Review

Reviewed Work(s): Glamorous Sorcery: Magic and Literacy in the High Middle Ages.
Medieval Cultures, Vol. 25 by DAVID ROLLO; Magic in Medieval Romance from Chrétien de
Troyes to Geoffrey Chaucer by MICHELLE SWEENEY
Review by: SIÂN ECHARD
Source: Arthuriana, Vol. 11, No. 3 (FALL 2001), pp. 138-140
Published by: Scriptorium Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27869667
Accessed: 18-09-2018 03:55 UTC

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 138 ARTH U RI ANA

close reading' of the text, McLelland tries to do justice to Lanzelet m his own right.
Liberating the romance from its structural straightjacket, however, requires a quest
for whatever alternative ways of mapping out the narrative the author might have
drawn on. Secondly, the question arises what the romance's ultimate purpose is meant
to be, if not to educate or edify like its canonical counterparts. Answering these two
questions is the project of McLelland's study.
In consequence, McLelland has divided her book into three parts. After a thorough
introduction to the context and the problem' (3-79), she discusses the 'narrative
style in Lanzelei (80-170) and 'the essence of a hero: a thematic analysis of Lanzelei
(181-233). Within the symmetrical, bipartite structure of the romance (cf. 77),
McLelland identifies striking stylistic variation, comprising a sequence of episodes in
different generic registers: 'M?rchenAikc [...], humorous [...], SchwankAike [...], heroic
epic [...], courtly [...], humorous [...], high-courtly [...], and?-for want of a better
term-?"post-classical"' (165-66). This cornucopia of possibilities cries out for a
Bakhtinian reading; one wishes that McLelland had dedicated more than one
paragraph (cf. 166-67) to a brief reference to polyphony.
The variability within genre discourse is paralleled by a constancy of theme. The
defining constant is Lanzelet himself, who is born with a saelde (here: 'the assurance
of success in whatever is undertaken'; 228) for which other romance protagonists
have to strive for most of their careers. His main characteristic is his masculinity,
which is tested in adventure and challenged by a multitude of foes, but which remains
unquestioned in its fully developed potential from the outset.
So why does Ulrich bothet to present us with a hero who does not fail, learn, and
improve? McLelland's answer: Entertainment. Reading Lanzelet is fun, and
McLelland's groundbreaking study will prove to be a reliable reference as well as a
teaching tool for years to come.
SUSANNE HAFNER

The University of Texas, Austin

david ROLLO, Glamorous Sorcery: Magic and Literacy in the High Middle Ages. Medieval
Cultures, Vol. 25. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000. Pp. xxv, 231.
isbn: 0-8166-3546-3. $32.95.

Michelle sweeney, Magic in Medieval Romance from Chr?tien de Troyes to Geoffrey

Chaucer. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2000. Pp. 199. isbn: 1-85182-536-3. $45.

Each of these studies of medieval magic concerns itself explicitly with the literary
world, rather than with what David Rollo calls the perceived reality' (xiii) of magic
in the Middle Ages, and at times their authors use the same texts for similar purposes.
In most ways, however, the two studies are very different. Michelle Sweeney's work is
both wide-ranging yet oddly barren of specific examples; Rollos is a dense and subtle
reading of a few carefully-chosen twelfth-century texts. Sweeney makes only the most
general arguments about the function of magic in medieval romance, concluding

