Part 1 (1/2)

Epic and Romance.

by W. P. Ker.

PREFACE

These essays are intended as a general description of some of the princ.i.p.al 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.

Some of these notes have been already used, in a course of three lectures at the Royal Inst.i.tution, in March 1892, on ”the Progress of Romance in the Middle Ages,” and in lectures given at University College and elsewhere. The plot of the Dutch romance of _Walewein_ was discussed in a paper submitted to the Folk-Lore Society two years ago, and published in the journal of the Society (_Folk-Lore_, vol. v. p.

121).

I am greatly indebted to my friend Mr. Paget Toynbee for his help in reading the proofs.

I cannot put out on this venture without acknowledgment of my obligation to two scholars, who have had nothing to do with my employment of all that I have borrowed from them, the Oxford editors of the Old Northern Poetry, Dr. Gudbrand Vigfusson and Mr. York Powell. I have still to learn what Mr. York Powell thinks of these discourses. What Gudbrand Vigfusson would have thought I cannot guess, but I am glad to remember the wise goodwill which he was always ready to give, with so much else from the resources of his learning and his judgment, to those who applied to him for advice.

W. P. KER.

LONDON, _4th November 1896_.

POSTSCRIPT

This book is now reprinted without addition or change, except in a few small details. If it had to be written over again, many things, no doubt, would be expressed in a different way. For example, after some time happily spent in reading the Danish and other ballads, I am inclined to make rather less of the interval between the ballads and the earlier heroic poems, and I have learned (especially from Dr. Axel Olrik) that the Danish ballads do not belong originally to simple rustic people, but to the Danish gentry in the Middle Ages. Also the comparison of Sturla's Icelandic and Norwegian histories, though it still seems to me right in the main, is driven a little too far; it hardly does enough justice to the beauty of the _Life of Hacon_ (_Hakonar Saga_), especially in the part dealing with the rivalry of the King and his father-in-law Duke Skule. The critical problems with regard to the writings of Sturla are more difficult than I imagined, and I am glad to have this opportunity of referring, with admiration, to the work of my friend Dr. Bjorn Magnusson Olsen on the _Sturlunga Saga_ (in _Safn til Sogu Islands_, iii. pp. 193-510, Copenhagen, 1897). Though I am unable to go further into that debatable ground, I must not pa.s.s over Dr. Olsen's argument showing that the life of the original Sturla of Hvamm (_v. inf._ pp. 253-256) was written by Snorri himself; the story of the alarm and pursuit (p. 255) came from the recollections of Gudny, Snorri's mother.

In the _Chansons de Geste_ a great discovery has been made since my essay was written; the _Chancun de Willame_, an earlier and ruder version of the epic of _Aliscans_, has been printed by the unknown possessor of the ma.n.u.script, and generously given to a number of students who have good reason to be grateful to him for his liberality. There are some notes on the poem in _Romania_ (vols.

x.x.xii. and x.x.xiv.) by M. Paul Meyer and Mr. Raymond Weeks, and it has been used by Mr. Andrew Lang in ill.u.s.tration of Homer and his age. It is the sort of thing that the Greeks willingly let die; a rough draught of an epic poem, in many ways more barbarous than the other extant _chansons de geste_, but full of vigour, and notable (like _le Roi Gormond_, another of the older epics) for its refrain and other lyrical pa.s.sages, very like the manner of the ballads. The _Chancun de Willame_, it may be observed, is not very different from _Aliscans_ with regard to Rainouart, the humorous gigantic helper of William of Orange. One would not have been surprised if it had been otherwise, if Rainouart had been first introduced by the later composer, with a view to ”comic relief” or some such additional variety for his tale. But it is not so; Rainouart, it appears, has a good right to his place by the side of William. The grotesque element in French epic is found very early, _e.g._ in the _Pilgrimage of Charlemagne_, and is not to be reckoned among the signs of decadence.

There ought to be a reference, on p. 298 below, to M. Joseph Bedier's papers in the _Revue Historique_ (xcv. and xcvii.) on _Raoul de Cambrai_. M. Bedier's _Legendes epiques_, not yet published at this time of writing, will soon be in the hands of his expectant readers.

I am deeply indebted to many friends--first of all to York Powell--for innumerable good things spoken and written about these studies. My reviewers, in spite of all differences of opinion, have put me under strong obligations to them for their fairness and consideration.

Particularly, I have to offer my most sincere acknowledgments to Dr.

Andreas Heusler of Berlin for the honour he has done my book in his _Lied und Epos_ (1905), and not less for the help that he has given, in this and other of his writings, towards the better understanding of the old poems and their history.

W. P. K.

OXFORD, _25th Jan. 1908_.

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

I

THE HEROIC AGE

The t.i.tle of Epic, or of ”heroic poem,” is claimed by historians for a number of works belonging to the earlier Middle Ages, and to the medieval origins of modern literature. ”Epic” is a term freely applied to the old school of Germanic narrative poetry, which in different dialects is represented by the poems of Hildebrand, of Beowulf, of Sigurd and Brynhild. ”Epic” is the name for the body of old French poems which is headed by the _Chanson de Roland_. The rank of Epic is a.s.signed by many to the _Nibelungenlied_, not to speak of other Middle High German poems on themes of German tradition. The t.i.tle of prose Epic has been claimed for the Sagas of Iceland.

By an equally common consent the name Romance is given to a number of kinds of medieval narrative by which the Epic is succeeded and displaced; most notably in France, but also in other countries which were led, mainly by the example and influence of France, to give up their own ”epic” forms and subjects in favour of new manners.