Song and Legend from the Middle Ages

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By WILLIAM D. MCCLINTOCK Assistant Professor of English Literature, University Of Chicago AND PORTER LANDER McCLINTOCK
Chautauqua Reading Circle Literature 1893
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.
1. 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 . 2. Spanish Literature. (1) Longfellow, as above. (2) Ormsby's The Cid . (3) Lockhart's Ancient Spanish Ballads . 3. Scandinavian Literature. (1) Longfellow, as above. (2) Anderson's Norse Mythology . 4. German Literature. (1) Longfellow, as above. (2) Lettsom's Niebelungenlied . (3) Scherer's History of German Literature . 5. 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 .
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 literature, so long as it remains in the original tongues, is inaccessible; and translations of many entire works are not within easy reach.