Medieval Literature, Part Two: The European Inheritance

The New Pelican Guide to English Literature #1B

by Boris Ford (Editor)

Book by

Genres: Nonfiction, Literature, 20th Century, Reference

627 pages, Paperback

First published May 26, 1983

Reviews

[Jan-Maat]

Aims to be a comprehensive introduction (if such a contradiction may be allowed) to Medieval vernacular literature as a European companion volume to the same series' book on the age of Chaucer. Apparently only the age of Chaucer in English literature can benefit from being seen in its European context, the rest of English literature being apparently free standing and uncontaminated by foreign entanglements. This suggests that a certain intellectual insularity is embodied in the structure of the project, always a good start.

But anyway Part One is an impossible overview of the historical background by J.C. Holt "vernacular literature predicates a settled, reasonably sophisticated language" p21. Therefore in his view in linguistically mixed areas people chose to write in Latin. I don't know about this, I think Clanchy's view in From Memory to Written Record that different languages were regarded differently with only some having, gaining or losing a social acceptance as literary languages is more useful. Then again writing in Latin provided access to a geographically wider audience while writing in the vernacular gave you a socially broader audience that covers the broad brush changes and developments in Europe over the medieval period.

Part Two by Derek Brewer aims to do the same for the field of literature. It has a brief introduction to Latin literature, before moving on to the various vernaculars which are the subject of the book. Common themes are that the quality (and some written evidence) of the earliest recorded vernacular writing implies an oral tradition and influences spreading from one region to the next for example love poetry from Islamic Spain being a possible influence on Provençal love poetry.

Part Three is a series of essays, mostly on individual works, each averaging about fifteen pages.
G.T. Shepherd Beowulf "Beowulf is no genuine oral composition out of one tribe's memory. It draws on many pasts. It recalls the Flood and the curse of Cain, the names of lost tribes, half-forgotten distant dynasties, scraps of stories floating in the dark backward over continents." p.93 Beowulf as a mythical figure from folk tale. Christian and pagan elements, place and time of composition unknown. Klaeber Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg the best edition. The surviving chunks of the poem are 3182 lines in length. Some of the vocabulary used unique to Beowulf.

Robert Browning Byzantine Literature Spanning a thousand years and a wide area this is a brief sketch looking at some common genres (Saints Lives, History, Religious Verse etc), some attention to the type of Greek used and models followed.

Richard Axton The Song of Roland disagreement over whether it was an oral or monastic poem in origin (to attract pilgrims), late appearance of the story in an Eleventh century Spanish Chronicle ie having the twelve peers of France and the Saracens as opposed to the factual details in Einhard of an attack by Basques.

Tony Hunt Yvain "If the epic is based on dogmatic principles, the romance proceeds along inductive lines. In the epic all is clear and direct, in the romance much is ambiguous and oblique. The epic hero is rarely alone and separable from his community, whist the romance hero becomes a voluntary exile. The theme of romance is the discovery of identity within a world of adventitious happenings, the process of self-realisation through adventure (from ad-venire, 'to happen'). The hero pursues a solitary quest in which the presuppositions of the courtly world may act as beacons or decoys. His task, just like that of the reader, is thus one of orientation and discrimination, the search for pertinent and durable criteria (the epic hero simply tours an arena of familiar feudal loyalties" p.129

Ian Michael Poem of My Cid Very little epic poetry in Spain compared with France. Disagreements over the date of composition, some placing it very close to the historical events, others over a century later. Poem simplifies the historical background and ignores the hero's patronage of monasteries other than the one which the surviving manuscript comes from

Richard Axton Church Drama and Popular Drama Discusses some surviving church and secular dramas. Particularly interesting are those which have stage instructions for the actors

Ingeborg Glier Troubadours and Minnesang Troubadours influence the later Minnesang, but both traditions appear fully formed - therefore there is an assumption of an unrecorded oral tradition. Written by men and women. Both traditions die out abruptly in the 13th century. This Glier attributes to the Albigensian Crusade - though this isn't born out by the dates of the activities of those active in the Troubadour tradition by about a half century. Provençal poetry goes on to influence Dante.

L. Peter Johnson Parzival Germany as culturally importing not exporting at this period. Influenced by troubadours, but not influencing French writing. Changes from the French versions of the Grail story Johnson puts down to a misunderstanding of the French, which leads to further elaboration and complication of the Grail story

L. Peter Johnson Tristan Praise of love even in adultery above all else. Love conceived of in religious terms.

L.T. Topsfield Roman de la Rose Sets out how completely different the mindsets and ideas of the two writers were giving the impression that the continuation and completion by Jean de Meung is effectively a different work.

Jacqueline Simpson Njal's Saga Some contextual background

John A. Scott The Divine Comedy Stresses how meaning of the work becomes clear on completion of the whole in retrospect. Some unorthodox opinions. Centrality of political and moral unified order to provide freedom. Avarice - the wolf - as a particular threat to this.

