An Open Access Review Journal Encouraging Critical Engagement with the Continuing Process of Inventing the Middle Ages

February 18, 2016

Salda: Arthurian Animation



Michael N. Salda, Arthurian Animation: A Study of Cartoon Camelots on Film and Television. Jefferson, N.C. and London: McFarland & Company, 2013. 

Reviewed by Christopher Berard (christopher.berard@gmail.com)

Arthurian animation (“Arthurianimation”), as defined by Michael N. Salda, is not limited to animated productions that feature King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, but includes productions with Arthurian themes and motifs as well. According to this expansive definition, the earliest known example of Arthurianimation is Warner Brothers’ 1933 cartoon short Bosko’s Knight-Mare, but here King Arthur is, as it were, ‘Sir Not-appearing-in-this-film’. In fact, Arthur does not seem to have made his animated film debut until Knighty Knight Bugs, another Warner Bros. film, which premiered on 23 August 1958 and garnered that year’s Oscar for Best Animated Short. Salda’s Arthurian Animation: A Study of Cartoon Camelots on Film and Television, which takes Bosko’s Knight-Mare as a starting point, is thus far-reaching in scope. It spans seventy-five years of film history, and it contextualizes and describes more than one hundred seventy separate works. The monograph is largely diachronic in structure and can best be described as a comprehensive compendium of Arthurianimation. Each of the book’s ten chapters begins with an overview of the cultural and commercial climate behind the film(s) under consideration.

In the introduction, Salda makes three cogent statements about Arthurianimation that set the tone for the work as a whole. First, he observes that Arthurianimation is by-and-large a commercial cash-in phenomenon. Second, he comments that it typically draws its inspiration from recent, popular retellings and re-imaginings of Arthurian tales (rather than directly from medieval source material). Third, he notes that although the commercially driven and derivative characteristics of Arthurianimation are seldom a recipe for high art, they make Arthurianimation an ideal specimen for the study of the reception of Arthurian legend. Arthurian animated projects tend to be produced when animation studios believe that the Matter of Britain is a lucrative commodity. Arthurianimation thus serves as an indicator of the actual or perceived popularity of Arthuriana. The presentation of Arthurian content in Arthurianimation is shaped by a combination of the creative team’s own understanding of the material and their sense of their audience’s understanding of the material. Thus Arthurianimation tells us when Arthurian legend is “in the air” and furnishes us with a snapshot of contemporary perceptions of Arthuriana (3).

Salda’s claims about the derivative and commercial elements of Arthurianimation are amply corroborated by the great mass of films he examines. And the exceptions prove the rule. One such inspired exception is Jane Yolen’s Merlin and the Dragons (Shanghai Animation Film Studio/Lightyear Entertainment, 1990), a twenty-four minute entry in PBS’ acclaimed animated anthology series Long Ago and Far Away. In this episode, we are introduced to a King Arthur who has only just drawn the sword from the stone. His new kingly responsibilities weigh heavily upon him. In the middle of one sleepless night Arthur goes to consult Merlin, who is dwelling in the same castle. The seer-advisor tells the young king the story of a certain “Emerys”, who, like Arthur, did not know his father and faced tremendous adversity as a young man. The villainous King Vortigern was intent on killing Emerys unless this fatherless boy could explain to him why his new stronghold kept collapsing. Emerys survives the king’s machinations, and his example proves inspirational to Arthur, especially once Merlin reveals that he is none other than Emerys himself. As Salda notes, Yolen drew upon medieval source material for this embedded narrative (122). But I would add that Yolen’s choice of narrative frame, Arthur’s court shortly after the Sword-in-the-Stone episode, is an even more inspired choice. It is a fine interlacement, or in the words of Chrétien de Troyes, une molt bele conjointure, of parallel facets from the lives of Arthur and Merlin. Both characters experience uncertainty and anxiety about their respective identities and abilities as they transition from adolescence to adulthood. Yolen’s creative presentation of Arthur’s angst and Merlin’s avuncular quality make the characters appealing and relatable to a wide spectrum of audiences. Salda is right to recognize Merlin and the Dragons as a highpoint in the Arthurian animation tradition (122–4).

