The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory | Page 3

by one pair of eyes. As the
individual study of different literatures deepens and widens, these
surveys may be more and more difficult: they may have to be made
more and more "by allowance." But they are also more and more useful,
not to say more and more necessary, lest a deeper and wider ignorance
should accompany the deeper and wider knowledge.
The dangers of this ignorance will hardly be denied, and it would be
invidious to produce examples of them from writings of the present day.
But there can be nothing ungenerous in referring--honoris, not invidiæ

causa--to one of the very best literary histories of this or any century,
Mr Ticknor's Spanish Literature. There was perhaps no man of his time
who was more widely read, or who used his reading with a steadier
industry and a better judgment, than Mr Ticknor. Yet the remarks on
assonance, and on long mono-rhymed or single-assonanced tirades, in
his note on Berceo (History of Spanish Literature, vol. i. p. 27), show
almost entire ignorance of the whole prosody of the chansons de geste,
which give such an indispensable light in reference to the subject, and
which, even at the time of his first edition (1849), if not quite so well
known as they are to-day, existed in print in fair numbers, and had been
repeatedly handled by scholars. It is against such mishaps as this that
we are here doing our best to supply a guard.[1]
[Footnote 1: One of the most difficult points to decide concerned the
allowance of notes, bibliographical or other. It seemed, on the whole,
better not to overload such a Series as this with them; but an attempt
has been made to supply the reader, who desires to carry his studies
further, with references to the best editions of the principal texts and the
best monographs on the subjects of the different chapters. I have
scarcely in these notes mentioned a single book that I have not myself
used; but I have not mentioned a tithe of those that I have used.]

CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
THE FUNCTION OF LATIN.
Reasons for not noticing the bulk of mediæval Latin literature.
Excepted divisions. Comic Latin literature. Examples of its verbal
influence. The value of burlesque. Hymns. The Dies Iræ. The rhythm
of Bernard. Literary perfection of the Hymns. Scholastic Philosophy.
Its influence on phrase and method. The great Scholastics 1
CHAPTER II.

CHANSONS DE GESTE.
European literature in 1100. Late discovery of the chansons. Their age
and history. Their distinguishing character. Mistakes about them. Their
isolation and origin. Their metrical form. Their scheme of matter. The
character of Charlemagne. Other characters and characteristics. Realist
quality. Volume and age of the chansons. Twelfth century. Thirteenth
century. Fourteenth, and later. Chansons in print. Language: oc and oïl.
Italian. Diffusion of the chansons. Their authorship and publication.
Their performance. Hearing, not reading, the object. Effect on prosody.
The jongleurs. Jongleresses, &c. Singularity of the chansons. Their
charm. Peculiarity of the geste system. Instances. Summary of the geste
of William of Orange. And first of the Couronnement Loys. Comments
on the Couronnement. William of Orange. The earlier poems of the
cycle. The Charroi de Nîmes. The Prise d'Orange. The story of Vivien.
Aliscans. The end of the story. Renouart. Some other chansons. Final
remarks on them 22
CHAPTER III.
THE MATTER OF BRITAIN.
Attractions of the Arthurian Legend. Discussions on their sources. The
personality of Arthur. The four witnesses. Their testimony. The version
of Geoffrey. Its lacunæ. How the Legend grew. Wace. Layamon. The
Romances proper. Walter Map. Robert de Borron. Chrestien de Troyes.
Prose or verse first? A Latin Graal-book. The Mabinogion. The Legend
itself. The story of Joseph of Arimathea. Merlin. Lancelot. The Legend
becomes dramatic. Stories of Gawain and other knights. Sir Tristram.
His story almost certainly Celtic. Sir Lancelot. The minor knights.
Arthur. Guinevere. The Graal. How it perfects the story. Nature of this
perfection. No sequel possible. Latin episodes. The Legend as a whole.
The theories of its origin. Celtic. French. English. Literary. The Celtic
theory. The French claims. The theory of general literary growth. The
English or Anglo-Norman pretensions. Attempted hypothesis 86
CHAPTER IV.

ANTIQUITY IN ROMANCE.
Oddity of the Classical Romance. Its importance. The Troy story. The
Alexandreid. Callisthenes. Latin versions. Their story. Its developments.
Alberic of Besançon. The decasyllabic poem. The great Roman
d'Alixandre. Form, &c. Continuations. King Alexander. Characteristics.
The Tale of Troy. Dictys and Dares. The Dares story. Its absurdity. Its
capabilities. Troilus and Briseida. The Roman de Troie. The phases of
Cressid. The Historia Trojana. Meaning of the classical romance 148
CHAPTER V.
THE MAKING OF ENGLISH AND THE SETTLEMENT OF
EUROPEAN PROSODY.
Special interest of Early Middle English. Decay of Anglo-Saxon. Early
Middle English Literature. Scantiness of its constituents. Layamon. The
form of