The Changing Face of Arthurian Romance: Essays on Arthurian Prose Romances in Memory of Cedric E. Pickford ed. by Alison Adams, Armel H. Diverres, Karen Stern, Kenneth Varty (review)

REVIEWS indicated conventionally within the text or in the textual notes. The late­ thirteenth-century revisions by the inept corrector D have been excluded. The application ofthese policies, with editorial capitalization, paragraph­ ing, punctuation, and worddivision, results in a highly readable textthat is immediately accessible to the reader (unlike Dobson's deliberately diplo­ matic edition). Indeed, the meticulous accuracy and readability ofthe text give rise to a mere quibble over the editors' avowed "interest in offering a consistent text as it would seem to have been read by thineenth-century anchoresses and others relying on the Cleopatra MS" (p. 6), for this is a far "cleaner" text than a medieval reader could ever have hoped to possess. Dahood's facing-page translation is accurate and lucid-a glance at the inaccurate corresponding translation from Nero found in Manon's edition will convince the reader of the present translation's stylistic and lex­ icographical superiority.Liturgical quotations are translated from Latin and their immediate sources given in the notes, often with useful explanatory comment. Dahood informs us in the Preface that Ackerman deliberately refrained from detailed analysis ofthe liturgical elements-a wise decision in the context ofthe present book-and hoped that "acompetent liturgical scholar" might be able to identify service books close to those used as exemplars by the original anchoresses. In fact, Ackerman himself points the way by noting two relevant eleventh-century manuscripts ofthe Office ofOur Lady which their editor, E. S. Dewick, believed to have been written for Benedictine nunneries (p. 34). Ackerman and Dahood's edition is a well-conceived and competently executed piece ofwork and the General Introduction is ofuse to specialist and nonspecialist alike. It is a worthy addition to a series that has estab­ lished a consistently high standard of scholarship combined with careful, handsome printing and a commendable affordability. LISTER M. MATHESON Michigan State University ALISON ADAMS, ARMEL H. DIVERRES, KAREN STERN, and KENNETH VARTY, eds. The Changing Face ofArthurian Romance: Essays on Arthurian Prose Romances in Memory of Cedric E. Pickford. Anhurian Studies, vol. 16. Woodbridge, Suffolk, and Wolfeboro, N.H.: Boydell & Brewer, 1986. Pp. xxiv, 168. $40.00, £25. The preface tells us that these essays were arranged to reflect the develop­ ment of the Arthurian prose romance; more particularly, they show how 111 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER individual texts were adapted to changing tastes and to "new centres of interest." Appropriately, therefore, E. Kennedy leads off with an au­ thoritative demonstration of the ways in which events taken over from the Prose Lancelot into the cyclic version assumed fresh significance in their new context, most particularly through the need of subordinating the established hero to his son, Galahad. R. L. Curtis then offers a view of the madness of the Prose Tnstan as a more convincing reworking of that of the Prose Lancelot; like the Prose Tristan itself, this tends to be more thorough than exciting, with the author's concern to award higher marks to the later work backed up by remarks that might cause some of the other contributors to this volume to raise their eyebrows a little ("Surely Lancelot knew his lady well enough to have perceived that he was making love to another woman" [p. 16]). Where differences oflanguage as well as date are involved, the derivative version can easily seem more negative than positive in literary quality. This is especially likely with the English Prose Merlin, given WE. Mead's largely unsympathetic treatment of it in the EETS edition, and to redress this particular imbalance, Karen Stern firmly rejects the criteria by which Mead had found the romance wanting and gives thanks for our own greater enlightenment in such matters. That is fair enough, but her case would have been strengthened ifone or two detailed analyses of the text had also been provided. The same may be felt of David Blamires's survey of four German prose recensions (all ignored by Sparnaay in his contribution to Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages); even the prose Tristrant und Isa/de and Wigoleis vom Rade- in size the most manageable of the texts considered- receive only unexemplified praise for their style and straight­ forwardness...