Epic and Romance | Page 2

father-in-law Duke
Skule. The critical problems with regard to the writings of Sturla are
more difficult than I imagined, and I am glad to have this opportunity
of referring, with admiration, to the work of my friend Dr. Björn
Magnússon Olsen on the Sturlunga Saga (in Safn til Sögu Islands, iii.
pp. 193-510, Copenhagen, 1897). Though I am unable to go further
into that debatable ground, I must not pass over Dr. Olsen's argument
showing that the life of the original Sturla of Hvamm (v. inf. pp.
253-256) was written by Snorri himself; the story of the alarm and
pursuit (p. 255) came from the recollections of Gudny, Snorri's mother.
In the Chansons de Geste a great discovery has been made since my
essay was written; the Chançun de Willame, an earlier and ruder
version of the epic of Aliscans, has been printed by the unknown
possessor of the manuscript, and generously given to a number of
students who have good reason to be grateful to him for his liberality.
There are some notes on the poem in Romania (vols. xxxii. and xxxiv.)
by M. Paul Meyer and Mr. Raymond Weeks, and it has been used by
Mr. Andrew Lang in illustration of Homer and his age. It is the sort of
thing that the Greeks willingly let die; a rough draught of an epic poem,
in many ways more barbarous than the other extant chansons de geste,
but full of vigour, and notable (like le Roi Gormond, another of the
older epics) for its refrain and other lyrical passages, very like the
manner of the ballads. The Chançun de Willame, it may be observed, is

not very different from Aliscans with regard to Rainouart, the
humorous gigantic helper of William of Orange. One would not have
been surprised if it had been otherwise, if Rainouart had been first
introduced by the later composer, with a view to "comic relief" or some
such additional variety for his tale. But it is not so; Rainouart, it
appears, has a good right to his place by the side of William. The
grotesque element in French epic is found very early, e.g. in the
Pilgrimage of Charlemagne, and is not to be reckoned among the signs
of decadence.
There ought to be a reference, on p. 298 below, to M. Joseph Bédier's
papers in the Revue Historique (xcv. and xcvii.) on Raoul de Cambrai.
M. Bédier's Légendes épiques, not yet published at this time of writing,
will soon be in the hands of his expectant readers.
I am deeply indebted to many friends--first of all to York Powell--for
innumerable good things spoken and written about these studies. My
reviewers, in spite of all differences of opinion, have put me under
strong obligations to them for their fairness and consideration.
Particularly, I have to offer my most sincere acknowledgments to Dr.
Andreas Heusler of Berlin for the honour he has done my book in his
Lied und Epos (1905), and not less for the help that he has given, in this
and other of his writings, towards the better understanding of the old
poems and their history.
W. P. K.
OXFORD, 25th Jan. 1908.

CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
I

THE HEROIC AGE PAGE
Epic and Romance: the two great orders of medieval narrative 3
Epic, of the "heroic age," preceding Romance of the "age of chivalry" 4
The heroic age represented in three kinds of literature--Teutonic Epic,
French Epic, and the Icelandic Sagas 6
Conditions of Life in an "heroic age" 7
Homer and the Northern poets 9
Homeric passages in Beowulf 10 and in the Song of Maldon 11
Progress of poetry in the heroic age 13
Growth of Epic, distinct in character, but generally incomplete, among
the Teutonic nations 14
II
EPIC AND ROMANCE
The complex nature of Epic 16
No kind or aspect of life that may not be included 16
This freedom due to the dramatic quality of true (e.g. Homeric) Epic 17
as explained by Aristotle 17
Epic does not require a magnificent ideal subject 18 such as those of
the artificial epic (Aeneid, Gerusalemme Liberata, Paradise Lost) 18
The Iliad unlike these poems in its treatment of "ideal" motives
(patriotism, etc.) 19
True Epic begins with a dramatic plot and characters 20

The Epic of the Northern heroic age is sound in its dramatic conception
20 and does not depend on impersonal ideals (with exceptions, in the
Chansons de geste) 21
The German heroes in history and epic (Ermanaric, Attila, Theodoric)
21
Relations of Epic to historical fact 22
The epic poet is free in the conduct of his story 23 but his story and
personages must belong to his own people 26
Nature of Epic brought out by contrast with secondary narrative poems,
where the subject is not national