Short Fiction: The Medieval Romance

Introduction

The Middle Ages witnessed the flowering of one of the most important predecessors of the modern short story, the romance. By the late Middle Ages, this genre had become an extremely popular literary form. During the genre’s inception in the eleventh century, the term “romance” referred exclusively to a composition written in French—a “Romance” language. During the literary history of the Middle Ages, however, the term came to denote a fictional narrative of a particular type: The romance is an adventure story focusing upon the experiences of love, honor, terror, and adoration. It is daringly unrealistic in conception and frequently employs remote settings but nevertheless strives for psychological realism. Conventional motifs of the romance include a mysterious challenge, love at first sight, a lonely journey through a wilderness or hostile landscape, and a battle with the enemy, sometimes a monster, often resulting in the rescue of the beloved.

Origins of the Romance

Although the romance assumed a generic identity and acquired a defined form during the Middle Ages, it had its roots in a much earlier tradition. The genre’s development was significantly aided by the infusion of material from classical sources. Medieval romances are to some degree analogous to narrative prose tales, known as Greek romances, written from the first century b.c.e. to the third century c.e. by such authors as Chariton, Xenophon, Heliodorus of Emesa, and Longus. Although medieval writers probably had no direct contact with the original Greek tales, the stories, often about faithful lovers separated and reunited after perilous adventures, were carried on in the oral tradition. The tale of Apollonious of Tyre, a story of Greek origin but only extant in a third or fourth century Latin version, became one of the most widely retold stories of the Middle Ages.

Clerks, the professional writers of the twelfth century, had been trained in the cathedral schools in the arts of Latin grammar and rhetoric. Such Latin works as Ovid’s Metamorphoses (c. 8 c.e.; English translation, 1567) and Ars amatoria (c. 2 b.c.e.; Art of Love, 1612) provided not only more material for the early writers of romance but also a style of exposition which encouraged a systematic development and a symbolic framework in which to elaborate their tales. Rhetorical embellishments with elaborate descriptions of surroundings and procedures and lists of everything from dishes at a feast to flowers in a field decorate the romances as details in an intricate tapestry.

Classical epics, such as the Odyssey (c. 725 b.c.e.; English translation, 1614) and the Aeneid (c. 29-19 b.c.e.; English translation, 1553); sagas, such as the Nibelungenlied (c. 1200); chansons de geste, such as Chanson de Roland (twelfth century; The Song of Roland, 1880); and the early chronicle accounts of Arthur all contain the elements of love, mystery, adventure, and psychology that have now come to be associated with romance. These earlier works, however, differ from romance in being consciously nationalistic and either historical or pseudohistorical, whereas romance, even while striving for verisimilitude, is consciously and deliberately fictional. During the Middle Ages the romance became a distinct literary type in part because writers wished to free themselves from the restrictions of the epic form and in part because the developing interest in new themes and ideas required new modes of expression.

Many of these new ideas and themes concerned the four historical “matters” we have come to associate with romance: the matter of Rome, which consists of romances based upon classical material, whether legendary or historical; the matter of France, which focuses upon the adventures of Charlemagne and his peers; the matter of Britain or Brittany, which concerns stories from Arthurian legend; and the matter of England, which treats native English heroes or heroes whose lives and adventures in some way concerned England.

Medieval romance, then, can be seen to differ from epic—a term that includes saga and chanson de geste—in content, form of presentation, and emphasis. Whereas the epic usually concerns a serious subject of national importance and a warrior-hero whose actions have national implications, the romance often has a plot that concerns a matter of personal importance, such as a love affair and its attendant problems or a chivalric adventure. The plot of the epic serves to reveal the hero’s character and to establish his national importance, while the plot of the romance serves to reveal motivation, to delineate psychological processes and responses, and to explore intellectual and emotional dilemmas. Although many romances deal with the four “matters” of Rome, France, Britain, and England, which would lead one to believe they were historical in nature, their purpose was nevertheless primarily entertainment, and they often contained elements of the mysterious and the supernatural. Further contrasting the epic, which is usually sharply focused and unified, the romance is often of much looser structure; the plot is often episodic, and the episodes are both undeveloped and yet usually embellished by picturesque and detailed descriptions. The romance hero often fights for the sake of fighting or to prove his worth to his lady, while the epic hero ordinarily fights only for a highly significant or exalted purpose. Finally, while the epic very often is tragic, ending with the hero’s death, the romance frequently has a happy ending.

