Douglas
Gray, Simple Forms: Essays on Medieval
English Popular Literature. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2015. ISBN
978-0-19-870609-0. Hbk, $95.00. 300 pp.
Reviewed by Melissa Ridley Elmes
Lindenwood University
As the title suggests, Douglas Gray’s Simple Forms is modeled on and expands the work of the
mid-twentieth century German literary theorist Andre Jolles in Einfache Forem (1930). Gray’s book takes
as its point of departure the argument that contemporary English literary
studies often overlook or, at best, marginalize the “vast substratum of oral
literature” lurking beneath the surface of extant literary forms (2). First
reminding the reader that “popular beliefs and oral literature are alluded to
or mediated through the learned or the relatively learned” (4) Gray points out
that “it is misleading to suppose that medieval popular culture is totally
opposed to or separate from the culture of the learned” (4) – an argument that
has gained critical support recently in scholarly works such as Richard Firth
Green’s Elf Queens and Holy Friars. [1]
After an Introduction in which he describes the decline
since the mid-twentieth century in scholars’ attention to folk and oral culture
studies, Gray makes a case for a definition of “folk literacy” that bridges the
written and oral traditions, and considers what to call texts that derive from
such a tradition (fairy tale, tale of wonder, international popular tale, or
folk tale, the term he ultimately settles on). Gray turns in Chapter Two to a
description of folk culture, which he charmingly deems “a loosely organized
ramble with many pauses and some digressions” (19). From there, the chapters
that follow focus on a specific genre or set of genres, taking as a starting
point an English title or set of titles, and then showing how the English work
demonstrates affinity with other similar works from the Continental folk
tradition. Ultimately, Gray’s sophisticated approach highlights ways that these
folk and oral traditions might be viewed as “the building blocks of learned and
sophisticated literature” (2) — that is, how writers transformed the simpler
folk tales of the oral tradition into sophisticated literary texts. The genres
examined are Myth, Epic, and Heroic Lay (chapter 3); Ballads (chapter 4);
Popular Romances (chapter 5); Folk Tale (chapter 6); Sage, Tale, and Legend
(chapter 7); “Merry Tale” (a broad category including all forms of medieval
comic literature including burlesque, parody, and the fabliau); Animal tale, and Fable (chapter 8); Proverb (chapter 9);
Riddle (chapter 10); Satire (chapter 11); and Songs and Drama (chapter 12).
Although this book’s subject is folk literature, it ventures
far beyond the most common literary genres, motifs, and subjects in such
studies; therefore, the outlaw tales that typically take center stage in the
study of popular folk literature in the medieval period are among the many,
rather than the featured, works examined. Scholars interested in the outlaw
tradition will find chapter 4 (“Ballad”) of particular interest. Pages 78-87 comprise
discussion of the outlaw ballad tradition, including shorter consideration of Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne, Robyn and Gandeleyn, and an extended
study each of Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough, and William of
Cloudesley and the Gest of Robyn Hode.
There is a brief discussion of a Robin Hood proverb in chapter 9, and of the
Robin Hood plays in chapter 12. Beyond this, outlaw tales are mentioned in passim, but not emphasized. From a
comparative standpoint, on the other hand, scholars interested in considering
the relationship between outlaw tales and other forms of popular literature
will find this book to be a treasure-trove of possible avenues for further
research.
Simple Forms is a highly ambitious undertaking
that could have turned out disastrously in the hands of a scholar less
well-versed in its various components; fortunately, with Douglas Gray at the
helm wielding his exceptional learning lightly, earnestly, and with
characteristic humor, the product is a study that should produce important new
lines of inquiry and reinvigorate folk studies in a literary context. This book
will be of great use to students of medieval literature at both the
undergraduate and graduate levels, early-stage scholars thinking through the
development of courses emphasizing genre and literary and cultural
transmission, and anyone interested in how the literature that we have
inherited can show us glimpses of the many acculturations that have gone into
its development.
Notes
[1] Richard Firth Green, Elf
Queens and Holy Friars: Fairy Beliefs and the Medieval Church
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvanis Press, 2016).