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 REVIEWS 139

that magic encourages broader discussion of social issues than would normally have
been possible, while Rollo generates from his closely-argued analysis of Verbal magic'
a persuasive examination of the links between literacy, power, textual production and
authorial self-fashioning in the twelfth century.
Magic in Medieval Romance begins with an introduction that outlines the function
of magic in the medieval world and the place of magic in romance. The book's
problems really begin here: magic is not actually defined until halfway through the
introduction, and then it is by means of numerous citations of the Second Oxford
English Dictionary and the Middle English Dictionary. It is fair to rehearse the range of
significance the word 'magic' could have, and it is fair to point to the overlap between
magic and the marvelous. But the ultimate list of what can be called magical?from
talismanic objects to the manipulation of the natural world by learned clerks, from
supernatural magic to the complex relation between fate, fortune, and medieval
Christianity?is a catch-all which thus loses any teal interpretive force. Chapters
titled 'The Origins of Romance,' 'Breaking the Celtic Spell,' 'Revising Romance,'
and 'Magical Adaptations' follow, and like the introduction, these paint in broad
strokes, never moving much beyond the opening assertion that 'romances, through
the use of magic, explore issues of interest and concern to their audiences' (11). Sweeney
is particularly concerned to dispute Loomis's contention that the marvelous in French
romance was simply an accident of transmission, arguing that in the works of Chretien
de Troyes and Marie de France, magic serves 'to reflect a character's greatest
achievements and in turn symbolize his or her weakest moments' (114). She then
moves on to English adaptations; her examples are Sir Tristem, Syr Launfal, and Ywain
and Gawain. Her concluding romance is Chaucer's Franklins Tale in which, she argues,
Aurelius's use of magic enables him to gain control over his social superiors, and in
which the clerk, the lowest-ranking person in the tale, uses his control of illusioun to
gain power. Thus Chaucer uses magic to introduce 'a potentially explosive debate
concerning social status' (168).
One of the concerns I have about Sweeney's study is that her citations of medieval
Latin texts are frequently in the form of translations as provided in other studies. I
also found myself wanting many more illustrations from the literary texts. Glamorous
Sorcery, on the other hand, is made up of a series of bravura close readings of the
original texts, with extensive quotation and Rollos own translations throughout.
After an Introduction which distinguishes between various kinds of literacy (vernacular
and Latin) chapters follow on: William of Malmesbury; Geoffrey of Monmouth and
John of Salisbury; Beno?t de Sainte-Maure, William FitzStephen, Richard FitzNigel,
and Beno?t again; and Gerald of Wales. Rollo shows how magic is used as a trope, a
metaphor for the power over language controlled by the highly literate. The conflation
of literacy with magic is manifested in various ways. William of Malmesbury s anecdote
concerning Gerbert of Aurillac's discovery of buried treasure under the Campus
Martius is revealed, through comparison with the works of Augustine, to be both 'a
parable of scholarly inquiry' (9) and a warning to the literate elite against the misuse

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140 ARTHURIANA

of their talents. William's anecdote of the young man who believes himself an ass is
read as a warning to the listener who might 'fall victim to a figurative sorcery' (28) in
the work of a highly literate writer, and in the next chapters, Rollo considers to what
extent the audience for 'historical' writers like Geoffrey of Monmouth and Beno?t de
Sainte-Maure proved themselves to be either discerning listeners or asses. Beno?ts
story of Jason and the Golden Fleece is read as 'a dramatization of literate performance
and remuneration' (76), as Jason must display an appropriate token and read a magical
text aloud three times. The description in the Roman de Troie of Hector's tomb becomes
a dramatization of the dependence of the past on writing. Beno?t is shown to be
attempting to make 'the disclosure of fiction itself an obtrusive textual concern' (74)
through his accounts of his own 'translation' of the Troy story.
In Rollos reading, Benoit's invitation to his audiences to engage critically with his
text suggests a sense of the responsibility inherent in erudition, but that sense by no
means cuts against an equally powerful belief that weavers of verbal magic deserve
tangible rewards. Thus the chapter whose center is Richard FitzNigel's Dialogus de
Scaccario concentrates on the connections between literacy, financial reward, and
power: these are linked to a growing authorial self-consciousness which is most fully
revealed in the work of Gerald of Wales, the 'belligerent litteratus (123) on whom the
final chapter focuses. The motif of the ass returns once more, this time in Gerald's
covert attack on both fatuous readers and on Henry II, the crowned ass. Gerald's
Topographia Hiberniae turns out to be an audaciously constructed fiction which serves
as a salvo in the political strife between Cambro-Normans and Anglo-Normans. A
concluding look at Chretien shows how this 'sorcerer of words' (170) attempts to
initiate his audience into the secrets of his verbal magic.
It is not possible in a short review to convey adequately the intricacies of the
readings which make up Glamorous Sorcery. There are a few places where I found
myself in specific disagreement. For all his conservatism, I think that John of Salisbury
makes space, in the Prologue to the Policraticus, for a kind fictive manipulation of
narrative, and in a formulation very similar to Wace's famous reference (cited by
Rollo in his conclusion) to the veracity of the stories about Arthur. And at times I
wanted to add other possible texts: Walter Map, for example, could easily occupy a
chapter of Rollos book. These quibbles by no means undermine my admiration for
this important study. Precisely because it makes one want to rethink, reread, and
react, Glamorous Sorcery is itself an example of the literate sorcery Rollo so convincin
examines.

SI?N ECHARD
University of British Columbia

jonathan smalley, From Ancient Celts to Camelot. 3 vols. Bath: Quasar. 77?^ Early
Celts and Legends which Preceded Thomas Malory. 1999. Pp. vi, 245. isbn: 0-9533236
3-3. ?8.99. Sir Thomas Malorys Great Work. 1999. Pp. vi, 184. isbn: 0-9533236-4-1.
?7.99. Moving on From Malory. 2000. Pp. vi, 153. isbn: 0-9533236-5-x. ?7.99.

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