The Matter of Rome

Although medieval romances concerned with the matter of Rome had as possible subjects the adventures of Alexander the Great, the Trojan War, the siege of Thebes, and the adventures of Aeneas, stories of Alexander and of Troy seem to have been the most popular. Kyng Alisaunder (fourteenth century), the best of the Alexander romances, first tells of Alexander’s begetting through the magical powers of the Egyptian king Nectanebus, who contrives to mate with Olympias, the wife of Philip II of Macedon, and thereby fathers Alexander. The romance also details Alexander’s rise to power and his various military accomplishments, particularly his wars with Darius the Great of Persia. The second part of the romance, treating Alexander’s conquest of India and the many adventures he experienced in the Far Eastern countries, relies heavily on the excitement of the unknown and the distant in its description of mythical beasts and other wondrous sights.

The Alexander romances, although concerned with a historical figure, had as little basis in history as did the romances based upon the Troy theme. Since Homer was unknown to Western Europe in the medieval period, Troy romances were based not on the Iliad (c.750 b.c.e.; English translation, 1611) but on two later accounts of the Trojan siege by Dictys of Crete and by Dares Phrygius. Their works concern the story of Jason and the Argonauts in their quest for the Golden Fleece, the siege of Troy, and the Greeks’ return home. Among the Troy romances that make use of these accounts are The Gest Historiale of the Destruction of Troy (thirteenth century); the Laud Troy Book (c. 1400), which selectively treats the material of The Gest Historiale of the Destruction of Troy; John Lydgate’s TheHystorye, Sege and Dystruccyon of Troy (1513; better known as Troy Book); and, most notably, Geoffrey Chaucer’s poem Troilus and Criseyde (1382), the finest execution of this theme. Chaucer uses the Trojan War, however, merely as a backdrop for an examination of chivalric love and the complex psychologies of his two main characters; his concern is with human love, human relations, and human idealism, and the student of romance could do no better than to study Chaucer’s poem in order to obtain a thorough understanding of the genre of romance.

The Matter of France

Those romances concerned with the matter of France—the Charlemagne romances—are closest in kind to the epic form. They concern themselves less with love and psychology and more with warfare and heroism. The Charlemagne romances have as their ultimate source Chanson de Roland (twelfth century; The Song of Roland, 1880), the Old French epic detailing Roland’s heroism, Oliver’s wisdom, Ganelon’s treachery, and Archbishop Turpin’s bravery and piety. The Charlemagne romances (early fourteenth century) fall roughly into two groups: One group, concerning the story of Otuel, contains such romances as Otuel, The Sege of Melayne, and Roland and Vernagu, while the other group, concerned with the story of Ferumbras, contains such romances as The Sowdone of Babylone and Sir Ferumbras. The earliest Charlemagne romance in English, Otuel, contrasts with the original Old French epic by diminishing the stature of Roland in order to elevate that of the hero Otuel. After detailing Otuel’s conversion to Christianity in the midst of his combat with Roland, who had killed Otuel’s uncle Vernagu, the romance describes Otuel’s performance as a Christian knight in battles against the Saracens. The Sege of Melayne, another romance in the Otuel group, is notable for its depiction of Archbishop Turpin as a heroic figure in battle and for its presentation of religious visions and miracles. Roland and Vernagu makes use of the Latin legend that Charlemagne went to the Holy Land and received there such relics as St. Simeon’s arm, Mary’s smock, and the crown of thorns; the romance also tells of the invasion of Spain and of Roland’s battle with Vernagu. Unfinished, the romance was perhaps intended as an introduction to Otuel. The Charlemagne romances, in their treatment of the religious conflict between Christians and infidels, are in some ways akin to Arthurian romances concerned with the Grail theme in that in both sorts of romances religious faith provides a significant motivating force.

In the second group of romances, which concern the Ferumbras theme, The Sowdone of Babylone tells of Laban, the sultan of Babylon, and his twenty-foot-tall son Ferumbras, who sack Rome and, having obtained the relics of the Passion—the cross, the crown of thorns, and the Crucifixion nails—remove them to Spain. When Charlemagne’s army comes to recover the relics, many adventures ensue. Oliver meets Ferumbras in single combat, conquers him, and converts him, after which Ferumbras fights with the Christians against the Saracens. This romance has a noteworthy love story that concerns Floripas, the sultan’s daughter, who falls in love with Guy of Burgundy, one of Charlemagne’s knights. Her ingenuity and determination, which are inspired by her love, are ultimately significant to the victory of Charlemagne’s forces and the rescue of the relics; consequently, after being baptized, she is married to her lover. A number of the incidents in the second part of this romance form the substance of Sir Ferumbras, a consciously and carefully crafted romance, perhaps the best of the English Charlemagne romances.

