume is the interplay between articles, even though there is no overt cross-referencing. The contributions grapple repeatedly with the social and ideological aspects of romance, highlighting the genre's ability and inclination to question the ethos and values of chivalry and the noble societies that promoted it. As Psaki puts it succinctly: The romances are fundamentally a search for a working definition of chivalric virtue, and each offers different answers' (p. 2007). Similarly, Krueger concludes: 'Courtly romance opened up a discursive space. …

Before Malory: Reading Arthur in Later Medieval England

Although most modern scholars doubt the historicity of King Arthur, parts of the legend were accepted as fact throughout the Middle Ages. Medieval accounts of the historical Arthur, however, present a very different king from the romances that are widely studied today. Richard Moll examines a wide variety of historical texts including Thomas Gray's Scalacronica and John Hardyng's Chronicle to explore the relationship between the Arthurian chronicles and the romances. He demonstrates how competing and conflicting traditions interacted with one another, and how writers and readers of Arthurian texts negotiated a complex textual tradition. Moll asserts that the enormous variety and number of existing chronicles demonstrates the immense popularity of the historical Arthur in medieval England. Since these chronicles were the dominant source of Arthurian information for the late medieval reader, they provide an invaluable, and neglected, interpretive context for modern readers of Malory and other later medieval romances. The first monograph to look at the impact of these historical texts on Arthurian literature, Before Malory is also the first to show how canonical vernacular romances interacted with chronicle texts that have since dropped out of the canon.

Teaching Arthur through Performance

Performing, rather than simply reading, Arthurian texts allows students to experience medieval works in something like their original reception context.

Teaching Undergraduates How to Read Arthurian Texts

Three strategies for teaching critical reading skills to non-majors in the undergraduate Arthurian classroom engage students as novice readers of pre-modern sources by exploiting what they do not and cannot know about medieval culture and inviting them to apply expertise developed in other disciplines to Arthuriana.