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  • Merlin: Knowledge and Power through the Ages
  • Rawitawan Pulam
Keywords

Merlin, knowledge, power, Welsh poetry, Geoffrey of Monmouth

Stephen Knight . Merlin: Knowledge and Power through the Ages. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2009. Pp. xvii + 275.

Stephen Knight's latest offering traces the role of Merlin from the Myrddin of medieval Welsh poems through Malory, Ben Jonson, and T. H. White to [End Page 101] twenty-first-century New Age philosophy. It is evidently the product of a lifetime's interest in Merlin, displaying remarkable familiarity with a wide range of cultural artifacts as well as the scholarly debates surrounding them. Knight's central premise is that the figure of Merlin represents knowledge, which is locked in a perpetually uneasy relationship with "power," as Knight terms rulers and decision-makers. Sometimes these two elements of society work together, as when Merlin is used as a propagandist for James I. Sometimes they work in opposition, as when the Cumbrian Myrddin goes into self-exile after becoming disillusioned with wars. For Knight, this relationship continues through history, whether in the form of conflicts between the magician and the monarch or between the scientist and the capitalist.

Knight characterizes the knowledge that Merlin represents by dividing the book into four sections. The first chapter, "Wisdom," mostly covers medieval Welsh poems and Geoffrey of Monmouth's works. As is the case throughout the book, each text that Knight discusses is accompanied by a fairly substantial review of the debates surrounding its provenance, date, authorship, and literary value, as well as lengthy quotes. Knight rarely analyzes any aspect of the characterization of Merlin at length; instead, he briefly mentions numerous fascinating observations worthy of further research. Merlin as "Wisdom" involves roles as diverse as a war-weary nobleman, a protonationalist prophet, a subversive magical trickster, a clerical scholar, and a first-class engineer and architect. British society after the Norman Conquest is described as a multicultural site of postcolonial hybridity, but the point is not developed further.

The next chapter, "Advice," mostly covers medieval texts of French origin. As in the previous chapter, Knight never fully defines "advice" and how it differs from other forms of knowledge. Instead, through Knight's description of the variations on Merlin, what emerges is Merlin's ability to take on an amazing range of roles. He can be an insignificant plot device in one text and a crucial, narrative-driving adviser to Vortigern, Uther, and Arthur in another. One author can write of Merlin as a completely secular adviser, while another can use him as a devout, spiritual guide to the Grail-seekers. Despite the scarcity of Merlin in English medieval texts, Knight describes the provenance and plot of Layamon's Brut, Arthour and Merlin, and Lovelich's and Malory's works at length and also finds Merlin in the figure of the dream-reading philosopher in the alliterative Morte Arthure.

Chapter three, "Cleverness," surveys four centuries of Merlin in forty pages, first detailing the widespread political uses of Merlin's prophecies in English, French, Nordic, and Italian texts during the Middle Ages. Pointing to a growing disdain for magic and prophecies by Renaissance writers, Knight [End Page 102] proposes that Merlin then takes on the role of a clever scientist and/or engineer. This characterization works fairly well for Ariosto's Orlando Furioso and Spencer's Faerie Queene, but as Knight moves into later periods, the clever Merlin becomes rarer. Early modern works seem to employ Merlin either as a political propagandist or an object of ridicule, although Knight calls the latter a "clever fool." Knight also presents brief explanations for the Romantic rejection of Merlin, but the relevant section is mostly devoted to considering the works of authors who saw a selfish, fiendish Merlin. In this chapter Knight does extend the analysis beyond poems and plays to incorporate seventeenth-century almanacs—called "Merlins"—and Queen Caroline's library, known as "Merlin's Cave," but he does not venture into the area of visual arts. Although the book includes illustrations by Victorian artists, almost the entirety of the section on the Victorians is devoted to Tennyson's Idylls of the King.

Chapter four, "Education," is...

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