In the space that follows my aim is to bring Salda’s findings about the history of Arthurian animation into dialogue with the medieval and post-medieval Arthurian tradition more broadly speaking.  And I wish to begin by calling attention to how the Arthurian tradition, like the messianic figure of Arthur himself, has gone through periods both of intense activity and of hibernation, yet has escaped death. The longevity of the tradition and its cyclical pattern of hope and disappointment spring from the two-fold belief that once upon a time there lived a military leader named Arthur of superlative virtue and accomplishment, and that this Arthur is destined to return to bring succor to his people in their hour of need. Great expectations, equally great disappointments, and counterfactual speculation pervade the tradition.

In the world of politics, reigning monarchs and pretenders to the throne of England have attempted to co-opt the myth of Arthur’s return to their advantage by representing themselves as Arthur returned. These manipulations of the myth have given rise to further Arthurian hopes and disappointments. Disappointed Arthurian hopes and missed opportunities extend beyond the arena of politics and into the realm of literature. In this category we can place Edmund Spenser’s Fairie Queene (1590–6), John Milton’s proposed Arthurian epic (c. 1638–42), John Dryden’s original dramatick opera King Arthur (1684), J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Fall of Arthur (developed 1934–7), and John Steinbeck’s The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights (developed 1956–9). In each of these cases, the original intention was not achieved and this in turn has led to speculation regarding what might have been.

These examples set the stage for the first great, unfulfilled hope of Arthurian animation: Hugh Harman’s King Arthur’s Knights. Salda devotes the second chapter of his monograph to this, dubbing it (in the chapter heading)  “The Best Arthurian Cartoon Never Made” (16–35). King Arthur’s Knights was under development in 1941 with a proposed budget of $530,000, but the United States’ entrance into the Second World War resulted in the project’s postponement, and financial backing proved to be lacking in the later 1940s and 1950s (31, 35). The architect of this project, Hugh Harman (1903–82), although not a household name, was one of the great animators of the twentieth century: he had, in fact, been one of the original co-producers of Merri Melodies (1931–3). Harman began his career working with Walt Disney and then took on assignments for a variety of other studios. In 1928, Harman, together with his frequent collaborator Rudolf Carl Isling (1903–92), created Bosko. The pair went on to animate the aforementioned “Bosko’s Knight-Mare”. In 1941, Harman, joined by fellow former Disney animator Mel Shaw, established “Hugh Harman Productions”, and Harman was intent on making a feature-length Arthurian film that would rival the success of Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and Fantasia (1940).

This Arthurian film project first came to scholarly attention in Charles Solomon’s Enchanted Drawings: The History of Animation (1994), but Salda has broken new ground. He obtained from Mark Kausler (animator, animation historian, and custodian of Harman’s papers) two story treatments for the proposed film, and he has traced the evolving plans for the film. King Arthur’s Knights was to cover the rise and fall of Arthur, but to center on the exploits of Sir Gareth and Lynette (that is to offer a loose retelling of Malory’s “Tale of Sir Gareth”). Salda’s reconstruction is captivating, and his inclusion of original character sketches is helpful for visualizing what might have been.

This second chapter of Salda’s book calls to mind Christopher Tolkien’s editorial work on the Fall of Arthur (2013) and Chase Horton’s on Steinbeck’s The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights (1976). The idea of reconstructing, editing and/or discovering a lost Arthurian text has, it should be noted, been a central plot element in at least two contemporary novels, Robertson Davies’ The Lyre of Orpheus (1989) and Arthur Philips’ The Tragedy of Arthur (2011).  And one might also note that since the beginning the thirteenth century writers have been trying to resolve the ending of Chrétien de Troyes’ unfinished masterpiece, Perceval ou le conte du Graal (c. 1190).

Disappointment results not only from Arthurian projects that fail to materialize, but also from those that prove to be dead on arrival and fail to deliver. The grandeur and magic of the Arthurian tradition moves the casual audience member, not to mention the consummate Arthurian, to expect marvels, and sadly Arthurian cinema often leaves its audience, like the Arthur of romance, hungry and dissatisfied. Many would agree that there has not been a “definitive” cinematic adaptation of the Matter of Britain. The same holds true for Arthurianimation, particularly Disney’s The Sword in the Stone (1963) and Warner Bros.’ lesser known, but much more recent, Quest for Camelot (1998).