Colin Smith The Book of the Good Love Ingenuous critics have been unaware of the great tradition of 'medieval laughter', and have not reckoned with Ruiz's sudden shifts of tone and sly, subversive ambivalence. What disconcerts the modern reader would not have surprised the medieval one, and what we read on the page has to be assessed in terms of the impact it would have made when offered by a talented presenter to a listening public." p.208 No complete manuscript - a version complied out of three main sources and some fragments but clear that parts of it are missing if the text is assumed to be internally coherent. Seems to have included various originally free standing pieces of writing, worked into the overall framework. Early years of the poet possibly spent in Moorish Granada some Arabic loan words.

Robin Kirkpatrick Decameron (Brewer: First Italian poetry and prose early 13th c. After the Decameron Boccaccio wrote "genealogies of the pagan gods" in Latin.) Born son of a banker - Kirkpatrick suggests "there is hardly a story in the Decameron (1349-51) which does not in some way mirror the highly developed commercial culture of 14th-century Europe" p.287 Suggests Naples connection important for the middle eastern origins/settings for some of the stories.

Patrick Sims-Williams Dafydd Ap Gwilym & Celtic literature Influenced by Ovid and French poetry - but not precisely clear how. Not much awareness of other Celtic literature - one reference to Irish Deidre. Apparently a Tristam story from Brittany via Cornwall. References to Magbinogion stories - from oral or written sources unclear. Closeness to the natural world with mixture of loan words and similes from English and French and the commercial world

Philip M.J. McNair Petrarch & the language of love Discussion of the poetic use of the name "Laura" along with some paraphrases of Petrarch's verse

Peter Burke Gargantua and Pantagruel A very general introduction with the inevitable nod to Bakhtin and medieval laughter culture.

Part Four is an anthology of translated excerpts of medieval literature not limited to those discussed in part three. Petrarch, Parzival, Tristan and Yvain are translated into prose. The Parzival extracts came across as far less interesting than the essay about about the poem and were not much of an enticement to read the whole thing. The Bickersteth translation of Dante was however far more readable than the Dorothy L. Sayers translation which I laboured through years ago until I expired part way into Purgatory where my soul remains (probably for its own good).

Part Five is an appendix with suggestions for further reading and brief biographies of the medieval writers from Part Four with bibliographies. Some of these are not without interest: VIDAL, PIERRE (fl. 1180-1205): From Toulouse. Called by his biographer 'the maddest man in the world'. Supposed to have pursued amorous adventures throughout France and Spain, and to have dressed himself in a wolf-skin and had himself pursued by hounds in order to compliment a lady named Loba (she-wolf). Nevertheless a successful courtly poet. p610

A book like this can be awkward, the parts pulling in different directions, suffering from too little space, trying to appeal to too many audiences. Some of the essays pick on the literary form, or biographical details, or attempt to show influences. Some seem insightful, others offer more of an overview of a broad field. Yet on the whole I felt that I have missed out by not having read more of the literature described here. I'm not sure if dealing with the vernacular literature without considering Medieval prose and poetry in Latin makes any kind of sense (particularly with regard to Petrarch), but as it is this is a six hundred odd page volume the spine creaks as it is.

It seems to be an overly ambitious book, but then again it isn't the kind of thing that needs to be successful on its own merits. This book is successful if the reader moves on to read more Medieval literature.

[David Wilby · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is well structured with four distinct sections. It begins with an insightful look at how language was developing at the time, then an overview of medieval society, before, in part three, we get the amazingly diverse and quite readable series of essays on a variety of authors and medieval literary traditions. Finally the fourth part comprises brief excerpts from all the original texts covered in part three, each rendered here in a modern English translation.

Basically what this volume offers is exactly what a guide should: i.e. structure, context, key terms, and chronological progression. There's a real sense of how the literature of the time was undergoing a change that set in motion a constant mode of revision and reflection (which is now broadly termed the Humanist epoch). We are also reminded that boundaries between artforms did not exist, so music, storytelling and written literature were deeply interwoven in a way that we can scarcely imagine today.

I found the 'Song of Roland' particularly fascinating, along with the various interpretations of the Holy Grail myth, a recurring motif which gradually assumes a highly symbolic role as a conduit for channelling the mystical energy that characterises these stories. Elsewhere there are also finer, more esoteric details such as how the 12th century poet Chretien de Troyes was the first to pioneer radical line-breaks called "enjambment" where each line continues into the next as if in a seamless flowing phrase.

There are a few notable absences here, and among the stories which might have been included in a more comprehensive version could be numbered 'Gawain and the Green Knight' and 'Y Gododdin', both written by anonymous Welsh authors. However, as the title suggests, the aim of this guide is to offer a European perspective and there's certainly plenty to enjoy in this rich volume. My only real gripe is that this collection can only offer at best a broad brushstroke - it's less a Bayeux tapestry than a series of highlights. But if you're sufficiently inspired, there's nothing to stop you rereading Beowulf or getting stuck into some of the Icelandic sagas in full.