Scan barcode
nwhyte's review
challenging
informative
fast-paced
4.0
This was the book that made the reputation of Helen Waddell, the medievalist from my own corner of County Down. It's a study of the lyrical tradition of poetry in the Middle Ages in Europe, tracing influences across geographies and cultures. I found the writing very dense; written very chattily as if these were all people whose reputations we already knew, with minimal context and footnotes mostly to works available only in well-equipped university libraries. I'm really surprised that it did so well on publication in 1927; perhaps the readers of the 1920s were more au fait with early medieval literature than I am.
Still there are some fascinating details in there. It's always interesting to be reminded of the career of Gerbert of Aurillac, which is crying out for an accessible biographical treatment, either factual or fictional. The same goes for the murky story of the Viking Siegfried (or Sifrid, as Waddell calls him). There's the mysterious figure of the Archpoet. And more locally it's interesting to see Liège popping up as an important centre of culture.
She supplies a lot of translations of the lyrics, to which she brings her own good ear for a phrase; I'm glad I have read this at last, and I'll put some of Helen Waddell's other works on my reading list now.
Still there are some fascinating details in there. It's always interesting to be reminded of the career of Gerbert of Aurillac, which is crying out for an accessible biographical treatment, either factual or fictional. The same goes for the murky story of the Viking Siegfried (or Sifrid, as Waddell calls him). There's the mysterious figure of the Archpoet. And more locally it's interesting to see Liège popping up as an important centre of culture.
She supplies a lot of translations of the lyrics, to which she brings her own good ear for a phrase; I'm glad I have read this at last, and I'll put some of Helen Waddell's other works on my reading list now.
mathomgiver's review
5.0
Waddell's writing is beautiful and rich in allusions from her seemingly endless knowledge of literature. This book is a difficult read because a ready knowledge of the subject matter (including Latin, German, and French) is assumed. It is easy to get lost in Waddell's swift transitions from subjects. Her enthusiasm for the work of these often overlooked poets is infectious. She closes saying that these "nameless vagabonds...kept the imagination of Europe alive: held untouched by their rags and poverty and squalor the Beauty that made beautiful old rhyme. And for those of us who are the conservatives of letters, for whom literature obeys the eternal movement of tides, for whom the heavens themselves are old, there remains the stark simplicity of Terence - 'In truth they have deserved to be remembered of us'"(238).
More...