Patricia Clare Ingham, Sovereign Fantasies: Arthurian Romance and the Making of Britain.(Book Review)

Publication: Medium Aevum

Publication Date: 22-SEP-02

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COPYRIGHT 2002 Society for the Study of Mediaeval Languages and Literature

(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001), 288 pp. ISBN 0-8122-3600-9. 35.00 [pounds sterling].

The standard view of the medieval Welsh Arthurian tradition is that from Geoffrey of Monmouth on it is appropriated to bolster the dubious claims to power of English kings. Patricia Clare Ingham inverts this story by arguing that the appropriation includes its opposite: that features like Geoffrey's `Prophecies of Merlin', the recurrent representations of Gawain, and the end of Arthur carry with them a memory of Celtic insular power and a sense of mourning for its passing.

Much as we in Wales like the idea of subtle Cymric moles...

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