Frank Brandsma

blide ende drove: Mixed Emotions in Middle Dutch Arthurian Romance

Abstract: Mixed emotions are presented mostly in situations concerning the presence/absence of comrades/loved ones. The narrator explains to the audience why a character feels both happy (blide) and sad (drove). The explanations may have been necessary, yet seem to impede the emotional resonance occurring when more simple emotions are in play.

Glyn S. Burgess / Karen Pratt (edd.), The Arthur of the French. The Arthurian Legend in Medieval French and Occitan Literature

Le quatrième volume dans la série The Arthur of the . . . est un livre formidable, riche et bien organisé. Comme dans les volumes sur les textes arthuriens dans la langue du pays de Galles, les langues germaniques et l’anglais, le terrain est bien défini, sans lacunes. On y trouve même un chapitre sur les versions modernes des histoires arthuriennes et tristaniennes (par Norris Lacy et Joan Grimbert, [546Ð570]). Les éditeurs, Glyn Burgess et Karen Pratt, ont mis ensemble les contributions de plus de trente romanistes renommés (venants plutôt des ÉtatsUnis et de l’Angleterre, pas tant de spécialistes français: Emmanuèle Baumgartner (†), Annie Combes, Michelle Szkilnik et Richard Trachsler), qui ont produit un manuel qui donne le «state of the art» de 2006. Écrit en anglais, le livre important est disponible pour tout le monde, pour € 105. Dans l’introduction, Karen Pratt dit que «The Arthur of the French is intended to meet the needs of undergraduate and postgraduate students of medieval French and Occitan literature, established scholars in these fields who are seeking information about the current state of research and students and scholars in other fields who require an introduction to Arthurian material in the French speaking world. The volume attempts to guide Anglophone readers [. . .] by expressing a consensus of academic opinion where this exists, pointing where necessary to significant differences of opinion and indicating fields in which further research would be fruitful» [5]. Le livre est un instrument de recherche indispensable, et cela vaut aussi pour les listes bibliographiques dans les chapitres, et à la fin du livre. Et, il faut le dire ici au commencement de ce compte-

Knights' Talk: Direct Discourse in Arthurian Romance

Engaged in a fight, knights exchange blows as well as words. The alternation of action and conversation in descriptions of duels may have challenged the skills of the performing artist, reading the text aloud from a manuscript. The challenge taken up in this article is the question whether the texts and/or manuscripts help the performer (and his audience) recognize the change from physical to verbal exchange, from swords to words. An analysis of the components in units of direct discourse in representative samples from eleven Arthurian romances (amongst others Chrétien de Troyess Erec et Enide and Le chevalier de la charrete, Hartmann von Aues Erec, the Vengeance Raguidel, Le bel inconnu and the prose Lancelot) shows that these texts do provide assistance for the performer and listeners, especially at the transition from narrative to dialogue. This shift in narrative mode is usually indicated by an explicit inquit-formula and other signals, for instance initials. Once a dialogue is under way, these signals tend to appear far less frequently, especially in the prose romances.