Salda critiques the Disney film for having a  “monotonous storyline”, “forgettable tunes”, and for lacking a uniform message (60–62). The Sword in the Stone is, as it were, the modern equivalent of a mirror for princes, but one that cannot make up its mind as to what wisdom to impart. According to Salda, the reception of the film has consistently “lukewarm” (60), but following its Christmas 1963 release, the film was rereleased on 22 December 1972 and 25 March 1983 (64). Salda treats this as evidence of a lack of popular demand for the film, but he offers no basis of comparison with other Disney classics.  Salda traces the limited success of The Sword in the Stone directly back to Walt Disney, who reportedly did not take much interest in the project and assigned the directorship to a competent and dependable, but uninspired, company man (64).

If The Sword in the Stone was a moderate success, Quest for Camelot was an unmitigated disaster. The film cost an estimated $120 million to produce, but in ticket sales it brought back only $23 million domestically and a further $15 million abroad (148). The narrative of Quest for Camelot had great potential. In typical romance fashion it tells of a youth’s quest to become a knight, except this time the fair unknown is female.  The protagonist is Kayley, the ten-year-old daughter of one of Arthur’s knights. Kayley, as the story goes, was born on the very day that Arthur drew the sword from the stone; her mission is to return the now stolen sword (Excalibur) to Arthur. This is an excellent and fitting concept for contemporary Arthuriana: whereas Chrétien de Troyes’ Erec et Enide (c. 1170) and Yvain (c. 1176) have the knightly protagonist confront the competing demands of marital life versus a life of knightly service; Quest for Camelot has its young heroine confront the competing dictates of personal vocation (to the knighthood) and society’s oppressive gender roles. Unfortunately, the filmmakers flinched for fear of being controversial. Over the course of the film, Kayley falls in love with a blind woodsman named Garrett. Together they save Arthur from certain destruction. Arthur shows his gratitude by making Garrett and Kayley, “knight” and “lady” and by giving them seats at the Round Table. As newlyweds, Kayley (in the lead) and Garrett (sitting behind her) ride off into the sunset with a “Just Knighted” sign affixed to their horse (148).  Simply put, the filmmakers do not allow Kayley to succeed in her own right (without the assistance of a man) and the equality of Kayley and Garrett is predicated on the latter’s blindness. Much like The Sword in the Stone, Quest for Camelot is unwilling to commit itself to a progressive stance.

As can be seen from the foregoing discussion, Salda’s Arthurian Animation provides readers with ample food for thought and this volume is very much a detailed introduction to the field and a conversation-starter. Salda impressively covers obscure films from across the globe. One truly esoteric example is “Merlin and the Toothless Knights”, a public service film (co-produced in 1970 by the British General Dental Council and I.D. Television) in which Merlin instructs the Knights of the Round Table in oral hygiene (72–3).  Yet the strengths of scope and variety are something of a liability on two counts. First, extended animated series, such as the thirty-six-episode “Arthur! and the Square Knights of the Round Table” (Air Programs International (Australia), 1966) and the thirty-episode “King Arthur & the Knights of the Round Table” (Toei Animation (Japan), 1979–80) receive only slightly more attention from Salda than one-off film shorts. Consequently, the coverage seems somewhat uneven. Second, portions of the book read as a series of reference-like entries of discrete subjects. This tendency perhaps should have been more openly acknowledged and embraced through the inclusion of subheadings naming the examples of Arthurianimation under consideration. Another desideratum is an appendix listing all known examples of Arthurianimation in chronological order. This omission is particularly curious given that Salda has, in fact, compiled such a catalogue, and it appears as part of the Camelot ProjectAdditionally, as noted by Roger Simpson in his review for Arthuriana 23.4 (2013), Salda does not provide a fully developed conclusion that crystallizes his discoveries and suggests areas for further research.  Nevertheless, the strengths of the monograph are many and easily outweigh the few weaknesses.

Salda’s Arthurian Animation is a pioneering work that explores the intersection of the history of animation and Arthurian Studies.  It is clearly written and accessible to a general audience, but the work is geared primarily toward readers conversant with Arthurian literature from the middle ages and from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Salda provides far more background information about animation history than he does about the Arthurian tradition. This is understandable given that Arthurianimation’s roots in the legend are fairly shallow. Arthurian Animation is recommended reading for scholars interested in the contemporary reception of the Arthurian tradition and/or the place of Arthuriana in popular culture. It is a worthy accompaniment to any bookshelf that contains such McFarland publications as King Arthur in Popular Culture, ed. Elizabeth S. Sklar and Donald L. Hoffman (2002), Cinema Arthuriana: Twenty Essays, ed. Kevin J. Harty, (2002), and Jason Tondro’s Superheroes of the Round Table: Comic Connections to Medieval and Renaissance Literature (2011).

