Conjointure Arthurienne: actes de la 'Classe d'excellence' de la Chaire Francqui, 1998.(Book Review)

Conjointure Arthurienne: actes de la 'Classe d'excellence' de la Chaire Francqui, 1998. Ed. by JULIETTE DOR. Louvain-La-Neuve: Institut d'Etudes medievales de l'Universite Catholique de Louvain. 2000. vi + 125 pp. 22.31 [euro]; 900 BF.

This collection contains nine essays, the acts of a colloquium held in Liege in February 1998 and associated with a visiting professorship held by Derek Brewer at this time. Of the essays, five are by leading Belgian medievalists, the 'Classe d'excellence', and four by invited outside contributors. Brewer himself starts off the volume with a study of Lancelot in Malory's Le Morte Darthur, arguing that, notwithstanding the hero's late recognition of his own guilty action, he remains essentially the same throughout the work. The English note is continued by Elisabeth Brewer, who brings out well the important role played by women in Tennyson's Idylls of the King when compared with Le Morte, the poet's major source. Given the provenance of the volume, it is particularly pleasing to read the contribution by Geert Claassens on a short Middle Dutch Arthurian romance, Lanceloet en het hert met de witte voet. Concerned as it is with the significance of narratorial interventions in the text, Claassens's study has much wider implications than his subject matter might at first suggest. The remaining articles focus on French material, of which two relate to Chretien de Troyes. Catherine Deschepper reviews the critical literature on Kay, a figure she rightly terms ambiguous, before examining in helpful detail the role played by the seneschal in the Conte du Graal. Delphine Piraprez revisits an old topic, the question of allegory in the Chevalier de la Charrette and ...