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The Sources of Sir Launfal: Lanval and Graelent

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

William C. Stokoe Jr.
William C. Stokoe Jr.*
Affiliation:
Wells College
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Extract

The metrical romance Sir Launfal, with its six Middle English versions and two French sources, is rich in material for an investigation of one phase of practical literary criticism in Mediaeval England. Each redactor of the story made certain changes, which when compared with the changes made by the others, and when classified and analyzed with them will not only yield information about the editorial practice of the redactors but will also reveal something of their theory of literary criticism. Such an investigation of the English versions of Sir Launfal, however, must be postponed until the relationships of these to their sources can be made clear. The views so far advanced regarding the relationship of Lanval and Graelent show that there is little agreement on, and hence no satisfactory clarification of, the point.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 63 , Issue 2 , June 1948 , pp. 392 - 404
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1948

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References

1 Or Launfal Miles; see John Edwin Wells, A Manual of the Writings in Middle English, pp.131 ff.

2 C: Sir Launfal by Thomas Chestre, MS. Cotton Caligula A. ii (first quarter of the 15th century), 1044 lines, complete; French and Hale, Middle English Metrical Romances, pp. 345–80.

R: Laniávall, MS. Rawlinson C. 86 (16th century), 535 lines, complete; G. L. Kitt-redge, “Launfal”, American Journal of Philology, χ (1889), 1–33.

P: Sir Lambewell, the Percy Folio MS. (16th century), 632 lines, complete; Bishop Percy's Folio MS., ed. Fumivall and Hales (London, 1867), r, 142–64.

H: Sir Lamivell, Malone 941 (“a damaged fragment of eight printed pages, probably of sixteenth century”–Wells, p. 133); PFMS, i, 533.

D: Sir Lamwell, Douce Fragments, e. 40 (“a printed leaf of 61 lines, probably a reprint of Sir Lamwell H”–Wells, p. 133); PFMS, i, 522.

F: Sir Lamuell, MS. Cambridge Kk. v, 30 (15th century), 90 lines, a fragment; Robert Laneham's Letter, ed. Fumivall (London, 1907), pp. xxxi f.

3 M: Lanval, Karl Warnke, Die Lais der Marie de France, 3rd ed., notes by Kohler and Bolte (Halle, 1925), pp. 86–112, cxxx-cxl; Alfred Ewert, Marie de France Lais (Oxford, 1944), pp. 58–74, 172–77. G: Graelent, Margaret E. Grimes, The Lais of Desire, Graelent, and Melion (N. Y., 1929).

4 Roquefort, Poesies de Marie de France (Paris, 1820), p. i.

5 Zur Lanvalsage: Eine Quetten Untersuchung, Inaugural Diss., Kiel Univ. (Berlin, 1886), p. 4.

6 Romania, xv (1889), 644.

7 Gaston Paris, 'La Littérature Fran&çaise au Moyen Age, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1890), p. 92. 8 Pp. 247-8.

9 “The Lays of Graelant and Lanval”, PMLA, xv (1900), 129 and n. 2.

10 Schofield, p. 170.

11 Gustav Grôber, Grundriss der Romanischen Philologie, zweite Aufgabe (Strassburg, 1902), Band 2, Abteilung 1, 597.

12 Lucien Foulet, “Marie de France et les Lais Bretons”, Zs. fiir Rom. Philol., xxrx (1905), 21.

13 Page 21, n. 1.

14 Foulet, p. 27.

15 Warnke, p. cxxxviii.

16 “Pour la Chronologie des Lais de Marie de France”, Romania, lix (1933), 351–70.

17 Warnke, p. xx.

18 The exact text she used is unimportant to the purpose of this study. G cannot be significantly different from its source, as witness Kolls, Grober, Kohler, and others who recognize in G a story, scene, and treatment indicative of times more ancient than Henry II's cosmopolitan and sophisticated court. Therefore, in the following pages a statement that Marie “changed” this or that in G is not to be taken as begging the question.

19 Warnke, p. 86.

20 Grimes, p. 76.

21 Hoepffner, op. cit., and Foulet, op. cit.

22 Warnke, 1. 17.

23 Lines 19 f.

24 Schofield, pp. 150 f.

25 Hoepfiner, pp. 362 ff.

26 Hoepffner, p. 364.

27 Hoepffner, p. 367, et passim.

28 Pp. 367 ff.

29 Grimes, p. 92,1. 488.

30 Hoepfmer, p. 355. 31 Grimes, p. 94, 1. 551.

32 Hoepfmer, p. 355.

33 Grimes, p. 98,11. 652 ff.

34 Hoepffner, pp. 360 ff.

35 Pp. 357 f.

36 In B (Sir Lamwell), I. 444; Percy Folio MS, i, 533. 37 Warnke, pp. xxxvii-lxv; Ewert, pp. x-xviii.