This Is Not A Grail Romance. Natalia Petrovskia a review of sorts

This Is Not a Grail romance: Understanding Historia Peredur uab Efrawc.  Natalia l. Petrovskaia . University of Wales Press, 2023. 

 'If the material before us fails to conform to our present-day European concepts of logic and unity, perhaps instead of rejecting the text should reject the logic and find a new one'. (Llyod-Morgan. Qtd page. 15).

Beyond its value to students of the Welsh story, this book demonstrates the value of approaching a medieval text, not with the assumption that it is a flawed attempt at a modern narrative, but as an attempt, not so much to read it on its own terms, but to discover what these terms might be. 

Background.

The default approach to medieval texts is to see them as clumsy approximations of modern literature. To be sure there are 'works of genius' but 'Chaucer would be so much better without the digressions'. 

There are two strands to this approach which start at the same point but head in different directions. In one the 'literary flaws' of the text are enumerated. The lack of coherence, of character development, the digressions, the absence of a proper narrative arc, are all pointed out. The Writer is like a child who is trying to do something that is beyond him or her. Nice try, but...

The second approach, specific to this topic, is the one which sees the Welsh prose stories collected as 'The Mabinogion' as incoherent. The writer didn't understand or wasn’t in control of the material, the stories are the ruined, garbled remains, of lost precursors. There is a critical tradition in which the scholar, having  identified the incoherence, attempts to recreate the original, coherent, story.  Given such stories no longer exist, the reconstruction usually says more about the scholar than the story.

Both approaches are underwritten by the idea that literature is an organic entity subject to Darwinian evolution, and after the high point of Greek and Latin literature,  the awkward fumbling of the medieval Makar are the clumsy beginning of a progression which improves over time to whatever you currently think of as excellent.

This is both highly patronising to the creators of our texts: if only they'd have been to a modern writing workshop they might have done better, and insulting to their audience who were obviously willing to put up with any kind of rubbish because evenings were long and Netflix hadn't been invented.

But it  shuts down a proper consideration of medieval storytelling. It's not possible to learn from something that’s already been dismissed as inadequate.

End of background

So here's to Natalia Petrovskaia, and her willingness to treat Peredur on its own terms. Her analysis of the structure seems to prove that this is not just a random accumulation of events but a carefully built story working to its own rules. 

Her argument is based on the recognition that there are two surviving versions of this story.  The Short Version, which owes little to the French, and the Longer Version or Short Version +Continuation. The latter is what modern readers encounter in a translation of  ‘The Mabinogion’ and it is incoherent, inconsistent and repetitive.  

By focussing on the shorter version, which is the oldest surviving version,  she rejects the idea that Peredur is a badly written single narrative. She argues that the short version is three distinct stories, self-contained, which are linked by being about the same hero. The key is that the individual episodes ‘can be taken not merely as episodes in a grander narrative, but as complete semi-independent narratives forming distinct units that can be removed, replaced and re ordered. Most importantly, there are no internal contradictions or inconsistencies within each of these units.' ‘Any inconsistences that can be found (eg. the seemingly ever changing object of Peredur’s affections) are to be found between these episodes, not within them. '

She refines her argument to see the story’s organisation as a fractal structure,  specifically a Sierpinski gasket. This fractal model offers a mnemonic structure for the story teller: Three episodes, each composed of three sub episodes, each involving three consecutive scenes of encounter. 

Part of her argument reminds me of  Carol Braun Pasternack's arguments about the 'Movement' nature of Old English Poetry, and while that leap is mine, not Petrovskaia's, it adds weight to her argument.  

The coherence of her model would seem to prove her point as does the experience of rereading the story after reading her book.

Secondly, her argument that this is not a Grail Romance seems incontrovertible. Perdedur is not shown a Grail or does he seek one. (Hands up those who, like me, first read it as a Grail story because they had been told it was, and wondered what they'd missed.)

Thirdly this is not a Romance in the generic Medieval meaning of that term. 

We read in ways we've been taught. Our reading practices shape not only our responses to texts, but create the texts themselves. Modern reading practices get in the way of our engagement with medieval stories.  Rather than treat each text on its own terms, the critic and reader try to fit the text into learnt patterns based on teaching and prior reading. When a text doesn’t fit the pattern, it, rather than the pattern, is found wanting. Christopher Cannon made this point brilliantly in the context of post-conquest English literature in 'The Grounds of English Literature'. But it's a point that needs repeating. 

There are other arguments in the book. Whether the landscape of some of the episodes can be linked to specific places and the story contextualised geographically is a moot point. Certainly a Welsh /Border landscape supports the argument about the Welshness of the story. However while Identifying a specific castle by a convent where the Nuns are in poverty is difficult, the fact that the attempt is possible reinforces the idea that the original audience would have felt these landscapes familiar and plausible in ways a modern audience can’t.  

The Welshness of the story has been argued over. Petrovskia makes a sound argument that what she calls the 'Short Version' originated in Wales, and not as an attempt to copy a French original. 

Her conclusion:

This is not a Grail Romance nor is it  a Romance. Peredur is not a single narrative but carefully built episodes. 

What she designates as Episodes 1 to 3 not only show no trace of stylistic incompetence, but  demonstrate structural virtuosity; are anchored in Welsh historical, literary, legal and cultural contexts, and originated in Wales.  

Short, clearly written, carefully argued,  beyond its value to present and future students of Peredur Vab Efrawc, it is a demonstration of the benefits of approaching a  story with the assumption that the text is the way it is because someone who knew what they were doing made it that way for people who enjoyed and appreciated the end product.