Latin Arthurian Literature (review)

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 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.

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...