The ‘Roman de Troie’ by Benoît de Sainte-Maure
2019; Modern Humanities Research Association; Volume: 114; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/mlr.2019.0004
ISSN2222-4319
Autores Tópico(s)Latin American and Latino Studies
Resumo Reviews and critiques present-day forms of slavery, military interventionism, and the plight of undocumented migrants (p. ). e interpretative frameworks, including the metaphor of the shipwreck and ideas of social death, are hemispheric in scope, and are strongly and effectively argued. In ‘Plotting Justice’, Vargas also reads e Tattooed Soldier (), the work of Guatemalan American author Héctor Tobar, as a text that is haunted by a US-funded military dictatorship and the ‘spectre of authoritarian rule’ (p. ). At the same time, the text also explores ‘fantasies of justice’ against transnational, state-perpetrated violence symbolized by the LAPD and Rodney King, and ‘e Jaguar Battalion’, a South American death squad responsible for disappearances, torture, and assassination (p. ). e final chapter and coda provide an additional dimension that both strengthens and elaborates the central thesis of Vargas’s study. In ‘e Fall of the Patriarchs’, the discussion of Cristina García’s e King of Cuba () adds an important and specifically Latina feminist interpretation as Vargas demonstrates how the text draws connections between ‘exile politics, heteropatriarchy, and authoritarianism’ (p. ). e coda further develops this analysis as Vargas interprets several PLACA murals and those by the Chicana artist Juana Alicia in the Mission District, San Francisco; here, she strengthens the linkages between past and present state violence and cultural resistance established in the previous chapters of the book. e analysis of the murals confirms their standing as a palimpsest of ‘multidirectional memory’ of Latin American dictatorships and US military interventions that, in much the same ways as the novels discussed, collectively work against historical amnesia (p. ). A well-written and thoroughly researched study, Forms of Dictatorship is pivotal to understanding the contemporary Latina/o dictatorship novel and its complex aesthetics and politics in relation to various forms of authoritarian power. A E A J e ‘Roman de Troie’. By B S-M. Trans. by G S. B and D K. (Gallica, ) Cambridge: Brewer. . viii+ pp.£. ISBN ––––. Glyn Burgess and Douglas Kelly are to be warmly congratulated on their translation of the , lines of Benoît de Sainte-Maure’s Roman de Troie. e text has not been fully edited since let alone translated into English, despite its popularity in the Middle Ages; this translation should put it firmly on the map. e Roman is a romance which describes the events leading up to the siege of Troy, the siege itself, and its aermath. Although Benoît mentions Homer he did not have access to his works; the Roman is a translation of two later Latin works, the De excidio Troiae historia ascribed to Dares Phrygius and the Ephemeridos belli Troiani ascribed to Dictys Cretensis, both of whom have auctoritas as supposed eyewitnesses. e Roman was written in the Angevin court c. ; Benoît went on to write the Chronique des rois de Normandie. MLR, ., Octosyllabics are a standard narrative form, and the translators accordingly use prose rather than verse. ey have struck an impressive balance between the translator’s twin aims of readability and accuracy. eir rendering of key terms is precisely judged: thus, ‘co truis lisant’ (l. ) is translated as ‘my sources tell me’ and ‘matire’ (l. ) as ‘source material’ (p. ). ere are some inspired renderings, such as ‘isnelement o sei l’en porte’ (l. ) as ‘he spirited her away swily’ (p. ). e authors provide notes on some key terms, such as riche, baron, and proz. Although the choice of terms is inevitably arbitrary (a note on romanz, for example, would have been interesting), their explanations are illuminating and will help future translators of other texts. Supporting material (index, list of manuscripts, and summary) is excellent. e Introduction takes corteisie as a guiding thread for a perceptive interpretation , arguing that courtly ideals are successively eroded by the brutality of war. It would have been good to hear a bit more on context: in particular, more detail about the relationship of the Roman to Anglo-Norman vernacular historiography and the Latin poem De bello Troiano by Joseph of Exeter would have been welcome. is in turn might have suggested insights into reception and performance. In sum, this is an exemplary piece of work not only for medievalists...
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