Perceval: The Story of the Grail by Chrétien De Troyes (review)

REVIEWS135 There are instances in which Raffel's departures from his original may prove puzzling. There is space for only a single example. In vs. 3119, the Fisher King asks Perceval to come and sit beside him seiirement, that is, confidently ot without concern; Raffel translates the adverb as 'quietly.' That clearly will not do: since Perceval's failing is precisely that he did remain quiet, it can only confuse matters to have the Fisher King urge him to do so. This is among several instances where I suspect that Raffel has relied on Daniel Poirion's Modern French translation: Poirion renders seiirement as tranquillement, which may have led, unfortunately, to 'quietly.' There are, finally, a few simple errors. Examples include the statement that Blanchcfleur—not both ofthe lovers, but she alone— 'knew the pleasures ofsleeping in each other's arms' (2067-68; my emphasis) or the subjectless sentence 'Rode toward the musing knight' (4292; presumably the period after 4290 should have been a comma). That the translation could have benefited from more care does not mean that it is not a competent work that can serve readers reasonably well. However, since it is not without tonal and textual flaws, and since interpretive difficulties are rarely elucidated in notes—only ten of them for over 9000 lines—anyone coming anew to Chrétien will need to be guided through the complexities ofthe Grail romance by a teacher or by the explanatory notes offered in other translations (or editions). And if that is to be the case, the reader might be advised simply to choose one of those texts instead: fortunately, we now have at our disposal more than enough good English translations of Chrétien. NORRIS J. LACY Pennsylvania State University chrétien de TROYES, Perceval: The Story ofthe Grail. Trans., Burton Raffel. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999. Pp. x, 310. isbn: 0—300-07585-5 (cloth), $32.50; 0-300—07585-3 (paper), $16. In The Art ofTranslating Poetry (1988), Burton Raffel offers his apologia for his form oftranslation. The translatot 'is (or should be) a literary person in the old-fashioned sense. The translator of poetry must be himself a poet, and the translator of literary prose is best able to do his job properly ifhe is himselfa writer ofliterary (as opposed to scholarly or critical) prose.' Later on, he reiterates his view point: ? do know that in order to translate poetry one has to be a poet.' Whether one subscribes to Raffel's perspective or not—and I, for one, cannot accept his belief—there is an annoying tendency behind his theory that renders criticism unacceptable. 'Academics are by nature specialists,' he notes. 'Their training, their life's work as scholars, and their work as teachers all tend to reinforce specialization. But translation is by its very nature an interdisciplinary subject, whether one is practicing, theorizing about, or evaluating it.' Translators have a wide knowledge of literary and cultural history both in the language of their subject and in their own language. Consequently, 'most of those who comment on (scholars, critics) and almost all those who use (academics) 136ARTHURIANA translations largely fail to meet' the interdisciplinary perspective of the ttanslators. As a result, 'most academics arc virtually indifferent to literary quality in the translations they assign for student use; they not only see little or no difference between poetry translated into verse or into prose, but they seem usually to feel that prose translations ofpoetry ate better (more "faithful").' In addition, he concludes that most academics 'know nothing of linguistics and see no reason to know anything, and even those who do know linguistics can see no application oftheir knowledge to translation(s).' Confronted with such a categorical dismissal of an academic's possible criticism, how can one approach Raffel's fifth and final volume ofhis translations ofthe romances of Chrétien de Troyes? Perceval: The Story ofthe Grail concludes the enterprise of translating Chretien's five great narratives begun mote than ten years ago. Raffel follows his usual practice ofcreating an 'interpretive translation,' a translation 'aimed primarily at a general audience which reads for literary reasons.' The interpretive translator 'tries to give his reader as...