Heroes and Anti-Heroes in Medieval Romance ed. by Neil Cartlidge (review)

At 247 pages tightly typeset, Heroes and Anti-Heroes in Medieval Romance packs in no less than fourteen essays on types and anti-types in various late medieval narrative texts including—but not restricted to—romance. Organized in two sections (Part I: ‘Individual Characters’ and Part II: ‘Character-Types’), the collection showcases new talent alongside established scholars, with contributions on an array of characters, from the ubiquitous Arthurian villain Mordred to the single-text figure Ralph the Collier, but bringing in little known heroes as well (in René d’Anjou’s Livre du Cuer). Unlike recent volumes on medieval insular romance which purport to either provide an introduction to the field (A Companion to Medieval Popular Romance, eds. Raluca L. Radulescu and Cory James Rushton [Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2009]) or provoke debate around a select group of romances (Pulp Fictions in Late Medieval England, ed. Nicola McDonald [Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004], the present collection does not intend, in its editor’s words (Neil Cartlidge), to ‘impose or contrive any fixed or final definition of medieval anti-heroism (or indeed of romance)’ (2). Refreshingly honest, this statement might suggest a deliberate reluctance to engage with the intersections between chronicle writing, saints’ lives, and romance which are in fact explored in two essays contained in this volume: ‘Hengist,’ by Margaret Lamont, and ‘Harold Godwineson,’ by Laura Ashe, respectively. Due to the nature of their central topics, these two essays contribute—albeit not always explicitly—to modern critical debates over the interactions between romance and other genres, and, at least for the present reviewer, the new material and new approaches adopted here are most intriguing and path-breaking in their own right.

Overall the selection of characters and types for this collection is varied and intriguing. The well-chosen bookends of the collection are, on the one hand, classical and legendary figures of Turnus (in Penny Eley’s essay) and Alexander the Great (in David Ashurst’s) and, on the other, ‘Ungallant Knights,’ by James Wade, and ‘Sons of Devils,’ by Neil Cartlidge. Thus the analyses of Turnus and Alexander, heroes whose development is explored in a range of Old French and Middle English texts, provide a foundation for the essays by Lamont and Ashe. The other bookend, the two chapters by Wade and Cartlidge, present fresh perspectives on topics usually treated differently: Wade’s is the only chapter to engage deeply with the manuscript contexts in which the selected Middle English romances survive, while Cartlidge’s provides a theologically- and chronologically-informed review of the development of devilish characters in medieval romance. To play devil’s advocate— pun intended—I could argue that there is more to Sir Gowther and Robert le diable than their devilish origins and behaviour, as there are more varied character types than Middle English romance ‘Crusaders’ (the essay by Robert Rouse) and ‘Saracens’ (by Siobhan Bly Calkin), since both latter types form the focus of much recent work on medieval romance. Yet this would be unfair, since all four essays in Part II are, as expected, fine contributions.

Among the other essays in the collection, some of the most accomplished are, unsurprisingly, authored by established scholars (Judith Weiss’ chapter on ‘Mordred’ from Part I stands out in its breadth of coverage in a most economical way), yet contributions from emerging voices are also welcome, in particular given the difficulty of the topics (due to extensive coverage elsewhere): ‘Merlin’ (by Gareth Griffith) and ‘Gawain’ (by Kate McClune). By nature controversial, the characters of Ralph the Collier and Gamelyn provide ‘food for analysis’ in the essays authored by Ad Putter and Nancy Mason Bradbury, respectively. Intriguing is also Stephanie Viereck Gibbs Kamath’s essay on ‘The Anti-Heroic Heart’ in René d’Anjou’s Livre du Cuer. Here the reader discovers a text rarely if ever discussed in traditional surveys of medieval romance, and thus another stimulus for debate.

Both the typological approach...