Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction: Medieval English and Dutch Literature in its European Context and the Work of David F. Johnson
- 1 Reconstructing a Lost Manuscript of the Old English Gospels
- 2 The Reception of the Old English Version of Gregory the Great’s Dialogues between the Conquest and the Close of the Nineteenth Century
- 3 An Unrecorded Copy of Heinrich Krebs’s An Anglo-Saxon Version of Gregory’s Dialogues, Printer’s Proofs
- 4 The Body as Media in Early Medieval England
- 5 Who Snatched Grendel in Beowulf 852b?
- 6 ‘Mobile as Wishes’: Anchoritism, Intersubjectivity, and Disability in the Liber confortatorius
- 7 The Presence of the Hands: Sculpture and Script in the Eighth to Twelfth Centuries
- 8 Perceval’s Name and the Gifts of the Mother
- 9 A Relaxed Knight and an Impatient Heroine: Ironizing the Love Quest in the Second Part of the Middle Dutch Ferguut
- 10 Multilingualism in Van den vos Reynaerde and its Reception in Reynardus Vulpes
- 11 Three Characters as Narrator in the Roman van Walewein
- 12 As the Chess-Set Flies: Arthurian Marvels in Chaucer’s Squire’s Tale and the Roman van Walewein
- 13 For a Performer’s Personal Use: The Corrector’s Lines in the Lower Margin of the Middle Dutch Lanceloet Manuscript
- 14 ‘Oft leudlez alone’: The Isolation of the Hero and its Consequences in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
- 15 Shifting Skin: Passing as Human, Passing as Fay in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
- 16 The Lover Caught Between his Mother and his Maiden in Lanseloet van Denemerken
- 17 Afterlives: The Abbey at Amesbury and the ‘Rehabilitation’ of Guinevere in Malory and the Stanzaic Morte Arthur
- 18 The Importance of Being an Arthurian Mother
- Select Bibliography
- Bibliography of David F. Johnson’s Works
- Index
- Tabula Gratulatoria
11 - Three Characters as Narrator in the Roman van Walewein
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 October 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction: Medieval English and Dutch Literature in its European Context and the Work of David F. Johnson
- 1 Reconstructing a Lost Manuscript of the Old English Gospels
- 2 The Reception of the Old English Version of Gregory the Great’s Dialogues between the Conquest and the Close of the Nineteenth Century
- 3 An Unrecorded Copy of Heinrich Krebs’s An Anglo-Saxon Version of Gregory’s Dialogues, Printer’s Proofs
- 4 The Body as Media in Early Medieval England
- 5 Who Snatched Grendel in Beowulf 852b?
- 6 ‘Mobile as Wishes’: Anchoritism, Intersubjectivity, and Disability in the Liber confortatorius
- 7 The Presence of the Hands: Sculpture and Script in the Eighth to Twelfth Centuries
- 8 Perceval’s Name and the Gifts of the Mother
- 9 A Relaxed Knight and an Impatient Heroine: Ironizing the Love Quest in the Second Part of the Middle Dutch Ferguut
- 10 Multilingualism in Van den vos Reynaerde and its Reception in Reynardus Vulpes
- 11 Three Characters as Narrator in the Roman van Walewein
- 12 As the Chess-Set Flies: Arthurian Marvels in Chaucer’s Squire’s Tale and the Roman van Walewein
- 13 For a Performer’s Personal Use: The Corrector’s Lines in the Lower Margin of the Middle Dutch Lanceloet Manuscript
- 14 ‘Oft leudlez alone’: The Isolation of the Hero and its Consequences in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
- 15 Shifting Skin: Passing as Human, Passing as Fay in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
- 16 The Lover Caught Between his Mother and his Maiden in Lanseloet van Denemerken
- 17 Afterlives: The Abbey at Amesbury and the ‘Rehabilitation’ of Guinevere in Malory and the Stanzaic Morte Arthur
- 18 The Importance of Being an Arthurian Mother
- Select Bibliography
- Bibliography of David F. Johnson’s Works
- Index
- Tabula Gratulatoria
Summary
AROUND 1250 THE ROMAN VAN WALEWEIN, the masterpiece of Flemish Arthurian literature, appeared. This romance of more than 11,000 verses was written by two authors. A poet who calls himself Penninc started and wrote most of it, and a Pieter Vostaert completed the work. The protagonist of the romance is Arthur's nephew Walewein, the Flemish counterpart of the French Gauvain. The story is about a quest he undertakes to provide the king with a precious chess-set. The hero experiences adventures of a familiar kind, as in the episode which elaborately relates his confrontation with the Red Knight who abuses a damsel (3676–4915). What makes the romance special, however, is the fairytale character of Walewein's quest.
The romance opens with a marvelous event that takes place at court before the eyes of Arthur and his knights:
[…]
Hebben si wonder groot vernomen:
Een scaec ten veinstren in comen
Ende breede hem neder uptie aerde.
Hi mochte gaen spelen dies beghaerde.
[[…] they witnessed a great marvel: they saw a chess-set fly in through the window and settle itself on the floor. He who wished might play as he pleased]. (47–50)
Suddenly the chess-set flies away again, after which Arthur expresses his desire to possess it. Walewein sets off in search of the valuable object, which brings him to the castle of King Wonder, who owns the chess-set. He is willing to give it to Walewein, but the hero must first deliver him the Sword with the Two Rings, a miraculous weapon owned by King Amoraen. While at Walewein is at his castle, Amoraen agrees to give him the Sword, provided his guest brings him Ysabele, a beautiful princess who lives in a castle in faraway Endi. To get there, Walewein needs the help of a marvelous character: Roges, a fox who can speak, and who, by the end of the romance, turns back into a handsome prince.
In the romance there are three moments when a character assumes the role of narrator. First Walewein, when he reports to King Wonder about the chess-set that appeared at Arthur's court. Then King Amoraen, who describes Ysabele, the castle where she lives, and the garden in which she takes her leisure. The third narrator is the fox Roges; he tells a story about his childhood as a prince and about the woman who magically transformed him.
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- Medieval English and Dutch Literatures: The European ContextEssays in Honour of David F. Johnson, pp. 193 - 206Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2022