Christopher Berard
Toronto

February 17, 2016

Larrington: Winter is Coming


Carolyne Larrington, Winter is Coming: The Medieval World of Game of Thrones. London: I. B. Tauris, 2016.
Reviewed by Stephen Basdeo (1408016@leedstrinity.ac.uk)
The book and television series Game of Thrones will likely be familiar to medieval scholars. With another television series planned for this year, and at least two more books from Martin which are due to be published, the Game of Thrones mania is unlikely to fade soon. There have obviously been books published about the show before, but these have mostly been companion pieces to the television series, concerned chiefly with the production of the show. Carolyne Larrington’s Winter is Coming, however, is ‘what happens when a scholar of medieval literature and culture watches the HBO show Game of Thrones and reads George R. R. Martin’s series, A Song of Ice and Fire’ (p. xiii). The aim of the books is not, however, to ‘chase up Martin’s sources or to spot direct influences on […] the show’ (Ibid). Rather, Larrington uses Game of Thrones as a window through which she teaches the reader about the medieval period, and she does it effectively. As there is currently no work of a similar kind on Martin’s books or the show, Winter is Coming therefore breaks new ground for medievalists.
Larrington bases her work upon both Martin’s books and the television show which, she says, in the terms that medieval scholars use, might now be spoken of as ‘two different recensions’ (Ibid). When Larrington refers to the ‘series’, she is referring to the narrative as manifested across television and print (p. xiv). Following the introduction there are five chapters; chapter one discusses the social customs, manners, and ideology of the people across the ‘known world’. After the introductory chapter Larrington adopts the persona of a travel writer: chapter two discusses the North of Westeros, from Winterfell to the Wall; the third chapter examines King’s Landing and the southern parts of Westeros; in the last two chapters Larrington takes the reader beyond the narrow sea, travelling to places such as the Free City of Braavos and the Dothraki homelands.
The first chapter is an engaging and lively discussion of the social codes which exist in the known world of Game of Thrones, and sets the scene for the discussions of the regions of the known world that follow. Almost beguilingly Larrington moves from discussing the world of Game of Thrones to teaching the reader about actual medieval manners and customs. There is the example in the first chapter of the use of patronymics in the series:
When a man identifies himself as his father’s son he makes clear his lineage and offers one good reason why he should be respected: Shagga of the Stone Crows feels that it’s imperative to make clear on every possible occasion that he is the son of Dolf […] Before the emergence of surnames, and indeed still in modern Iceland, a patronymic was the only way to distinguish someone from others bearing the same given name (pp.14-15).
Larrington then proceeds to discuss examples of patronymics being used in tales such as Beowulf (Ibid). It is brief discussions such as these that the non-specialist reader will find most useful. Usually in academic monographs, it is assumed that the reader has prior knowledge in regard to small details such as these, and it is therefore nice to have these types of things explained.
After discussing the social codes of medieval Europe through the lens of Westeros and Essos, Larrington takes the reader first to the north, beginning at Winterfell, the home of House Stark. Ned Stark’s dominion over Winterfell, she argues, is much more like the dominion that an Anglo-Saxon Earl had over his people, rather than the later medieval models of kingship which prevail in King’s Landing (p.57). Indeed, the cold North is a place for warriors, not knights. It is an austere place, and its inhabitants, such as Ned Stark, disapprove of the pageantry and decadence of those in the southern capital of King’s Landing (Ibid). The contrasts between the ruling powers of the North and South of Westeros thus provide Larrington with an effective entry point for a discussion of the differences in Anglo-Saxon and Norman power structures.
