Chapter V
Reading edition
CHAPTER V
ROMANCE AND THE OLD FRENCH ROMANTIC SCHOOLS
Romance an element in Epic and Tragedy apart from all "romantic schools"321
The literary movements of the twelfth century322
A new beginning323
The Romantic School unromantic in its methods324
Professional Romance325
Characteristics of the school—courteous sentiment328
Decorative passages—descriptions—pedantry329
Instances from Roman de Troie and from Ider, etc.330 331
Romantic adventures—the "matter of Rome" and the "matter of Britain"334
Blending of classical and Celtic influences—e.g. in Benoit's Medea334
Methods of narrative—simple, as in the Lay of Guingamor; overloaded, as in Walewein337
Guingamor338
Walewein, a popular tale disguised as a chivalrous romance340
The different versions of Libeaux Desconus—one of them is sophisticated343
Tristram—the Anglo-Norman poems comparatively simple and ingenuous344
French Romance and Provençal Lyric345
Ovid in the Middle Ages—the Art of Love346
The Heroines347
Benoit's Medea again348
Chrestien of Troyes, his place at the beginning of modern literature349
'Enlightenment' in the Romantic School350
The sophists of Romance—the rhetoric of sentiment and passion351
The progress of Romance from medieval to modern literature352
Chrestien of Troyes, his inconsistencies—nature and convention352
Departure from conventional romance; Chrestien's Enid355
Chrestien's Cliges—"sensibility"357
Flamenca, a Provençal story of the thirteenth century—the author a follower of Chrestien359
His acquaintance with romantic literature and rejection of the "machinery" of adventures360 360
Flamenca, an appropriation of Ovid—disappearance of romantic mythology361
The Lady of Vergi, a short tragic story without false rhetoric362
Use of medieval themes by the great poets of the fourteenth century363
Boccaccio and Chaucer—the Teseide and the Knight's Tale364
Variety of Chaucer's methods364
Want of art in the Man of Law's Tale365
The abstract point of honour (Clerk's Tale, Franklin's Tale)366
Pathos in the Legend of Good Women366
Romantic method perfect in the Knight's Tale366
Anelida, the abstract form of romance367
In Troilus and Criseyde the form of medieval romance is filled out with strong dramatic imagination367
Romance obtains the freedom of Epic, without the old local and national limitations of Epic368
Conclusion370
APPENDIX
Note A—Rhetoric of the Alliterative Poetry373
Note B—Kjartan and Olaf Tryggvason375
Note C—Eyjolf Karsson381
Note D—Two Catalogues of Romances384
INDEX391