Epic and Romance: Essays on Medieval Literature

E-text prepared by Ted Garvin, Linda Cantoni, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/c/)
Transcriber's Notes:
This e-text employs some Anglo-Saxon characters, such as the eth (Ð or ð, equivalent of th ) and the thorn (Þ or þ, also equivalent of th ). These characters should display properly in most browsers. The Anglo-Saxon yogh (equivalent of y, g, or gh ) will display properly only if the user has the proper font. A mouse-over pop-up transliteration has been provided for words containing a yogh, e.g., Ȝong.
This e-text also contains passages in ancient Greek. In the original text, some of the Greek characters have diacritical marks that may not display properly in some browsers, depending on the available fonts. In order to make this e-text as accessible as possible, the diacritical marks have been omitted. Short phrases in Greek have a mouse-hover transliteration, e.g., καλος. Longer passages have the transliteration immediately following.
FELLOW OF ALL SOULS COLLEGE, OXFORD PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 1931 COPYRIGHT First Edition (8vo) 1896 Second Edition (Eversley Series) 1908 Reprinted (Crown 8vo) 1922, 1926, 1931 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, EDINBURGH

These essays are intended as a general description of some of the principal forms of narrative literature in the Middle Ages, and as a review of some of the more interesting works in each period. It is hardly necessary to say that the conclusion is one in which nothing is concluded, and that whole tracts of literature have been barely touched on—the English metrical romances, the Middle High German poems, the ballads, Northern and Southern—which would require to be considered in any systematic treatment of this part of history.
Many serious difficulties have been evaded (in Finnesburh , more particularly), and many things have been taken for granted, too easily. My apology must be that there seemed to be certain results available for criticism, apart from the more strict and scientific procedure which is required to solve the more difficult problems of Beowulf , or of the old Northern or the old French poetry. It is hoped that something may be gained by a less minute and exacting consideration of the whole field, and by an attempt to bring the more distant and dissociated parts of the subject into relation with one another, in one view.