Nation and Translation: Guy of Warwick between Languages

The Auchinleck manuscript’s rendering of the story of Guy of Warwick has often been singled out for its pronounced nationalism, supposedly achieved by carefully editing the text to fit the manuscript’s nationalist agenda. This article argues against such a reading, showing instead that the perceived nationalism of the Auchinleck Guy of Warwick was already present in one or both redactions of the Middle English romance’s Anglo-Norman original, Gui de Warewic. It also discusses the nature of the Englishness depicted in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century versions of the Guy narrative, including Auchinleck, and problematizes the commonly made association between language and nationalism in them. It pleads both for a more nuanced understanding of Englishness in the Guy romances and for greater attention to the narrative’s complex textual history.