Larrington does not confine herself to simply discussing the various historical sources which undoubtedly gave Martin, and the show’s creators, inspiration in creating their medieval world. She also points out various aspects of the series which have relevance to today, particularly in her discussion of the phrase ‘Winter is Coming’. In Westeros, winters last for years, evoking memories of the Norse fimbulvetr, the mighty winter which is the precursor to ragnarok (p.96). But as Larrington points out, the population shifts which ensue as a result of a coming winter in Game of Thrones – where the wildlings seek refuge behind the wall – are a timely reminder for our own day of the humanitarian crises that will inevitably occur as a result of climate change (p.96). Furthermore, Larrington also points out where the medieval world conjured by Martin and the show’s creators diverges from its source material. This is particularly highlighted by her discussion of the role of religion in the books and the television show. For example, while the Faith of the Seven, with its priests and ceremonies, does bear some relation to medieval Catholicism, the class system of Westeros does not appear to have any theological underpinning (p.18).
While both the books and the television series of Game of Thrones are thought to be ‘medieval’ stories, one of the surprising facts that Larrington brings to light is just how many non-medieval sources the series takes inspiration from. As she points out, Martin bases some characters and some events upon early modern sources. The character of Brienne of Tarth, for instance, is perhaps founded upon two tales of female knights from the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: Bradamante in the two Italian romances Innamorato (1495) and Orlando Furioso (1516), and Britomart from Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene (1590s) (p.32). In addition, Margery Tyrell’s plight – a queen having been accused of adultery and imprisoned – is reminiscent of that faced by Anne Boleyn (p.111). The King’s Court at King’s Landing is also more reminiscent of a Tudor Court, with its knights, ladies, king’s guards, and jesters rather than the itinerant court of an earlier medieval monarch (p.103-104). Some events in the series are a fusion of medieval and modern sources. The infamous ‘Red Wedding’, for instance, in which the remaining members of House Stark are massacred by Walder Frey, is based upon both Geoffrey Chaucer’s Man of Law’s Tale and the Glencoe Massacre of 1692 (pp.36-37). Thus although Larrington does not say, Martin in some instances is following in the footsteps of Georgian and Victorian medievalists in utilising a combination of both medieval and early modern sources.
Indeed, one thing which would have added to Larrington’s discussion would have been a brief discussion of Martin’s works in context with past medievalist writers. Martin is heir to a long and prestigious line of popular authors from Sir Walter Scott who, in the words of John Henry Newman, ‘first turned men’s minds in the direction of the Middle Ages’ with his novel Ivanhoe (1819).[1] Scott’s novel indeed has also been cited by Martin himself as a major inspiration to him.[2] Similarly there is J. R. R. Tolkien who, with his Lord of the Rings (1954-55), has been designated as the ‘father’ of the modern fantasy epic.[3] It is important to note, however, that the absence of such a discussion in no way detracts from Larrington’s work.
Larrington is obviously a fan of the show, and this comes through in her work. It is in the epilogue where she really shows how much of a ‘fan girl’ she is by speculating as to where the series might go next, and how it might end. Will the Iron Throne be occupied by Bran or Rickon (their stories being perhaps reminiscent of Havelock the Dane)? Or will Daenerys Targaryen ‘break the wheel’ by regaining her birthright? Of course, Larrington is not Martin, but she prophesies that Game of Thrones will most likely end like a typical medieval romance. There will be a Targaryen restoration, a wedding to an heir who’s technically a Targaryen, a limited degree of social reform in Westeros, as well as the restitution of Stark lands. Only time will tell if Larrington is correct in this matter.
In conclusion, Larrington’s work takes us on a journey through the known world of Game of Thrones. It is a work which will be of most use to medievalists – those who study later representations of the medieval period. Larrington’s engaging and accessible style, however, means that this book will have a wide appeal, most obviously to members of the general public who are fans of the show. Finally, for those who do not wish to read the book in case they come across any ‘spoilers’, Larrington has marked where spoilers appear in the book by placing the image of a raven in the margin. As a companion to the show and an introduction to medieval history, therefore, Larrington’s work is thoroughly recommended. At a time when humanities scholars are increasingly being asked to further their engagement with the public, Larrington has hit upon a winning formula: she uses popular culture as a window through which she can educate and inform the public about medieval history.
Stephen Basdeo
Leeds Trinity University





[1] John Henry Newman cited in Alice Chandler, ‘Sir Walter Scott and the Medieval Revival’, Nineteenth-Century Fiction 19.4 (1965), 315-332 (315).


