Synopsis
The digital edition of all books may be viewed on our website before purchase. Excerpt from An Introduction to English Medieval Literature (Classic Reprint)
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Présentation de l'éditeur
From the Author's PREFACE:
THE recent abundance of reprints and translations marks a second approach toward the recovery of the middle age. While the previous generation of historians was dispelling the legendary darkness of this dark age, the critics turned the connotation of Gothic from pity to praise. Pity for the middle age became so antiquated that enthusiasts ventured even to demand worship instead. What remained for our time was more exact appreciation through an increasing availability of medieval literature. To the widely interesting body of literature now at hand in English I have tried here to furnish a students' guide. This book is not for scholars. They are provided already. What seemed to be lacking was such a brief manual as should open the main literary significances to students not specially trained. Therefore, though the discussion necessarily includes works written in Latin and Old French, and relies, of course, on foreign as well as English scholarship, the citations and the suggestions for further study are generally limited to works accessible in English. What I have thus tried to provide is, not a substitute for close study, but an introduction.
Meantime even a general survey of English medieval literature corrects perspective. The larger literary interests and habits of the time, even when some of them are discerned through translations, open the way for truer appreciation of later interests. For the comprehension of later, more complex forms also, the best preparation is study of the earlier and simpler forms. To this end I have made some imitative renderings, not under an hallucination of reproducing the original poetry, but in the conviction that of the elements composing literary connotation the most suggestive in translation is the habit of rhythm. Passing from translation through annotated extracts to the discussion of original texts, I have sought to persuade my readers that Middle English is not altogether beyond them, and that it is too interesting and significant to be slurred.
The frontiers of literature are so broad that no single discussion, whatever its length, can hope to be exhaustive. Though medieval literature is inseparable from medieval theology and sociology, this larger view is hardly furthered by presenting all three at once. The necessity of holding to one aspect becomes a virtue in so far as it leads a student of literature to begin with literature itself; not with biography, nor even with history, but with that expression of truth which has endured because of its beauty; not with the poet, but with the poem. To such an approach we are further invited by the scantiness of medieval biography. The middle age apparently thought of biography as belonging rather to men of action than to men of letters; and this idea, in spite of our modern curiosity, is still suggestive of due proportion. The necessity of beginning with Piers Plowman itself, for lack of any certain knowledge of its author, suggests a sound order of study. In another way also my discussion is strictly limited. Many works are deliberately omitted in order that the significant few may stand out. For this book is meant to be neither a history nor a directory, but a guide to the appreciation of medieval literature.
My Columbia colleagues have given me unstinted time. Professor Matthews, after entering sympathetically into the original idea, took pains to reappraise the whole scope and method. That this was carried beyond the critical point of revision to its present form I owe to the generous counsel of Professor Trent. Over the manuscript Professor Krapp and Professor Lawrence disputed with me the larger medieval tendencies. Professor Ayres and Professor Gildersleeve made the proofs occasion for futher constructive criticism. The grateful pleasure of recording these obligations is enhanced by the sense of friendly fellowship in the attempt to win more readers for our earlier literature.
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