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Reviewed by:
  • The Fortunes of Arthur
  • Cheryl Taylor
Lacy, Norris J., ed., The Fortunes of Arthur (Arthurian Studies, LXIV), Cambridge, D. S. Brewer, 2005; cloth; pp. xvi, 231; 35 b/w illustrations, 1 colour plate; R.R.P. US$80.00, £45.00; ISBN 1843840618.

Reviews of volumes such as this, which grew from a conference at the Centre for Medieval Studies at Pennsylvania State University, traditionally use unity as a starting point for evaluation. The Fortunes of Arthur does indeed display unity, as it focuses on Fortune, Fate and God as determinants in Arthurian texts; on enigmas in Arthur's portrayal; and on his evolution as an iconic figure traversing cultures and generations. Moreover, Norris J. Lacy's introduction explains the essays' neat tripartite structure, and points to the planned ambiguity of the volume's title in fusing Arthur's fortunes as a subject with the fortunes of Arthurian legend. In fact, the collection covers, creatively if capriciously, the development of that legend from Nennius's first mention, probably in the early ninth century, of an Arthur who was 'dux…bellorum,' to Thomas Berger's novel, Arthur Rex, first published in 1978.

Books like The Fortunes of Arthur nevertheless challenge the importance traditionally given to unity as a criterion. This is partly because readers with specialist interests may decide to treat the essays selectively. For instance, a reader versed in Arthur's biography in Elis Gruffydd's sixteenth-century Welsh Chronicle might be expected to be less concerned with the Grail knights' fortunes, as traced by Neil Thomas in Wirnt von Gravenberg's Wigalois (c. 1210-1217) and Heinrich von dem Türlin's Diu Crône (c. 1225-1230). A decision to read selectively would, however, rule out the advantages that theme-based collections hold for readers who opt for a cover-to-cover approach. These include the opportunity to venture into some attractive byways of Arthurian textual studies and to benefit from a rounding out of knowledge. Variations in approach, as focused studies alternate with wide-ranging textual explorations, and as the contributing authors allocate differing priorities to detailed scholarship, argument, readability, and wit, are a further source of interest. A sequential reading of The Fortunes of Arthur therefore offers some of the human, as well as the scholarly, advantages of attending a conference.

Indeed, the volume's range of subjects and styles demonstrates once again that Arthurian studies accommodate differing approaches almost as expansively as Arthurian story itself. Outstanding among the essays that report on extensive research in a defined area, Ceridwen Lloyd-Morgan's study, first published in Welsh in 1997, unravels the Latin, French, English and Welsh sources of Gruffydd's [End Page 206] Chronicle. She demonstrates the Chronicle's value as a repository of oral Welsh Arthurian tales unrecorded elsewhere. In the same category, although differing in subject and presentation, is Alison Stones' report on illustrations of Fortuna and Arthur in manuscripts of the French Lancelot-Grail romance. Stones draws on the Lancelot-Grail Project at the University of Pittsburgh to explicate illustrations that are reproduced in the volume. Siân Echard raises the conversation to a philosophical level, concluding that Geoffrey of Monmouth 'seems more at home with Leir's pagan Fates, applying as they do to all men, good or bad', but adding that Geoffrey's views may be 'as eclectic as his sources' (pp. 27-8).

Other essays range widely through medieval Arthurian texts in order to grapple with Arthur's oddly flawed or indeterminate characterisation, which so often puzzles those who read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight or Malory in isolation. Edward Kennedy argues that in contrast to the secular approach of Geoffrey and of later English chronicles, Robert de Boron raised Arthur's prestige by introducing Christian elements, but that the Vulgate texts diminished it by references to incest and the tragic consequences of Lancelot's and Guenevere's love. An essay by the late W. R. J. Barron suggests that Arthur's dynastic role, evident in Geoffrey, Wace and Laзamon, counterbalances the gradual deterioration of his iconic status in the Alliterative Morte Arthure, the Stanzaic Morte Arthur, The Awntyrs off Arthure and Golagros and Gawane...

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