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This new volume of "Arthurian Literature", the first under its new editor Keith Busby, is devoted to the "Roman van Walewein" (The Romance of Walewein (Gawain)) by Penninc and Pieter Vostaert, an undisputed gem of Middle Dutch literature which has recently become accessible to an English-speaking audience through translation. Essentially a fairy-tale written into Arthurian romance, it presents a Gawain quite different to the man found in the English Sir Gawain and the Green Knight or the French Gauvain. Expert readings of the Walewein, especially commissioned and collected by Bart Besamusca and Erik Kooper of the University of Utrecht are provided by a group of renowned scholars, contributing to the on-going critical appraisal of the Walewein. Keith Busby is George Lynn Cross Research Professor at the Center for Medieval and Renaissane Studies, University of Oklahoma. Contributors include: Bart Besamusca, Erik Kooper, Walter Haug, Douglas Kelly, Norris J. Lacy, Mathias Meyer, Ad Putter, Felicity Riddy, Thea Summerfield, Jane H.M. Taylor, Bart Veldhoen, Norbert Voorwinden, and Lori Walters.
List of contents
Introduction - the study of the "Roman van Walewein", Bart Besamusca and Erik Kooper; the "Roman van Walewein" as a postclassical literary experiment, Walter Haug; the pledge motif in the "Roman van Walewein" - original variant and rewritten quest, Douglas Kelly; convention and innovation in the Middle Dutch "Roman van Walewein", Norris J. Lacey; it's hard to be me, or Walewein/Gawain as hero, Mathias Meyer; Walwein in the Otherworld and the Land of Prester John, A.D. Putter; giving and receiving - exchange in the "Roman van Walewein" and "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight", Felicity Riddy; reading a motion picture - why Steven Spielberg should read the "Roman van Walewein", Thea Summmerfield; the "Roman van Walewein" - man into fox, fox into man, Jane H.M. Taylor; the "Roman van Walewein" laced with castles, Bart Veldhoen; fight descriptions in the "Roman van Walewein" and in two Middle High German romances - a comparison, Norbert Voorwinden; making bread from stone - the "Roman van Walewein" and the transformation of Old French romances.
