Dutch Arthurian literature

Abstract

Ironically, the currently flourishing study of Arthurian literature in the Low Countries had a false start, as L.G. Visscher’s 1838 publication of Ferguut, the thirteenth-century Middle Dutch rendition of Guillaume le Clerc’s Fergus, was full of flaws.1 The many inaccuracies in this first complete edition of a Middle Dutch chivalric romance not only confirmed the editor’s self-characterization as an autodidact, they served unintentionally as a teething ring (to borrow Willem Kuiper’s expression) for young philologists.2 One of these critics, W.J.A. Jonckbloet, gaveMiddle Dutch literature the status of a scholarly discipline, by – among other things – writing a three-volume history of Middle Dutch literature and by publishing two groundbreaking editions of Arthurian texts.3