[2] Geoffrey McNab, ‘Song of Ice and Fire author George RR Martin on success, chess and the wrath of superfans’ The Independent, 8 August 2014.


[3] Margaret Drabble (ed.) The Oxford companion to English Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p.352.

February 4, 2016

Hardwick (ed.): New Crops from Old Fields



Oz Hardwick, ed. New Crops from Old Fields: Eight Medievalist Poets. York, UK: Stairwell Books, 2015.
Reviewed by Julie A. Chappell (chappell@tarleton.edu)
Through their introductions and poetic offerings, the eight medievalist poets gathered in this volume reflect upon the sacred and the profane in the physical and spiritual remnants of the medieval world so important to their lives and work, and, as Jane Chance notes about her own poetry, the poems they tender uncover “the Naked truth inside” each poet.
Jane Beal captures the essence of the simultaneous distinction between and union of being a medievalist and a poet: “As a medievalist, I must translate older forms of English, French, and Latin . . . into modern English. As a lyric poet, I must translate emotion and the memory of experience from my heart to my reader. In both cases, translation is a key that opens new doors” (5). As both medieval scholars and poets, we are compelled to ‘carry across’ past times, memory, place, emotion, and experience to others. Beal’s poetry crosses over from the medieval languages and literary allusions that propel each piece to the more tangible and familiar human emotions that permeate her poetry and her medieval sources. Beal’s travels in the holy land are encapsulated in a poem made up entirely of questions—“Where are you from?” “Are you married?” “Have you been to Bethlehem?” “When will you return to Israel?”—not only relating her memories of moments of experience but also the reality of the collision of the ancient, the medieval, and the modern worlds, of the ordinary and the extraordinary that we encounter as we search for our truths. In one poem, her Speaker encounters a “far-walking pilgrim” a “shadow-walker.” This elicits a reflection and a question: “What shape does the shadow of my life form / when I take my stand in the light of God?” A devout faith seems to resonate from and to guide her poetry as it did the poets of the medieval world whose work informs Beal’s own.
Jane Chance’s scholar’s eye not only provides the reader with the background of her sources of inspiration for each poem but her own interpretation of the inner workings of her poetry as well. In her poems, we encounter such medieval and human drama and emotion as the reluctant second son, newly knighted who must slay the dragon of paternal impatience and skepticism even as he prays his future hinges on luck in love rather than prowess in arms. In another piece, we hear voices—the stone of a castle and the woman “awaiting rescue” becoming one—reminding us of the voices of most, if not all, of the women of medieval romance (and life) which we have found sometimes nearly irretrievable from within the books that bind them for all time. One of the most moving of Chance’s poems juxtaposes a medieval abbey with the modern cafe that faces it, a posture most medievalists have found themselves in in one medieval city or another. In Chance’s poem, a woman sits “sipping coffee” but finds herself not just confronting the abbey but a riot of feelings. Abelard’s ‘calamities’ serve as fodder for the pathos she imagines in the life of the “laughing woman” she sees. Yet, as the woman in the cafe rushes away, as if chased by her own dark thoughts, the “she” of the final stanza embodies both women with their “joy” and “regrets.” Chance’s learned imagination fills every line of her poems where medieval knights and ladies, magic and marvelous beasts vie with modern lyric egos, all in the thrall of desire, dreams, regrets, and the weight of woven texts of symbolic stature.
Pam Clements entices all five of our senses as she entwines Nature and spirituality effortlessly in her poems. We walk into a forest to encounter the green man and to hear Hildegarde’s lyrical voice speaking to “the cosmos.” We discover St. Kevin’s Irish valley as worthy of the contemplation of God and of watching “a river of foxgloves . . . waking the ruins” of the monastic churches and tower. As she reflects on a modern painting that, itself, comingles medieval and modern images of knights and castles, “moat and portcullis,” a figure holds “a rounded object” / (palette, frisbee, paten, Grail?),” a postmodern pastiche of “damaged, things / unfinished.” A Norse and Celtic legend blends the natural world with the human in metamorphosis where humans transform into seals. The Speaker watches with envy as “one dolphin kick / slides past humanity,” and the transformed breaks the constrictions not only of human form but also of human society. Here, no bathing suits are needed and “fat becomes warmth,” and we hear a cacophony of “barking” from the lovely silkies lying “flank to flank ... in noisy caucus.” Clements returns us to the magical medieval world in “Vivien/Merlin,” eschewing the kind or cruel judgment of Vivien’s entrapment of Merlin. In this poem, the Speaker wakes in the roots and vines of an oak tree instead of a stone tower. Nature and spirit mingle in the consciousness of both medieval characters who seem to become one “I,” mourning the loss of time and magic in a world now filled with “bent metal citadels” instead of oak trees, nightjars, and owls. In another poem, the Old English alliterative line is suffused with white owls swooping like “virtual Vikings invading our shores” but, ultimately, here only to “bask in winter sun.” Longing infuses every line as we follow a wanderer out of place and time. Just at the right moment, a line from the Old English poem which inspired this modern one jars the ear in conflict with its modern descendant, leaving the “drifter” of this poem more forlorn and the reader in aching, yet reluctant empathy with the dissonance of displacement. A visit to a monastic choir stall explores the collision of the sacred and the profane in the medieval world as we recognize with the Speaker the physical and spiritual relief of the misericords, where the “pious perched / atop grotesques” and we, ‘hear’ a fart and “snicker,” enjoying the tension between the sacred and the profane relief.
Oz Hardwick [pictured] revisits the misericord juxtaposing the medieval grotesque carvings with another solemn ceremony, but modern this time. A funeral procession being watched by the Speaker imagines the “sadness” and “tears” alongside “goats and grimaces,” “naked women mounting naked men.” We cannot look away from either as, again, “someone farts” inside the sacred silence of the choir. Hardwick’s life in one of the most medieval of modern cities, York incites him to conjure up the green man, sensual and seductive as he “kisses spring / into lithe limbs waking from winter” until the very next poem where “The Green Man Sleeps” and in his sleeping, is a harbinger of winter’s death of “barren buds, / a court of worms.” We recall the great Yorkshire mystic Richard Rolle’s fire of love as a supplicant in another poem prays for that which is most difficult to achieve in any age, “the heart’s bright kindling, / the understanding beyond understanding.” York’s Viking history again appears in a piece that echoes the Old Norse Vestrfararvisur. In contrast to the warriors who wage bloody battles with “sharp swords,” we hear the voice of a skald recounting his dependency on his “word-wave,” on “gaining /grace of place” “proud” that his “one word resolves all riddles.” True Thomas, a witega, prophesies darkly of a world always in disorder; a doom sealed by our “chains to market” and imminent “In your time and mine and the time between.” The legend of Merlin’s Tree comes alive in one poem in dark visions of natural and human-contrived devastation. Hardwick’s final poem recalls “The Seafarer,” and his Speaker also experiences “earfoðhwil” and “bitre breostceare” but gathers humble gifts along the way to vie for God’s grace at the “door.”
M. Wendy Hennequin conjures up Old English laments with classic kennings as she simultaneously revisits the sorrow of Andromache while infusing her with power. This Andromache bears the translation of her Greek name, “Man Battle,” and is now an Amazon warrior, longing for her “sword-brother” (Hector) and the power of her people as it once was. A beautifully crafted poem in perfect imitation of Old English riddles produces three riddles that are smart, modern, and fun to read. Don’t look at the answers until you’re sure you know what these riddles describe! Another poem explores the idea of the chivalric code in its extreme as a bard, coming to Arthur’s court at “Christmastide,” tells the story of the seriously bloody rescue of a damsel in distress by Gawain, Kay, and Bedivere. The story unknown to Arthur, he turns for verification to the knights themselves, who stand nearly mute and will only agree what they did was “just.” Hennequin’s ballad reveals a scribe, alone but deftly and joyously writing of kings and queens and reveling in the brilliant colors on the vellum. This piece closes with a very medieval “envoi to St. Katherine” asking for “grace,” “mercy,” and “might” from this patroness of scribes. Hennequin returns to explore Andromache’s state of sorrow, in the pathetic image created by the repeated line, “Andromache beside the window waits.” This is no Amazon princess but a frail human woman caught in a vicious downturn of Fortune’s wheel.
