Epic and Romance: Essays on Medieval Literature

✍ Scribed by William Paton Ker

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 1957
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 452
• Edition: Reprint
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Unaltered, unabridged republication of the revised (1908) edition.

The essays gathered together in this volume constitute one of the major classics in the study of the literature of the Middle Ages. Specifically, the book deals with the four major schools of Medieval narrative: the Teutonic Epic, the Icelandic Saga, the Chanson de Geste, and the Romance. But Ker's vast background in the field and his analytical and critical skills allow him to range over the whole of Medieval epic and romance with great intelligence.

The introduction quickly and vividly fills in the necessary background on the heroic age, the nature of epic and of romance, romantic mythology, and the three types of epic. The Teutonic Epic, the Icelandic Sagas, the Old French Epic, and Romance and the Old French Romantic Schools are the subjects of the chapters that follow. Within these, Ker discusses the tragic conception, resemblances of themes within each group, epic vs. ballad, fantasy and comedy in the sagas, competition of epic and romance in the 12th century, the contribution of Chrestien of Troyes, the blending of classical with Celtic influences, and dozens of other topics.

The result is a work of scholarship that is also a work of literature. Always readable, always informative, it is a book that remains, after seven decades, vital for all students and serious readers in the great traditions of Western literature.

✦ Table of Contents

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION
1. The heroic age 3
2. Epic and romance 16
3. Romantic mythology 35
4. The three schools - Teutonic epic - French epic - The Icelandic histories 50
CHAPTER II: THE TEUTONIC EPIC
1. The tragic conception 65
2. Scale of the poems 76
3. Epic and ballad poetry 123
4. The style of the poems 133
5. The progress of epic 144
6. Beowulf 158
CHAPTER III: THE ICELANDIC SAGAS
1. Iceland and the heroic age 179
2. Matter and form 184
3. The heroic ideal 200
4. Tragic imagination 207
5. Comedy 225
6. The art of narrative 235
7. Epic and history 246
8. The northern prose romances 275
CHAPTER IV: THE OLD FRENCH EPIC ("Chansons de geste") 287
CHAPTER V: ROMANCE AND THE OLD FRENCH ROMANTIC SCHOOLS 321
APPENDIX 373
INDEX 391