The Matter of Britain

The most popular of the four matters was the Arthurian theme, the matter of Britain, which was treated extensively by writers in England and on the Continent. The treatment accorded the story of Arthur, surely one of the most famous figures in European literature, well exemplifies the change in literary expression from epic to romance. The earliest accounts in which Arthur appears portray him as a historical hero who comes to assume national importance. By the twelfth century he has been transformed by courtly writers from a historical and national hero to a hero of romance.

Apparently the first historian to mention Arthur is Nennius, whose ninth century Historia Brittonum, a redaction of previous chronicles from the seventh and eighth centuries, describes Arthur as dux bellorum, “the leader of battles,” who slaughters many pagans. Carrying the image of the Virgin Mary on his shield and invoking the name of the Mother of God as a battle cry, Arthur is said to have single-handedly slain 960 men in one day. A similar but much briefer account of Arthur’s prowess in battle is found in the Annales Cambriae, the tenth century work of a Welsh writer who states that Arthur, having carried the cross of Christ on his shoulders for three days and three nights, was victorious in the Battle of Badon. Around 1125, William of Malmesbury, in his Gesta regum Anglorum (The Deeds of the Kings of the English, 1847), attests Arthur’s historicity while he simultaneously acknowledges that myth-making concerning Arthur is taking place; he differentiates between the Arthur of truthful histories and the Arthur of false myths produced by the Britons. In fact, the Arthurian legend expanded greatly during this time, both in Britain and on the Continent; with every crossing of the English Channel the legend accumulated more and more material, so that the actual historicity of Arthur became increasingly difficult to verify.

These historical and pseudohistorical accounts provided the basis for the more deliberately imaginative Arthurian writings, the major sources of contemporary Arthurian legend, which begin to appear in the twelfth century. In that century there is a shift from the treatment of Arthur as a historical figure to the treatment of him as a figure of mythic proportion. Much Arthurian material was carried orally by Breton conteurs. The widespread influence of these bilingual (Breton and French) storytellers was in no little way aided by the military and political success of their patrons, the Normans. As Anglo-Norman power spread by conquest and marriage, the conteurs found welcome in courts in Britain, France, Scotland, Germany, Spain, and Italy. The nature of the Arthurian tales was modified as they traveled.

Traditions and motifs from Celtic legend and folklore were the earliest accruals to the legend of Arthur. The Welsh invested Arthur with the trappings of kingship. Prominent in the early verse is his position at the head of a band of heroes renowned for their skill at slaying monsters. Among these heroes listed and described in Culhwch ac Olwen (c. 1100) are some who survived into later legend, including Cai (Sir Kay), Bedwyr (Sir Bedivere), and Mabon, son of Modron. The quest motif became an integral part of the Arthurian legend in Welsh tradition. One version of the quest is told in Culhwch ac Olwen when Arthur travels to the Otherworld to steal a cauldron, reputed to be able to restore the dead to life. The theme of a hero traveling to far-off lands, even into the Otherworld, to bring back gifts to his people is also a basic story in folklore and myth worldwide. That the Welsh tales are the prototypes for the Grail quest has been the matter of much argument, but at least it can be said that here the theme of the questing hero was first connected to Arthurian legend. Jeffrey Gantz, who in 1976 published a translation of The Mabinogion, connects the quest in Culhwch ac Olwen to similar raids in the other tales in which a hero ventures forth to capture an object—a bowl, a cauldron, or a woman—which is symbolic of female regenerative power. The most prevalent contest is between two men for a woman. This triangle motif is present throughout The Mabinogion and survives in the Arthur-Guinevere-Lancelot and Tristan-Iseult-Mark triangles of later Arthurian romances. The movement by a woman back and forth from one man to another in Celtic literature is frequently connected with abduction. Arthur’s queen, Guinevere, appears first in Welsh traditions, and from the earliest sources, she is the heroine of such an abduction story.

