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

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 invidi? 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 medi?val Latin literature. Excepted divisions. Comic Latin literature. Examples of its verbal influence. The value of burlesque. Hymns. The Dies Ir?. 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 o?l. 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 N?mes. 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 lacun?. 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 Besan?on. 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 the Brut. Its substance. The Ormulum: Its metre, its spelling. The Ancren Riwle. The Owl and the Nightingale. Proverbs. Robert of Gloucester. Romances. Havelok the Dane. King Horn. The prosody of the modern languages. Historical retrospect. Anglo-Saxon prosody. Romance prosody. English prosody. The later alliteration. The new verse. Rhyme and syllabic equivalence. Accent and quantity.