Aymeri of Narbonne: A French Epic Romance (review)

It is a pleasure to see Aymeri de Narbonne in an affordable English translation. This volume opens it up to the general public, and it also opens it up to general classroom use. While the Chanson de Roland is a work of great beauty, it has too many atypicalities to remain the only chanson de geste that English speakers ever really get to know.

The ideal translation is side by side with the original, especially in a case such as this where a literal translation is not intended. This is hard to achieve while still producing a low-cost paperback, and Newth's use of thirteen pages of extracts to acquaint students with the original poem is a reasonable compromise. The translation is poetic rather than literal, which means that Newth uses devices such as padding out lines and shifting text to make it work. From a purely scholarly point of view, this makes it hard to use for close analysis. However, for a general introduction the focus on literary values enhances accessibility.

Newth reconstructs the early history of the chanson de geste on pp. vii-viii. He fails to explain the nature of the sources and his reconstruction errs on the side of not explaining that the oral composition of the 'first epic chants' relies on fragmentary evidence and probably needs to be seriously reconsidered in the light of new work on orality. There are certainly formulaic structures in the surviving earlier chansons de geste, but how closely this is linked to a purely oral origin depends very much on the opinion of the scholar in question. As for the 'Stereotyped themes' that Newth mentions, they certainly exist but may owe as much to the nature of the genre and the expectations of its audience (to aurality rather than orality, perhaps) as to remnants of its origin. All this indicates is that Newth places himself quite firmly on the side of strong oral origins and tales told consistently over time and that I am not entirely comfortable with this position favouring one particular theory of epic origins as opposed to another. For a student volume I would have liked to see the dissenting ideas at least mentioned. Having said that, Newth's outline could be used handily in classroom discussion on the subject of orality.

Newth possibly also needed to include a little more evidence to explain why he came down so firmly on the side of the unbroken epic tradition and pure oral origins, and how the transformation from oral tale into written text affected stories such as that of Aymeri.

Most of these caveats relating to the introduction are matters of interpretation and the need for a little more backing for arguments. When Newth moves into the specifics and discusses the themes and developments in the chanson de geste, he is on much firmer ground. His discussion of the authorship of Aymeri de Narbonne is useful, for instance, for someone who is unfamiliar with how medieval authorship can be established. Likewise his outline of the historical background to the Narbonne tale presents the essential contexts in a way very suitable for students.

Of particular interest is Newth's discussion (p. xxiv) of how the formulaic expressions of the chanson de geste work in terms of audience. Without an audience impact literary devices are generally wasted, so this explanation of why the epic formulas have such narrative potential is key to understanding their appeal.

A strength of the volume is that Newth spells out very clearly why he uses verse and for echoing the performative nature of Aymeri de Narbonne in that verse. This will not appeal to those who believe that a literal translation is the only way to teach the Middle Ages. I have to admit, however, that I am in accord with Newth on this subject – any translation is approximate and the effect of the form is just as important...