The New Cambridge Companion to Medieval Romance, ed. Roberta L. Krueger. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023, xviii, 302 pp., 5 b/w figs.

This volume ambitiously surveys contemporary approaches to medieval romance, making it an excellent volume for students jumping headfirst into the subject. Established scholars of romance may find it a bit less useful, as the collected chapters do not typically advance new theses, but one can easily imagine The New Cambridge Companion as required reading for undergraduate or graduate students. The chapters raise interesting questions and open avenues for new and innovative research. In envisioning the purpose of the volume in her introduction, Roberta Kreuger suggests that decentering the study of romance away from Northern Christian Europe and exploring topics such as gender, race, and emotions is critical. The decentering is one area where the ambition of the volume may have outstripped its possibilities; most of the literature examined in the volume remains firmly rooted in the French and English traditions.