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Gawain: A Casebook edited by Raymond H. Thompson and Keith Busby

2006; Scriptoriun Press; Volume: 16; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/art.2006.0058

1934-1539

Peter Goodrich,

Medieval Iberian Studies

REVIEWS111 difficult to establish any pattern eirher for when episodes not in Malory's text are included and when they are not, of for the suggested readings. Also, some works listed are unfamiliar to me— and, I would suspect, to mostArthurian scholars— such as Chrétien de Troyes's Laudine (23). The entries are also confusing: Gorlois, for example, is listed under T as Duke of Tintagel, and then promptly named and defined as Duke of Cornwall. All in all, this is a brave effort to create a dictionary ofthe knights in Malory. It would, nevertheless, have benefited from better proofreading and greatef clarity of reference. KRISTINA HILDEBRAND Halmstad University Raymond ?. Thompson and keith busby, eds., Gawain: A Casebook. Arthurian Characters and Themes, Vol. 8. New York and London: Routledge, 2006. Pp. viii, 362. isbn: 0-415-97122-5. $60. This long-awaited volume completes the original Arthurian Characters and Themes series begun in 1995 under the auspices ofGarland Publishing and general editorship ofNorris J. Lacy. It is a worthy conclusion (although a possibility remains that the series may be extended by a future volume or two). As have the other contriburors to this authoritative series, Raymond Thompson and Keith Busby assemble a collection of nineteen of the most significant essays covering an enormous variety of medieval to modem lirerature, including film, abour the figure of King Arthur's nephew and perhaps most important (pace Lancelot) knight. Sixteen of the chapters are previously printed; the remaining three—Albrecht Classen's study ofGawain in Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, Marie-José Heijkant's discussion of the figure in medieval kalian romance, and Thompson's survey of English treatments after rhe Middle Ages—were written expressly for the volume and uphold the high scholarly srandard ser by the others. The editors directly contribute their expertise in a 36-page Introduction, 7-page Select Bibliography of secondary sources, description of contributors (new in this series), an index (a helpful fearure previously incorporated only in Merlin:A Casebook), and two articles apiece. The Casebook is carefully produced, with few proofreading errors and no factual ones that I could detect. There is some unnecessary redundancy, however, as when the same passage from William of Malmesbury's Gesta Regum Anglorum is quoted at length in three of the first four pieces (twice including the original Latin). Its inclusion in rwo previously published chaptefs is logical, but a summary would have sufficed for the Introduction. The repetition of Gawain's characteristic features and treatment in the same texts throughout several articles does not constitute a similar redundancy, however, because these repeated characteristics form the structural core which it is the book's putpose to explore, and each chaptef approaches these formative texts from 112ARTHURIANA a different viewpoint which augments rathet than merely repeats the insights of previous chaptets. In this respect, the anthology's contents ate artfully chosen and constructed around key themes. The editors' Introduction and the magisterial opening chapter by B.J. Whiting (which covers far more ground rhan revealed by its somewhat misleading title, 'Gawain: His Reputation, His Courtesy, and His Appearance in Chaucer's Squire's Tale') quickly establish the 'dual track' stemming from his early (mostly chronicle) role ofheroic warrior, which eithet praises Gawain's character (influenced primarily by medieval verse romances) or condemns ir (medieval prose romances). As successive chapters bear out, his essential tension ot contradiction is one of the most forceful contributors to continuing interest in the character—further complicated by the strong tendency to treat Gawain, a 'received charactet' whose identifying traits are already well-known, as a static rather than developing figure. Consequently, the book develops a continuum from most vilifying (the French Prose Tristan) to most admiring (the Dutch Walewein romances), with a wide range ofmedieval to modern texts ranged in between (Malory, Tennyson, and Mary Stewaft's The Wicked Day are at the lower end ofthe scale, Gawain andthe Green Knight and Thomas Berger's Arthur Rex at the uppef end). As W.A. Davenport says, Gawain is among the most important and lasting figures in Arthurian romance because he 'eventually seems to possess character and nor just characteristics' (274). The most pervasive elements ofGawain...