Adapting the Arthurian Legends for Children: Essays on Arthurian Juvenilia edited by Barbara Tepa Lupack (review)

76ARTHURIANA that it sucks the life out of the legend. But it does. On the other hand, what's not to love? I adored it as a decadent extravaganza that reassurares audiences who want to forget about war and bad times that Broadway is sheer vulgar 'coalition ofthe willing' energy. It's all glamour, all surface, all reality denied: it is Mike Nichols without Elaine May. And what more could we want? More if it! More! The New York audience was a little jealous that Chicago got the crooning cow that was cut from the New York script. So forget the power ofthe Arthurian myth and, along with writer and Pythonian Eric (Never) Idle, remember that 'If life seems jolly rotten/ There's something you've forgotten/ And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing...And...always look on the bright side of life.../ Always look on the light side of life.' BONNIE WHEELER Southern Methodist Univetsity barbara tepa lupack, ed., Adapting the Arthurian Legendsfor Children: Essays on ArthurianJuvenilia. Studies in Atthurian and Courtly Cultures. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Pp. xxi, 320. isbn: 0-4039-6296-0. $55. The centrality of the Arthurian legend to the proper education and rearing of children, especially boys, has long been recognized. In this excellent collection of essays by diverse hands, Barbara Tepa Lupack, co-author of the definitive 1999 study KingArthur in America, provides the fitst comprehensive overview ofArthurian juvenilia. The editor's introduction lays out the plan ofthe collection, previews its contents, and most interestingly mines the works ofmodern authots who have written about Arthur to uncover the ways in which Arthurian juvenilia played a role in their own developments first as children and then as writets. Andrew Lynch follows with a detailed discussion of adaptations of Le Morte Darthur from 1485 to the present that were intended for younger readers, or what Lynch calls 'Malory's third ttadition.' Lynch notes that 'since the mid-nineteenth century rhere has been a troubled double apprehension ofthe Morte: that it is somehow particularly suitable for children yet can only be made so by strenuous adaptation' (1). More recent adaptations aimed at young audiences include, of coutse, those for screen and television, and Lynch in speculating about the continued popularity of the Morte notes that Malory's third tradition has often been responsible for the continued vitality of the Arthuriad in times where it otherwise went into decline as the subject ofwotks in other genres (38-39). Complementing Lynch's essay about the 'words' that comprise Malory, Judith L. Kellogg follows with an essay on 'Text, Image and Swords ofEmpowerment in Recent Arthurian Picture Books,' demonstrating how the illustrated Arthurian text 'can be reinterpreted to mirror back a society's varied and changing cultural expectations and concerns' (68-69). The most popular American Arthurian text remains Twain's Connecticut Yankee. Following up on her earlier publications about film adaptations ofTwain's novel for children, Elizabeth S. Sklar notes that the assumption that Twain is 'juvenile fare' is problematic (75). While some may see Twain, like Malory, as appropriate for children, REVIEWS77 both can only be so when they have been at best tweaked—ot at worst sanitized—for younger audiences. In the case ofTwain, such teimaginings often produce an example ofjuvenilia far removed from its source in tone, content, and intent. Cindy L. Vitto next surveys children's versions ofSir Gawain andthe Green Knight, a popular, though 'enigmatic' (107), source for Arthurian juvenilia and wonders why it has remained so popular in that form: '[B]ecause it tells the stoty ofa young knight's testing. . .? Because it links sex and danger, even death? Because it is...a family romance...? Because it upholds the value ofkeeping one's word ...?' (118—19). Raymond H. Thompson then turns to a broader discussion ofthe sense of'place' in Arthutian fiction for younger readers by writers such asWilliam Maync, E.M.R. Dirmas, Rosemary Manning, Gerald Morris, Jane Yolen, Anne McCaffrey, TH. White, and Rosemary Sutcliff. Charlotte Spivack offers a close reading ofSusan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising, nicely linked to Raymond Thompson's interview with Cooper that follows. Dan Nastali surveys Arthurian poetry and...