Incorporating material from Celtic tradition, classical sources, and even biblical material, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae (c. 1136; History of the Kings of Britain, 1718) consciously builds upon the scant writings of Nennius to create a national hero for Britain. Geoffrey added to Arthur’s primary historical characterization as a fighter and a leader of warriors the coloration of chivalry, thus combining both epic and courtly traditions. Geoffrey adds to the legend the descent of Arthur from Aeneas of Troy, the begetting of Arthur by Uther Pendragon, the figures of Merlin and Mordred, and the courtly entourage that was necessary in order to reshape Arthur from a local chieftain into a great king. Indications of courtliness are displayed in the notions that a woman could be an incentive for a knight to excel and that a knight’s bravery and nobility could be an incentive for the woman to be pure.

This transformation of the Arthurian story from epic to romance was continued in Wace’s Roman de Brut of 1155. Wace adds to the written legend the tradition of the Round Table, dramatizes the Arthurian story through the addition of dialogue and action, and portrays Arthur as more courtly and less barbaric, as possessing other than martial attributes and abilities. Layamon’s Brut, written around 1200, makes further additions to the legend of an extraordinary and supernatural nature, such as the fays who nurture the infant Arthur and the mysterious ladies who take Arthur away to Avalon. As other writers drew upon and developed the Arthurian material, the story of Arthur, the national hero, eventually became merely a backdrop or a departure point for stories which focused on such corollary themes as the quest for the Holy Grail and on such other knights as Perceval, Lancelot, and Gawain. By the time Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was written late in the fourteenth century, Arthur had been completely transformed from the epic hero he had been at his inception to the chivalric hero of romance.

As time passed and more and more material accrued to the legend of Arthur, the knights of the Round Table superseded Arthur as the focus of the romances; Gawain, Tristan, Lancelot, Galahad, and Perceval are all the subject of stories in which Arthur is only a minor or a corollary figure. Chrétien de Troyes, writing in the last half of the twelfth century, produced several romances for the court of Marie de Champagne. Of those five extant, the unfinished Perceval: Ou, Le Conte du Graal (c. 1180; Perceval: Or, The Story of the Grail, 1844) is notable as a spiritual romance concerning the quest for the Holy Grail, which was used by Wolfram von Eschenbach for his romance Parzival (c. 1200-1210; English translation, 1894) and which also inspired a number of later romances concerning the Grail legend; this romance overtly links chivalry and religion in the romance form.

Chrétien’s Lancelot: Ou, Le Chevalier à la charrette (c. 1168; Lancelot: Or, The Knight of the Cart, 1913) is significant for its development of the ideal that love requires an absolute and unhesitating devotion. Although Chrétien received the material for this romance from his patron, Marie de Champagne, his emphasis on psychological analysis and his examination of the parameters of human commitment to a code of conduct make his treatment of the material unique. In the course of the romance Lancelot sets out to rescue the queen who, as a result of Arthur’s rash promise, has been taken captive. Having been unhorsed by the captor, Lancelot is walking disconsolately behind a cart when the driver tells him to get in if he wishes to learn about the queen. Although Lancelot’s love for Guinevere is great, his pride and his dismay at having to ride in a fashion so unbefitting a knight cause him to take two more steps behind the cart before getting into it. After this act, although he triumphantly passes a number of tests of his devotion to his queen which require him to resist a seduction attempt, to crawl painfully over a bridge made of swords, to fight backward in order to keep his eyes fixed on the tower where his lady watches, and to play the coward in a tournament, Lancelot is nevertheless treated disdainfully by the queen because of the incompleteness of his devotion, indicated by those two additional steps which he had taken behind the cart before climbing in. This romance clearly demonstrates the absolute necessity of total commitment to the loved one.

Sir Thomas Malory, one of the most influential writers of Arthurian material, pulled together for his Le Morte d’Arthur (1485) many of the romances into a more or less unified whole. Although most of Malory’s work is certainly a redaction of earlier writings, it is much more than that, in large part because of Malory’s reshaping of the material into a body of writing that has coherence and purpose. Many later treatments of the story of Arthur are based upon Malory’s work. The enduring popularity of the Arthurian theme is evident in such twentieth century works as Thomas Berger’s Arthur Rex (1978), Richard Monaco’s Parzival: Or, A Knight’s Tale (1977), T. H. White’s The Once and Future King, 1958 (a tetralogy including The Sword in the Stone, The Witch in the Wood, The Ill-Made Knight, and The Candle in the Wind) and The Book of Merlyn: The Unpublished Conclusion to “The Once and Future King” (1977), The Mists of Avalon (1983) by Marion Zimmer Bradley, and the several treatments of the theme by Mary Stewart.

