MLR, I03.2, 2oo8 49 I The introduction by Poor and Schulman largely signals the essays to follow, rather than offering a theoretical overview, but given the book's ambition and scope, it is clear that, whatever models ofvernacular epicmight have been elaborated, they would swiftlybe dismantled by the individual contributions. The variety of literatures, texts, and approaches which this collection embraces certainly puts paid to unconsidered generalizations about women in epic. It is awelcome and imaginative treatment of a too-little investigated topic. ST JOHN'S COLLEGE, OXFORD CAROLYNE LARRINGTON Lancelot: Der mittelhochdeutscheRoman imeuropdischenKontext. Ed. by KLAUS RID DER and CHRISTOPH HUBER. Tiibingen: Niemeyer. 2007. vi + 3I7 pp. ?86. ISBN 978-3-484-64036-8. This collection of essays on theprose Lancelot tradition has a lot to tackle: a volumi nous thirteenth-century prose cycle of texts in French incorporating material from Chretien's verse Charrette and his unfinished Grail romance; and aGerman version preserved inmuch latermanuscripts, similarly voluminous and a close translation of theFrench. Add to this the reception of theprose Lancelot in theLow Countries-one fragmentaryprose and twoFlemish verse renderings (one also fragmentary)-and the Lancelot 'in itsEuropean context' of the title is a complex matter indeed. Questions of translation, comparative study,genre (verse/prose, romance/history/hagiography), transmission, and reception all need attention alongside the smallmatter of the inter pretation of thesemassive texts.This collection of studies nevertheless manages to address a representative subset of all these issues, andmakes very stimulating reading. The collection is the fruitsof the firstconference, in September 2004, dedicated to this network of texts since I984 (Schweinfurter 'Lancelot'-Kolloquium I984, ed. byWerner Schroder (Berlin: Schmidt, I986)). The editors note the completion in the interveningyears ofHans-Hugo Steinhoff'seditions of theGerman versions of the prose cycle, completed in2004 after theeditor's death. (Steinhoffwas involved in the planning of the conference on which thisvolume isbased, and an appreciation of his work and listof publications is included as an appendix to thisvolume, pp. 295-300.) After a useful introduction by the editors, Friedrich Wolfzettel highlights dif ferences between the prose Lancelot and the preceding verse romance tradition. The editors have grouped the remaining essays into three sections. In a first sec tion on translation, form,and style, threecontributions investigate vocabulary: Rene Perennec and Thordis Hennings compare lexis in theOld French and German ver sions,while Kari Keinasto' sstudy ofwords for 'war' is in theFinnish tradition ofword histories. The next three contributions focus on a key question raised byWolfzettel: prose vs verse form.Bart Besamusca argues, by looking at how other Dutch writers such as Jacob vanMaerlant use prose and verse, that the choice of form in theDutch tradition depends on the intended recipients: prose for the learned, verse forthe laity. Ulrich Wyss argues that theprose formof theGerman Lancelot is-notwithstanding the pejorative termProsaauflosung-intended to signal a new 'uniibertrefflicheEx klusivitat' (p. I04). Elisabeth Schmid provides direct comparison of verse and prose by examining a single key episode inChretien and in theFrench prose Lancelot. The second and largest section contains eight interpretative studies, several of which highlight competing genre conventions and hence invitations to multiple, com peting interpretations. It is impossible to discuss each of these contributions as they merit, but I particularly appreciated Nikola vonMerveldt's application ofGenette's model of transtextuality to theprose Lancelot. Her examination of paratexts (accom panying material in themanuscripts), intertextual references, hypertexts (assuming 492 Reviews another text in the background, e.g. by parody, continuation), architexts (genre ca tegorizations and the like), and metatexts helps conceptualize much of the complexity of theprose Lancelot. The essays by Fritz Peter Knapp andWalter Haug both return to thequestion of theprose formand genre raised byWolfzettel: what ishistoria, and is the prose Lancelot to be read as such? Other contributions in this section are by Frank Brandsma, Carol Dover, Michael Waltenburger, Elizabeth A. Andersen, and JudithKlinger. The two essays of the final section address reception and transmission. Jiirgen Wolf revisits thequestion ofwhy there isno German Lancelot verse romance based on Chretien, by looking at two other cases where the romance is also 'missing', Norway and Wales. Katja Rothstein looks at the history of the sixteenth-century manuscript a-a final reminder that this is no...