Song and Legend From the Middle Ages | Page 3

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SONG AND LEGEND FROM THE MIDDLE AGES
SELECTED AND ARRANGED

By WILLIAM D. MCCLINTOCK
Assistant Professor of English
Literature, University Of Chicago AND
PORTER LANDER
McCLINTOCK
Chautauqua Reading Circle Literature
1893
CONTENTS.
I. FRENCH LITERATURE
II. SPANISH LITERATURE
III.
SCANDINAVIAN LITERATURE
IV. GERMAN LITERATURE

V. ITALIAN LITERATURE
READING LIST.
Owing to the necessarily fragmentary character of
the readings of this volume, it has seemed well to the editors to indicate
a list of books for those who wish a wider reading In Mediaeval

Literature. These books are all available and cheap.
0. French Literature. (1) Longfellow's "Poets and Poetry of Europe". (2)
O'Hagan's "The Song of Roland". (3) Rourdillon's "Aucassin and
Nicolette". (4) Malory's "Morte Darthur". (5) Chaucer's
"Romance of the Rose". (6) Caxton's "Reynard the Fox". (7)
Saintsbury's "Short History of French Literature".
. Spanish Literature. (1) Longfellow, as above. (2) Ormsby's "The Cid".
(3) Lockhart's "Ancient Spanish Ballads".
. Scandinavian Literature. (1) Longfellow, as above. (2) Anderson's
"Norse Mythology".
0. German Literature. (1) Longfellow, as above. (2) Lettsom's
"Niebelungenlied". (3) Scherer's "History of German Literature".
. Italian Literature. (1) Longfellow, as above. (2) Rossetti's "Dante and
his Circle". (3) Cary's "The Divine Comedy". (4) Norton's "The
Divine Comedy". (5) Campbell's "The Sonnets and Poems of
Petrarch".
PREFACE.
The aim of this little book is to give general readers some idea of the
subject and spirit of European Continental literature in the later and
culminating period of the Middle Ages--the
eleventh, twelfth, and

thirteenth centuries.
It goes without saying that translations and selections are, in general,
inadequate to the satisfactory representation of any literature. No piece
of writing, of course, especially no piece of poetry, can be perfectly
rendered into another tongue; no piece of writing can be fairly
represented by detached portions. But to the general English reader
Continental Mediaeval
liteature, so long as it remains in the original
tongues, is inaccessible; and translations of many entire works are not
within easy reach.
What translation and selection can do in this case, is to put into the
hands of the ordinary student of the Middle Ages
sufficient material
for forming an estimate of the subjects that interested the mediaeval
mind and the spirit in which they were treated. And this is what the
general reader desires. Matters of form and expression--the points that
translation cannot
reproduce--belong, of course, to the specialist.
The claim that so slender a volume of selections can represent even the
subject and spirit of so vast a body of literature, is saved from being
unreasonable or presumptuous by a consideration of the fact that, from
causes easy to trace, the national
literatures of Continental Europe
had many common
characteristics: the range of subjects was not
unlimited; the spirit is the same in all.
No English is included for two reasons: Mediaeval English
literature
is easily accessible to those readers for whom this book is prepared;
during the special period in which the best mediaeval literature was
developed, England was comparatively unproductive.
The constant aim has been to put before the reader the literature itself,
with comment barely sufficient to make an intelligible setting for the
selections. Criticism of all kinds has been avoided, so that the reader
may come to his material with
judgment entirely unbiased.
The