The 'Roman de Thèbes' and the 'Roman d'Eneas' by Glyn Burgess S., and Douglas Kelly (review)

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• The 'Roman de Thèbes' and the 'Roman d'Eneas' by Glyn Burgess S., and Douglas Kelly
• Véronique Duché

Burgess, Glyn S., and Douglas Kelly, trans. and intro., The 'Roman de Thèbes' and the 'Roman d'Eneas' ( Exeter Studies in Medieval Europe), Liverpool, Liverpool University Press, 2021; hardback; pp. 440; R.R.P. £126.00; ISBN 9781800348615.

As famously described by French medieval poet Jean Bodel, there are only three subject matters for the discerning man—France, Britain, and Rome the Great. It is on the last that Glyn S. Burgess and Douglas Kelly focus their book. Building on their expertise in the translation of French medieval texts into English, the authors present here the Roman de Thèbes (c. 1150) and the Roman d'Eneas (c. 1160) to be read 'in conjunction with [their] translation of the Roman de Troie by Benoît de Sainte-Maure (D. S. Brewer, 2017)' (p. ix). Burgess and Kelly are to be congratulated for having made available to modern English readers the complete trilogy of the romans d'antiquité, or protoromances, dealing with themes from antiquity, which announced a genre that would later flourish with Chrétien de Troyes.

The 'Introduction' (pp. 1–23), organised by themes, gives the necessary historical and literary information while focusing on topics such as 'Poetics from Latin into French'. Burgess and Kelly do not elaborate on the affiliation of the medieval authors with 'the Plantagenet courts of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine' (p. 3), which is still critical to understanding the cultural context of this period 'often called the twelfth century Renaissance' (p. 3). Indeed, these romances, born at the English court, were marked by the political intention of linking the Anglo-Norman monarchy to the great heroes of antiquity, therefore asserting their power and legitimacy. And while Burgess and Kelly state 'the crucial aim of the authors of these early narrative poems: to make available in French works that were written in Latin' (p. 4), they could have further elaborated on the importance of the translatio studii at this period. As Emmanuéle Baumgartner reminds us, the authors of romans d'antiquité aimed to make available texts 'whose knowledge was previously restricted to the world of the clergy, who alone had access to the original texts or their Latin and Medio-Latin adaptations, glosses and commentaries' (Le Récit médiéval, Hachette, 1995, p. 19). The presence, at the threshold of the Roman de Thèbes, of 'lord Homer and lord Plato, and Virgil and Cicero' (p. 28) attests to the crucial mission of the author: passing on multifaceted knowledge—be it about love, its importance, its nature, its consequences; or about the universe. Descriptions in particular are essential, which demonstrate 'the bookish knowledge of clerics as much as their ability to represent the history of the world, to stage human activities, to celebrate all those […] who create a universe where beauty is first and foremost the product of human intelligence, knowledge and skill, (Le Récit médiéval, p. 24). The ekphrastic description of Amphiaraus's chariot in Thèbes (ll. 4949–5016, pp. 105–07) perfectly illustrates this phenomenon. These romances offer a reflection on knowledge, its acquisition and transmission, which reflects the debates in the intellectual milieu in which they were composed. [End Page 309]

The translation of each roman includes a short outline of the plot, with an appendix offering the alternative ending taken from Manuscript D of Eneas (pp. 353–57). A rich forty-six-page 'Bibliography' (pp. 359–404) concludes the volume, together with two very useful indexes of personal and geographical names (pp. 405–16 and pp. 416–22). The brief overview of the existing editions and translations (pp. xv–xvii), however, omits Jane Bliss's translation of the Thèbes episodes dedicated to Amphiaraus (An Anglo-Norman Reader, Open Book Publishers, 2018, pp. 80–89 [ll. 2055–80 and ll. 4950–5080]—in our book p. 60 and pp. 105–08), as well as Míceàl F. Vaughan's partial translation (1999) of Eneas (ll. 263–844, 1197–2154—in our book pp. 202–10 and pp. 216–32) (available...