Arthurian Literature by Women ed. by Alan Lupack and Barbara Tepa Lupack
2000; Scriptoriun Press; Volume: 10; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/art.2000.0018
ISSN1934-1539
Autores Tópico(s)Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies
ResumoREVIEWS115 scriptural exegesis. The author's appreciation for the Anglo-Saxon poet and his craft is everywhere palpable. Yet this is no blind admiration, but rather a feeling that has grown over many years of teaching and writing, reflecting on the nature of artistic creation and the deep meaning of the words of Beowulf. LEO CARRUTHF.RS Université de Paris-Sorbonne alan lupack and barbara tepa lupack, eds., Arthurian Literature by Women. Garland Reference Library of the Humanities 2137. New York: Garland, 1999. Pp. xiii, 382. isbn: 0-8153-3305-6 (hbk); 0-8153-3483-4 (pbk). $19.95. This anthology emphasizes Arthurian works by nineteenth- and twentieth-century women authors, although it also includes Marie de France's two Arthurian lais (twelfth century) and Lady Charlotte Guest's 1849 translation ofthe medieval Welsh tale, 'The Lady ofthe Fountain.' The intended audience for the collection is explicitly one already familiar with the writing ofsuch modern women writers ofArthurian subjects as Vera Chapman, Mary Stewart, Rosemary Sutcliff, Jane Yolen, Katherine Paterson, Fay Sampson, Gillian Bradshaw, Persia Woolley, and Marion Zimmer Bradley, and their writing is thus not represented. In fact, the names of the great majority ofwriters in Arthurian Literature by Women will probably be unfamiliar to all but zealous Arthurianists, preferably with access to works long out ofprint. This is as the editors have anticipated, however, for they hope 'to explore that rich but forgotten tradition' (xi), a phrase that in part provides the title oftheir introduction. The earliest modern work reprinted hete is Anne Bannerman's 'The Prophecy of Merlin' (1802), followed by Letitia Elizabeth Landon's A Legend ofTintagel Castle' (1833) and the anonymous—the author signs merely as a 'daughter of Eve'—'The YIIe Cut Manteir (1844), a story that can be traced to the Middle Ages. Thirteen other works date from the second halfofthe nineteenth century. To note just three: the selections by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps re-create Galahad, Elaine/The Lady of Shalott, and Guenevere as poor folk living in 'realistic' squalor, presented with the heightened pathos such a setting can allow; Dinah Maria Mulock Craik's Avillion; Or, the Happy Isles features the enfeebled Wilfred Mayer and his devoted wife Lilias Hay; their encounter, during a sea voyage, with a German physician and his magic medicine sends Mayer into a lengthy but curative dream that includes both Greek mythological and Arthurian personae; and the scholar Jessie Weston is represented by a poem, 'Knights of King Arthur's Court,' written in 1896. A concentration ofselections from the period between 1901-1931 includes Martha Kinross's much-admired drama 'Tristram and Isoult,' two poems by Sara Teasdale, Edna St. Vincent Millay's 'Elaine,' and Dorothy Parker's 'Guinevere at Her Fireside' and 'Iseult of Brittany.' Conceivably less known are the short poems by Grace Constant Lounsbery, Sophie Jewett, Helen Hay Whitney, Elizabeth Colwell, and Aline Kilmer. Annie Fellows Johnston's prose tale, 'Keeping Tryst: ATaIe of King Arthur's Time,' is a children's story (but there is nothing new in the blurring of borders in much modern Arthurian composition between stories for children or Il6ARTHURIANA young adults and those for older readers). Two selections, Valerie Nieman's intriguing 'The Naming of the Lost' (1989) and four Guenevere poems by Wendy Mnookin (1991) close the volume. Readers will appreciate the generous number of works that this anthology provides, as well as the valuable service it performs by making available otherwise hard-to-get writing. A spot check of selections against first editions inspires confidence in the editors' care in transcription. Some aspects ofpresentation, however, may prove baffling. For editors, choosing from an array of material is always a daunting task, and focusing on the worthybut -forgotten is an unimpeachable aim. But it is surprising to read that Marie de France's 'Lanval' (with all due respect for Norris Lacy's translation) or 'The Lady of the Fountain' are forgotten, given that they are available elsewhere in inexpensive editions (a translation of 'Lanval' is even posted on the Net) and often used in college courses. Similarly, Wendy Mnookin's poetry, composed within the last decade, isn't old enough to have been forgotten, nor indeed is it...
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