E-text prepared by Ted Garvin, Linda Cantoni, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/c/)

ESSAYS ON MEDIEVAL LITERATURE

BY

W. P. KER

PREFACE

POSTSCRIPT

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

I

The Heroic Age

II

Epic and Romance

III

Romantic Mythology

IV

The Three Schools—Teutonic Epic—French Epic—The Icelandic Histories

CHAPTER II

THE TEUTONIC EPIC

I

The Tragic Conception

II

Scale of the Poems

III

Epic and Ballad Poetry

IV

The Style of the Poems

V

The Progress of Epic

VI

Beowulf

CHAPTER III

THE ICELANDIC SAGAS

I

Iceland and the Heroic Age

II

Matter and Form

III

The Heroic Ideal

IV

Tragic Imagination

V

Comedy

VI

The Art of Narrative

VII

Epic and History

VIII

The Northern Prose Romances

CHAPTER IV

THE OLD FRENCH EPIC

(Chansons de Geste)

CHAPTER V

ROMANCE AND THE OLD FRENCH ROMANTIC SCHOOLS

APPENDIX

CHAPTER I

I

THE HEROIC AGE

II

EPIC AND ROMANCE

III

ROMANTIC MYTHOLOGY

IV

THE THREE SCHOOLS—TEUTONIC EPIC—FRENCH EPIC—THE ICELANDIC HISTORIES

CHAPTER II

I

THE TRAGIC CONCEPTION

II

SCALE OF THE POEMS

The Western Group

The Northern Group

III

EPIC AND BALLAD POETRY

IV

THE STYLE OF THE POEMS

V

THE PROGRESS OF EPIC

VARIOUS RENDERINGS OF THE SAME STORY

VI

BEOWULF

CHAPTER III

I

ICELAND AND THE HEROIC AGE

II

MATTER AND FORM

III

THE HEROIC IDEAL

IV

TRAGIC IMAGINATION

V

COMEDY

VI

THE ART OF NARRATIVE

VII

EPIC AND HISTORY

VIII

THE NORTHERN PROSE ROMANCES

CHAPTER IV

THE OLD FRENCH EPIC

(Chansons de Geste)

CHAPTER V

AND THE OLD FRENCH ROMANTIC SCHOOLS

ROMANCE

AND THE OLD FRENCH ROMANTIC SCHOOLS

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS

APPENDIX

Note A (p. 133)

Rhetoric of the Western and Northern Alliterative Poems

Note B (p. 205)

The Meeting of Kjartan and King Olaf Tryggvason (Laxdæla Saga, c. 40)

Note C (p. 257)

Note D (p. 360)

Two Catalogues of Romances

INDEX

THE END

FOOTNOTES