A.J. Odasso notes that she is “unable to separate the act of writing from the act of dreaming.” Consequently, her poems take us into a dream-world in which we must negotiate the real and imagined in each poem. In one, we inhabit the mind of an orphan searching and grieving; another takes a journey through the tragic past and uncertain future of time where the Speaker seems bereft of hope in the shattering of a cup (set up in an epigraph quoting Hawking’s A Brief History of Time). We follow an emotionally bankrupt Speaker into a dream of loss and despair that, yet, is not totally devoid of hope. Odasso’s ekphrastic poem, responding to a Chagall lithograph of the same title, creates a dream-like vision of Chagall’s abstractions deftly captured in only eight lines. Her second meditation on time relies on our reading of the earlier poem where hope is revived as the cup and time, once shattered, “began to mend.” Another dream vision of barrenness, then birth, startles us with a dark but perverse practicality when “Mother” wraps and stores newborn twins in “an ice-rimed grave” to “keep till we return.” The final poem is true to its title, “Postscript” to the subject of the Hawking-inspired poems invoking the shattered life of the past that must be put to rest.
Joe Martyn Ricke brings poetic verve to his poems, and, in a response to the fifteenth-century “Adam lay ibowndyn,” Ricke applauds Eve’s inquisitive spirit and Adam’s devotion to her that made them the humans we are, embracing our “felix culpa,” while the lyric ego sings “with Harry Belafonte.” Ricke playfully catalogues the three faces of Mary Magdalene as she appears in medieval interpretations as one or all of the women named Mary appearing in the Gospels of Mark, Luke, and John with a final brush with her ‘lost gospel’ union with Christ himself. Ricke’s ekphrastic offering, responding to a twelfth-century wooden statue of the Virgin and Child (gone missing from this medieval artifact), evokes the iconoclasm of the reforming zeal of the sixteenth century as well as the twelfth-century cult of the Virgin. In another poem, we experience a ritual celebration of Our Lady deep in the heart of Mexico and the overpowering scents, sounds, and emotions such a spectacle can still elicit with an “envoy” to a medieval man, a single man, whose ecstatic vision carried him to sainthood, albeit more than 400 years after his death. In his final poem, Ricke gives us that which delights him most about the Middle Ages, the “bloody, grotesque, physical side of late medieval spirituality.” In his unfettered hands, the images of stigmata and blood ooze from the lines of this poem.
Hannah Stone’s poetry finishes this volume and returns us to the idea that “all poetry is a translation of sorts.” Her first poem empathizes with and honors the early desert hermits whose physical sacrifices, including eschewing sleep, turned them into “bones already half spirit,” in their quest for the “holy flame.” An archaeological find displayed in Worcester Cathedral provides Stone with an ekphrastic contribution in which her Speaker contemplates the life and death of the remnants of the life of a medieval pilgrim—boots, staff, and cockleshell badge. Considering scientific musings about his headless remains (captured in a photograph but not in the glass case), the Speaker wonders how he must have tortured his body to save his soul. Her found poem chooses and weaves the words of Richard Rolle, “capturing the flavour” of his instructive exhortations to stay “unsullied” so as to “fly straight to the love and contemplation of God” with Nature (the bee) as God’s model of virtue. Medieval alliterative lines infuse a modern prose poem with poetic vitality allowing us to feel as well as see the nervous, stuttering flight of a lone sparrow as it struggles for freedom from manmade spaces. Her poem about blindness of the losses in Gaza is fraught with the darkness at human frailty as the sestina forces the images of “Gaza’s murdered” in our face so that we must bear witness to the “Great deliverer” as the “girls’ and boys’ / last moments flare in shameful spotlight.” The piety inherent in a medieval Book of Hours is lithely lifted from a poem in which sensually suggestive language is counterpoint to our expectations. In another playful poem giving voice to a medieval “cathedral rodent catcher,” our suspicions about feline omniscience are confirmed. This cat brings to life the diverse inhabitants and their diversions—amorous, holy, and mercenary—giving him “barely a minute’s peace till dusk” when he can return to the mice, those “devious little bastards,” he’s bound to dispatch. Stone’s final piece and the last of this volume sets holy men’s physical discomfort from asserting “doctrines” that “don’t sit comfortably” against the physically freeing observations of “a walker” enjoying God’s grandeur in the quintessential English landscape.
The “old fields” of medieval literature and history lovingly ploughed and sown with fresh seeds from modern hands have engendered delightful and inspiring “new crops” that will refresh any who partake of these evocative, powerful, and revealing poetic medievalisms.

Julie A. Chappell
Tarleton State University