The Matter of England

The romances said to concern the matter of England for the most part differ in some important ways from the other medieval romances discussed. They are often much less courtly and less sophisticated than the other romances, and they advance and support humble and simple virtues rather than the aristocratic virtues of chivalry and the courtly life. The inherited material of these romances, whether of native or foreign origin, having been adapted to the lower-class taste, is consequently often spare and realistic, with little of the descriptive set pieces and other courtly elements. Action is preferred to introspection and analysis, and the poems are usually vigorous and balladlike in their concision.

Among these romances concerning the matter of England are King Horn (c. 1225), which uses the exile and return theme; Bevis of Hampton (c. 1200-1250), which begins with a variation on the Hamlet theme; The Tale of Gamelyn (c. 1350), from which William Shakespeare drew for As You Like It (pr. c. 1599-1600, pb. 1623); and William of Paleme (early fourteenth century), which uses the popular werewolf theme. However, perhaps most reflective of the spirit and the values of England’s peasantry and its growing middle class is Havelok the Dane (c. 1350), a romance concerning a hero who is wrongly excluded from his kingdom in Denmark by an untrustworthy guardian. When the poor fisherman who reared Havelok can no longer support him, Havelok obtains work as a kitchen helper, soon earning renown locally for his ability to putt the stone; while such activities seem the very antithesis of courtly endeavor, they are nonetheless solidly representative of middle-class virtues. In time Havelok marries an orphaned English princess, Goldeboru, who, like Havelok, was betrayed by a guardian; when one night Goldeboru sees a luminous mark on Havelok’s shoulder that indicates his royalty, she is overjoyed. After returning to Denmark and claiming his throne, Havelok conquers England and rewards all who have treated him well. The emphasis throughout the poem is on adventure, justice, and homely but traditional virtues, an emphasis that clearly distinguishes this romance and the other romances on the matter of England from those romances of the period which emphasize courtliness.

Courtly Love

The ideals of chivalry and courtly love, hallmarks of the romance, were signs of a revolutionary change in Western culture. Although debate continues as to whether or not a “system” of courtly love was recognized as such in the Middle Ages, historians do know for certain that courtly attitudes existed, that people aspired to courtly ideals, and that those courtly attitudes and ideals influenced people’s conduct. One of the reasons for the importance of these attitudes undoubtedly is attributable to the patronage of artists and writers by such influential women as Eleanor of Aquitaine, queen first of France and then of England, and her daughter Marie de Champagne. In conjunction with the cult of the Virgin, the courtly mystique elevated noble women to morally and spiritually superior beings who could inspire admirers to transcend human limitations and rise to new heights of nobility; courtly love made a religion of male devotion to a lady, and courtly idealism demanded a high degree of civilized and sophisticated behavior in its adherents.

The courtly idealism so characteristic of the romance form during the Middle Ages first appeared in the eleventh century Provençal poetry of the trouvères. The originality of the Provençal poets, led by Guillaume X of Aquitaine (Eleanor’s grandfather), lay not only in their use of vernacular language but also in their concept of a passion characterized by love at first sight, friendship between the lover and his lady, humility in wooing the lady, graciousness on the lady’s part in granting her favor to the lover, and secrecy in concealing the love. The new poetry spread swiftly throughout Europe. From Aquitaine and Provence, the troubadours of central France took up the songs; at Eleanor’s court at Poitiers, Bernard de Ventadour wrote his best poetry. The German Minnesänger brought courtly love to Germany, inspiring the prose romances of Gottfried von Strassburg and Wolfram von Eschenbach. In Italy poets embraced la stil nuova, the sweet new style, which culminated in Dante’s fusion of courtly love and mystical vision, first in La vita nuova (c. 1292; Vita Nuova, 1861, better known as The New Life) and most sublimely in La divina commedia (c. 1320; The Divine Comedy; 1802).

