8/12/2019 French Studies 2002 Williams 511

1/1

French Studies, Vol. LVI, No. ,

REVIEWS

Retelling the Tale: An Introduction to Medieval French Literature. By S G.London, Duckworth, . pp. Pb ..

In this book, intended for students and general readers, Simon Gaunt is aneloquent ambassador for the medieval period and communicates in a lively,accessible style the pleasure to be had in reading medieval texts. Any doubts onemight have about how a relatively slim volume can serve as an introduction tosuch a varied corpus of works are quickly allayed by the specific approach whichGaunt adopts. Rather than attempting an overview of the period he engages ina closely argued discussion of the relationship between orality and written culturein the composition and dissemination of medieval texts, drawing his examplesfrom those works most frequently studied in British universities. Throughout,he demonstrates how authors working in the written medium play with notionsof orality, whether this is in a nostalgic evocation of an oral past in the chansonsde geste and in Marie de Frances lais, or in the self-conscious construction of avoyeuristic narrator in Berouls Tristan. Authors awareness of the intertextualframe in which they were working is revealed in Berouls and Thomass refer-ences to other Tristan narratives and in echoes of the Tristanmaterial in Clige`sandLa Mort le roi Artu. The contribution of multiple authorship to the rewritingof texts is analysed from very different perspectives: in the Roman de Renartandthe Prose Lancelot material is repeated and reoriented in the cycles; the Chevalierde la Charreteand the Roman de la Roseshow how continuations comment on the

original text and play sly jokes on the audience or reader; and remaniements, suchas those of hagiographic tales and of the Roland, may seek to give less ambiguousor more moralizing readings of earlier versions. Useful reference tools are pro-vided in the form of short critical bibliographies at the end of each chapter, aglossary, a chronological table of historical events and literary texts and lists ofthe principal authors and anonymous texts in French in the twelfth and thir-teenth centuries. This book offers undergraduates one way in to studying medi-eval French texts, but it simultaneously challenges them to become criticalreaders of literature in general. They are encouraged in the books conclusion toliberate themselves from restrictive notions of author and text, and to recognizethat the interpretative freedom appealed to in postmodern criticism was enjoyedby audiences and readers in the Middle Ages.

A WU W S

Tricksters and Pranksters: Roguery in French and German Literature of the Middle Agesand Renaissance. B y A W. (Internationale Forschungen zurAllgemeinen und Vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft). Amsterdam Atlanta, Rodopi,. viii + pp. Pb a.; $..

This study of the role played by the trickster (one who deceives for gain) and

Society for French Studies