Cultural Encounters in the Romance of Medieval England.

Dor, Juliette

Cultural Encounters in the Romance of Medieval England. Ed. by Corinne Saunders. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer. 2005. x + 193 pp. 45 [pounds sterling]. isbn: 978-1-84384-032-9.

Because of the linguistic situation in post-Conquest England, the specificity of Middle English translations of Anglo-Norman romances and the interest that they hold can mainly be attributed to the fact that they do not mediate between cultures separated by geographical distance. Ivana Djordjevic's analysis of the portrayal of the mother in Sir Beves of Hampton highlights major misreadings of the source's cultural connotations, and shows that translators may have failed to recognize 'textual false friends' (things that are similar to what is available in their own culture). Four essays address the idea of kingship and right rule. Tony Davenport observes the shift from history to romance alongside King Ine of Wessex's story. Rosalind Field explores the political resonances of exile and return myths in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries (footnote 31 should read 'Colombeylesdeux-eglises'). Judith Weiss pursues further her research on the ineffectual monarch who is sidelined by a hero, and she argues that although Ipomedon, Robert le Diable, and Octavian offer different reactions to monarchical power, they all invest the topos with an acute social and political meaning, each according to its own agenda. Robert Rouse examines the image of the king as lawgiver and concludes that the 'Matter of England' romances constructed a national identity based on the claim that it had been a legal Golden Age.

Most Middle English rewritings of French romances have been undervalued as abridged versions adapted to less cultured audiences. Phillipa Hardman engages in a reappraisal of Sir Tristrem, whose importance she reassesses within the tradition. As she convincingly argues, it is a skilful instance of abbreviatio, meant for an English audience familiar with both legend and genre. Not only does its diptych structure--before and after the love drink--allow Hardman to suggest the more relevant name Tristrem and Ysoude, it also makes sense of some alleged weaknesses and rearrangements. The question raised by Elizabeth Archibald--'Did Knights Have Baths?'--tentatively considers the issue of medieval bathing and recalls the paucity of the motif in Middle English romances. Derek Brewer relies on his own review of Jaeger's Ennobling Love (1999) to explore the transformations of 'fin'amor'. After reiterating that the new development of heterosexual love is not due to the collapse of a long tradition of homosexual love between males of the nobility, he tests his own view, based on C. S. Lewis, in a wide survey of Medieval English romances.

Neil Cartlidge and Nancy Mason Bradbury both address gender. Cartlidge draws on a well-documented corpus to explore Sir Gowther's scandalous story of women's impregnation by the devil, and the friction between clerical culture and vernacular audience; and Bradbury successfully examines female roles in the late fourteenth century (shift from private to public, queenly intercession, and promotion of 'common profit') in Athelston. Roger Dalrymple discusses symbolic functions of the renditions of giantslaying in Torrent of Portyngale, and observes the movement away from that topos to other cultural encounters. The final essay, by Helen Cooper, deals with the legend of Thomas of Erceldoune and his prophecies, and highlights the significance of its numerous rewritings, most notably in The Faerie Queene.

Corinne Saunders's selection demonstrates that the vitality of medieval England's romances (Middle English and Anglo-Norman) is rooted in its exceptional variety of cultural encounter; and that the intricacy of many layers--classical, Anglo-Saxon, Norman, French, Celtic; lay and clerical--generated a highly complex situation that affected many aspects of the genre. Her own expertise in medieval English romances and the history of ideas is justifiably matched by the quality of contributions evident in this volume, which emerged from the Eighth Biennial Conference on Romance in Medieval England (Durham 2002).

Juliette Dor

University of Liege