From France the courtly ideal spread throughout Europe, advanced in part by the enormously influential work of André Le Chapelain. A chaplain to the court of Marie de Champagne, Andreas Capellanus, in the latter quarter of the twelfth century, codified the system of courtly love in his three-volume work Liber de arte honeste amandi et reprobatione inhonesti amoris (1184-1186; The Art of Courtly Love, 1941). The work’s first two books define love, establish its rules, and detail the appropriate conduct for its devotees, while the third book, curiously, serves as a retraction which seems to contradict everything said before. The first two books, emphasizing the ennobling nature of passionate love, explain the incompatibility of love and marriage; in fact, Capellanus states that love has no place in marriage since love requires secrecy, jealousy, apprehension, and difficulty in attainment. Marriage is not, however, an excuse for not loving; rather the beloved must be someone other than one’s spouse. Capellanus also states that the lover’s whole mind is on the beloved and, in consequence, the lover will suffer greatly, will exhibit paleness, and will experience sleeplessness, heart palpitations, and loss of appetite.

The influence of this codification of courtly love on medieval romance, on the later romance tradition, and indeed on Western society, is immeasurable, since the work of Capellanus is both descriptive in recording existing attitudes and prescriptive in establishing those attitudes as the ideal. The emotional concept which is now called “romantic love” is thus invented during the Middle Ages, when love was separated from marriage; marriage, after all, was based on such things as property and politics and was, therefore, practical and mundane, whereas courtly love, as depicted by Capellanus, is spiritual and passionate. Thus, in its establishment of love as an ennobling social influence, in its delineation of the rules for the conduct of love, and in its development of the notion of feminine worth, the work of Capellanus influenced to a great extent both literature and society. Many of the deepest patterns of behavior which today govern relations between the sexes have their genesis in the code which Capellanus describes.

If Capellanus provided a formulation of the rules of courtly behavior, both Chrétien de Troyes and Marie de France, poets of the latter part of the twelfth century, provided extremely influential artistic celebrations of the courtly system. The approximately fifteen extant lais that are attributed to Marie are all short, simple, and direct, and were probably intended to be sung to harp accompaniment; emphasizing love rather than warfare, the poems reflect courtly sentiment in their focus upon courtesy, chivalry, and loyalty in love. Typical of Marie’s themes and treatments is the lai of “Lanval.” In disfavor with his king, Lanval one day rides into the country; lying down to rest, he is approached by two beautiful maidens who take him to their lady in a nearby pavilion. The lady, obviously a supernatural being, gives Lanval her love and a bottomless purse but warns him that if he speaks of her to anyone, he will never see her again. When Guinevere accuses Lanval of being false to his lord, of having secret sins, and of despising women, he defends himself by stating indignantly that in fact he has a lover and that the lowliest of her servants excels Guinevere in every way. Denounced by Guinevere to Arthur, Lanval is directed to produce his lady and prove his statement, but he is unable to summon her. Saved from prison only by the surety of his friends, he is about to be sentenced to exile when a procession of beautiful maidens arrives, the last of whom is Lanval’s mistress. When Arthur agrees that she is indeed more beautiful than the queen, Lanval’s supernatural lover takes him away with her to Avalon.

Marie claimed that her intent in her work was merely to turn traditional tales into romance, and clearly she uses in her lais many conventional topics: The woman scorned motif draws upon the theme of Potiphar’s wife; the idea of the supernatural lover comes either from Celtic fairy lore or from the classical myth of Cupid and Psyche; and the bottomless purse and the outcast who becomes favored above all are elements common in folktale. Marie has, however, imbued these thematic strands with the coloration of courtly love, so that the lai serves as an exemplum illustrating one of the courtly love tenets—the necessity of keeping love secret.

Influence of the Medieval Romance

In sum, then, medieval romances can be seen to encompass a wide variety of subjects and to represent various cultural attitudes. In the medieval age the form drew upon a broad spectrum of sources, including history, legend, folktale, saints’ lives, exemplum, fairy lore, and classical materials. After its beginning in the twelfth century, the romance was widely adapted throughout the next three centuries by writers of many countries whose works influenced one another to the extent that establishing direct lines of descent for particular themes or subjects is generally impossible. The pervasiveness of those ideas in later fiction results in part from the genre’s use of themes that transcend temporal limitations; the motifs of the wicked guardian, the disinherited hero, the scorned admirer, the wronged lover, and the love triangle, which are found in such abundance in medieval romances, continue to inform later works of short and long fiction. The medieval romance, like myth and folktale, thus draws on archetypal situations and figures for the presentation of its themes, but at the same time it satisfies the reader’s desire for the unusual, the strange, and the alien.

