Reviews from the Greenwood: Amy Brown on Jonathan Fruoco's Les Faits et Gestes de Robin des Bois (2017)

Jonathan Fruoco, ed. and trans., Les Faits et Gestes de Robin des Bois: Poèmes, Ballades et Saynètes. Collection Moyen Âge européen. Grenoble: UGA éditions, 2017. ISBN: 9782377470136. Paperback, €24.90. 374 pp.

   Reviewed by Amy Brown

University of Geneva

This collection is an unusual phenomenon: an edition of Middle English texts, presented in parrallel with a modern French translation, along with an introduction and editorial apparatus in French. Those of us who work with medieval French will know that the reverse (Old or Middle French text with modern English translation) is relatively common. Medieval English texts, however, are rarely edited or translated with francophone readers in mind. Fruoco’s Faites et Gestes de Robin des Bois will find as its widest audience those who will use it as a teaching text, and one of particular interest to those who, like myself, teach pre-modern English texts to Francophone students. The selection of early Robin Hood texts is similar to that of the TEAMS Middle English Texts Series edition Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales (Knight & Ohlgren, 1997; rev. 2001), which I have been using as my class textbook this semester. Fruoco’s edition is divided into three sections: the late medieval balads, beginning with the Geste of Robin Hood; a selection of play texts, beginning with a reconstruction of Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham based on that of Manly (1887) and Greg (1908); and finally selected later ballads, beginning with Robin Hood and Little John.

Fruoco’s edition does provide fewer texts than the TEAMS edition, devoting its space instead to the parrallel modern French translation. This has some disadvantages, and in my classes in particular I would supplement with the chronicle texts from the TEAMS edition, but the Fruoco edition has other advantages. The introduction provides an excellent, thorough but not over-burdened overview of the texts, the history of the Robin Hood tradition, and some of the key critical concepts (one section asks whether to consider the early texts to be poems or ballads, and why that matters). The individual textual introductions provide crucial editorial history and justifications for the inclusion of each text in the volume, and the bibliography is both extensive and up-to-date. All of these features in themselves make the book an attractive prospect as a teaching tool, particularly if―as was my case semester―you begin a seminar using Robin Hood texts as a first introduction to Middle English language and literature. Francophone students who are able to access the editiorial apparatus in their native language may find the encounter with Middle English less intimidating, and have more time and energy to spend on engaging with the texts themselves.

For the most part, the editorial choices Fruoco makes follow those of Dobson and Taylor (1976), including what is to my mind a somewhat erratic approach to editorial emendations. In Robin Hood and the Monk, for instance, corruption in the manuscript is presented with minimal editorial intervention, but elsewhere, speculated absent lines from stanzas which have not been damaged are added. In Fruoco’s edition, which is numbered by stanza rather than line, the lacuna in the manuscript occurs at stanza thirty, which consists of two corrupt lines. Following Dobson and Taylor, Fruoco gives a minimally reconstructed reading, “Robyn […] church […] ran, / tro out hem everilkon”, and a brief footnote explaining that the lines are nearly illegible and the following stanzas lost. In comparison, Knight and Olhgren’s edition of the same text has the advantage of providing details of other editor’s reconstructions, and evidence from examination of the manuscript under ultraviolent light. 

In contrast to the minimal intervention approach to the lacuna, a rather more speculative intervention has been retained at stanza thirty-six, where the manuscript reading is only two lines, ‘“And I mete hym,’ seid Lutil John / We will go, but we too.’” Fruoco presents Dobson and Taylor’s reconstruction, which inverts the lines and adds two more, one before and one after, so that the stanza becomes a discussion between Little John and Much the Miller’s son (who otherwise appears without introduction at stanza thirty-eight). Fruoco’s explanatory footnote here notes that Knight and Ohlgren integrate the two lines in question into the preceding stanza, and indicates a preference for Dobson and Taylor’s reconstruction on the grounds that it introduces Much into the narrative. This is certainly a choice which produces a more straightforward translation: the necessary explanation which would have to be footnoted to stanza thirty-eight to explain Much’s involvement would be more off-putting to the non-specialist reader. However, I find the reconstruction unconvincing as an editorial intervention in itself. As a consequence of the choice to so closely follow Dobson and Taylor, the strength of this edition lies very much in the resource of its translation and apparatus for Francophone readers, rather than as an original addition to the editorial history of these texts.

I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to introduce medieval English literature to high school Francophone classes, or to university students who are not expected to develop reading facility in Middle English. The French translation makes the text accessible to students who are not English literature majors―I can see this text being useful in literatture comparée classes. For classes where close analytical engagement with the original is expected, the fact that Fruoco’s translation is in prose means it is clear and direct, and thus a useful guide where the original language is complex or abstruse. Working through the passages that my students found most difficult in the early ballads, I found Fruoco’s translation to be sufficiently close to the original as to provide help with understanding the structure as well as the content. 

