W. P. K.

Oxford, 25th Jan. 1908.


CONTENTS

[CHAPTER I]

INTRODUCTION

I

[The Heroic Age]

PAGE
Epic and Romance: the two great orders of medieval narrative[3]
Epic, of the "heroic age," preceding Romance of the "age of chivalry"[4]
The heroic age represented in three kinds of literature—Teutonic Epic, French Epic, and the Icelandic Sagas[6]
Conditions of Life in an "heroic age"[7]
Homer and the Northern poets[9]
Homeric passages in Beowulf
and in the Song of Maldon
[10]
[11]
Progress of poetry in the heroic age[13]
Growth of Epic, distinct in character, but generally incomplete, among the Teutonic nations[14]