Romance also transcends time in its presentation of the idealized world; the impulse to depict such a world, seen continually in medieval romances, persists in contemporary fiction. Similarly, the medieval romance’s insistence on seeing women as admirable creatures and as sources of inspiration enabled the genre to posit the validity of love as a motive for and a cause of nobility, an idea which continues to govern much modern writing. Clearly, the importance of medieval romance in contributing form, material, and attitude to the development of modern prose fiction can hardly be overestimated; the romance provided a broad imaginative scope while it simultaneously bequeathed a legacy of rich material for plot and characterization.

In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries the romance as a literary form declined in popularity, making way for neoclassical forms. In the late eighteenth century the gothic romance became popular, but this was a variation on the traditional romance form that relied heavily on sensational material and the evocation of emotions heightened to a painful degree. In the nineteenth century romance ceased to be primarily a generic distinction and became instead an attribute or a characteristic or an attitude, which was frequently juxtaposed to realism; whereas realism meant the objective literary consideration of ordinary people in ordinary situations, romance came to mean the subjective literary consideration of the unusual. Nathaniel Hawthorne, in his preface to The House of the Seven Gables (1851), illustrates this perception of the genre as he states that romance implies for the author a latitude in content and expression that permits the manipulation of the atmosphere and the delicate and judicious inclusion of the marvelous.

In modern times, romance has undergone yet further alterations. When hearing the term in the twentieth century, one usually thinks either of “confessional” love stories found in women’s magazines or of popular love stories in novel form. This form of romance has clearly deteriorated from that of the Middle Ages, but the characteristics of romance are deeply ingrained in Western literary heritage. Both science-fiction and fantasy stories must be considered modern forms of the romance, as are stories of the American West—whenever heroes venture out into the unknown to confront hostile or mysterious forces, the reader is in the territory of romance. Any literature that is other than firmly realistic, which strives for psychological analysis, which conceives of a world as it ought to be rather than as it is, which sees love as a motive force for nobility, or which is imaginative in simultaneously portraying an unreal world with unreal characters who nevertheless reveal human truths, owes its very essence to the romance tradition.

Bibliography

Barron, W. R. J. English Medieval Romance. London: Longman, 1987. A comprehensive study of Middle English romance which starts with the European roots of romance and its evolution in twelfth century France. The bulk of the book focuses on a detailed study of English romances, including the variety of forms and the grouping of story material into the four historical matters of romance.

Clogan, Paul Maurice, ed. Medieval Hagiography and Romance. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1975. An introductory study of the medieval romance, including a discussion of Christian saints in literature. Includes a bibliography and an index.

Field, Rosalind, ed. Tradition and Transformation in Medieval Romance. Rochester, N.Y.: D. S. Brewer, 1999. A historical and critical look at the medieval romance, including an examination of medieval rhetoric. Includes bibliographical references and an index.

Kelly, Douglas. The Art of Medieval French Romance. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992. Kelly discusses the distinction between author and narrator, the question of literary terminology in Old French, the relationship between Latin rhetoric and vernacular literature, and the definition of the romance genre itself.

Kreuger, Roberta L., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Romance. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Fifteen essays describe the origins of early verse romance in twelfth century French and Anglo-Norman courts and analyze the evolution of verse and prose romance in France, Germany, England, Italy, and Spain throughout the Middle Ages. Fresh perspectives are offered on the relationship of romance to other genres; popular romance in urban contexts; romance as a mirror of familial and social tensions; and the representation of courtly love, chivalry, “other” worlds, and gender roles.

Meale, Carol M., ed. Readings in Medieval English Romance. Rochester, N.Y.: D. S. Brewer, 1994. A historical look at the English romance in the Middle Ages. Includes a bibliography and an index.

Mills, Maldwyn, Jennifer Fellows, and Carol M. Meale, eds. Romance in Medieval England. Rochester, N.Y.: D. S. Brewer, 1991. A collection of essays delivered at a 1988 conference on medieval romance in England, held at the University of Wales Conference Centre in Gregynog, Newtown; discusses medieval romance and poetry. Includes bibliographical references and an index.

Stevens, John. Medieval Romance: Themes and Approaches. New York: W. W. Norton, 1973. Stresses the continuity between medieval and later literature and declares that the subjects of medieval romance are the great and permanent concerns of literature.