Finally, UGA Editions indicate an intended popular as well as academic audience. Although, as I noted above, facing-text editions of medieval English works with modern French translations are more scarce than the reverse, Les Faits et Gestes joins the company of Émile Pons (1946) Sire Gauvain et le Chevalier Verte, and the more recently published André Crépin, Beowulf (2007). The Lettres Gothiques series, a subset of Hachette’s Livre de Poche line, presents facing-page translations of medieval texts from many languages (including Crépin’s Beowulf): Fruoco’s Les Faits et Gestes is a little more expensive, but would appeal to a similiar reading public. The inclusion of the early modern dramatic texts may be of particular interest to anyone wishing to bring English medieval and early modern literature alive in performance for Francophone audiences.

Bibliography

Crépin, André, ed. and trans. Beowulf. Paris: Librarie Générale Française, 2007.

Dobson, R. B., and J. Taylor, eds.: Rymes of Robin Hood: An Introduction to the English Outlaw (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press, 1976)

Greg, W. W., ed. “Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham, A Dramatic Fragment.” In Collections Part II. The Malone Society. Vol. 1., 120-24.  Oxford, 1908.

Knight, Stephen, and Thomas H. Ohlgren, ed.: Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales. 2nd ed. TEAMS Middle English Texts Series. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2000.

Manly, J. M., ed. Specimens of the Pre-Shakespearean Drama. Vol. 1. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1897.

Pons, Émile, ed. and trans. Sire Gauvain et le Chevalier Verte. Paris: Éditions Montaigne, 1946.

IARHS at the 53rd ICMS, Kalamazoo, Western Michigan University, May 10-13, 2018

The International Association for Robin Hood Studies sponsored two sessions at the Fifty-Third International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University on May 10-13, 2018.

Session 68: “Multicultural, Multimedia Outlaws,” Sponsored by the International Association for Robin Hood Studies. Organizer: Lorraine Kochanske Stock (University of Houston). Presider: Alexander L. Kaufman (Ball State University)

1. Leigh Smith (East Stroudsburg University), "The Merry Men of Merry Mount: Robin Hood as Anti-Puritain in the New World"
2. Lorraine Kochanske Stock, "The Medieval Icelandic Saga Outlaw in Film: Útlaginn"
3. Anna Czarnowus (University of Silesia), "Landscape and Ideology in the Robin of Sherwood TV Series and Agnieszka Holland’s Film Janosik: A True Story"
4. Michael Evans (Delta College), "From Hong Gildong to Gaksital: Korean Robin Hoods?"

Session 115: “Oral Tactics of Medieval Outlaw Literature,” Sponsored by the International Association for Robin Hood Studies. Organized: Lesley Coote (University of Hull) and Alexander L. Kaufman (Ball State University). Presider: Alexander L. Kaufman

1. Lesley Coote, "Mobile Cultures, Mobile Texts"
2. Dean A. Hoffman (Deep Education Institute), "'Rash Speech and Hote Contention': Enditement in the Sloan Life of Robin Hood"
3. Valerie B. Johnson (University of Montevallo), "Sounding the Horn: Outlaw Tales in a Digital Soundscape and English Classroom"

Members and friends of the IARHS had a festive feast at Hunan Gardens on Saturday. As always, it was wonderful to catch up with old friends and to meet new hoodies.

Clockwise, from the foreground: Lorraine Kochanske Stock, Michael Evans, Kristin Bovaird-Abbo, Valerie B. Johnson, Leigh Smith, Louise Daileigh, Thomas Hahn, Travis Kane, Sadie Hash, Lesley Coote, Anna Czarnowus, Carrie Griffin, Alexander L. Kaufman, Lydia Kertz, Henry Greek, and Sherron Lux

The Bulletin of the International Association for Robin Hood Studies

The IARHS is pleased to announce the launch of a journal dedicated to Robin Hood studies: The Bulletin of the International Association for Robin Hood Studies. The journal is fully digital, open access, and double-blind peer reviewed; in keeping with the Robin Hood tradition, authors retain their rights to their own materials.

The first issue of the Bulletin features three articles: "Robin Hood and the Forest Laws," by Stephen Knight (The University of Melbourne); "A Critical Edition of Little John's Answer to Robin Hood and the Duke of Lancaster (1727)," by Stephen Basdeo (Richmond University [Leeds RIASA]); and the 2015 "Review of the Year's Publications in Robin Hood Scholarship," by Mikee Delony (Abilene Christian University).

We invite scholars to submit articles or essays detailing original research on any aspect of the Robin Hood tradition. Submission is via the web, and preliminary inquiries or questions may be directed to Valerie Johnson (University of Montevallo) and Alexander Kaufman (Ball State University).

Medievalists Respond to Charlottesville

Friends and colleagues, the IARHS, an inclusive group, has added our name to the recent Medieval Academy of America's response to the events at Charlottesville, the text of which can be found here:

http://www.themedievalacademyblog.org/medievalists-respond-to-charlottesville/

Reviews from the Greenwood: Melissa Ridley Elmes on Douglas Gray's Simple Forms (2015)

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).