Medieval Translations and Cultural Discourse: The Movement of Texts in England, France and Scandinavia by Sif Rikhardsdottir (review)

Middle English adaptations of French courtly romance and the Old Norse riddarasögur are, thankfully, no longer regarded as pale imitations of sparkling Gallic originals. For confirmation we need look no further than Sif Rikhardsdottir’s book, which puts real flesh on the bones of some generalizations, with due attention to cultural theory, historical context, traditional philology, and the vagaries of mouvance. An Introduction considers medieval and modern notions of translation, the varying nature of cultural discourses in France, England, and the Nordic countries, and the consequences of manuscript transmission in early vernaculars. Translation is viewed in its original meaning, that is, not as a mere transposition of language but as a movement between cultural contexts. Good arguments are made for the relevance of recent developments in postcolonial theory to the study of medieval Francophonia and the export of its literature. Chapter 1 is devoted to the transformations of Marie de France’s Lais in the Old Norse Strengleikar and the Middle English Sir Launfal and Lay le Freine. Placing the former in the context of Hákon Hákonarson’s commissions of translations from the French, and presenting the latter as a response to the decline of the language in England, Rikhardsdottir demonstrates in detail that both the Old Norse and Middle English versions reflect structures of the receiving societies and the views they hold of themselves. Rúnzivals þáttr, a version of the Chanson de Roland dating from the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century, is the subject of Chapter 2: Rikhardsdottir shows that the modifications made in the Old Norse text result from ‘cultural acclimatisation’ (p. 61) as chanson de geste moves towards saga. The Middle English and Old Norse adaptations of Yvain have not been as neglected as others, perhaps because they have been caught up in the orbit of Hartmann von Aue’s Iwein, but Rikhardsdottir argues that they have not been fully understood. Chapter 3 concentrates on the changes made to Chrétien’s narrative in Ívens saga and Ywain and Gawain. In both cases the cultural environment determines the lack of attention paid to courtly ideology and the ensuing heightened tempo of the narratives. Chapter 4 draws on earlier results from the study in a three-way comparison of the French romance of Partonopeu de Blois with Partalopa saga and Partonope of Blois. The saga excises any social and sexual subtexts from the French, while the Middle English text reveals anxiety about gender dynamics in fifteenth-century England. An Appendix includes narrative summaries of the forms of the Partonopeu story, and a Conclusion restates the aims and results of the study. Overall, Rikhardsdottir’s scholarship is generally up to date, but there is a lack of pertinent recent French-language work on Chrétien de Troyes. And because of the need to underline her central argument, she also tends towards repetition and occasional, unnecessary belabouring of the point. Despite its modest scope, this book offers models for further studies of adaptations from Old French narrative texts into Old Norse, Middle English, and other languages. For those in medieval French studies, it is another reminder that, without the long reach and wide compass of the langue d’oïl, medieval literature in the other vernaculars would have been very different indeed.