pseudo-Callisthenes and “Julius Valerius” applied to the historical wars of Alexander, but there is every reason to believe that it was done fairly early. In short, during the late classical or semi-classical times and the whole of the dark ages, things were making for romance in almost every direction.
It would and did follow from this that the thing evolved itself in so many different places and in so many different forms that only a person of extraordinary temerity would put his finger on any given work and say, “This is the first romance,” even putting aside the extreme chronological uncertainty of most of the documents that could be selected for such a position. Except by the most meteoric flights of “higher” criticism we cannot attain to any opinion as to the age and first developed form of such a story as that of Weland and Beadohild (referred to in the Complaint of Deor), which has strong romantic Uncertainty of its order. possibilities and must be almost of the oldest. The much more complicated Volsung and Nibelung story, though we may explore to some extent the existence backwards of its Norse and German forms, baffles us beyond certain points in each case; yet this, with the exception of the religious element, is romance almost achieved. And the origin of the great type of the romance that is achieved—that has all elements present and brings them to absolute perfection—the Arthurian legend, despite the immense labours that have been spent upon it and the valuable additions to particular knowledge which have resulted from some of them, is, still more than its own Grail, a quest unachieved, probably a thing unachievable. The longest and the widest inquiries, provided only that they be conducted in any spirit save that which determines to attain certainty and therefore concludes that certainty has been attained, will probably acquiesce most resignedly in the dictum that romance “grew”—that its birthplace is as unknown as the grave of its greatest representative figure.
But when it has “grown” to a certain stage we can find it, and in a way localize it, and more definitely still analyse and comprehend its characteristics from their concrete expressions.
Approaching these concrete expressions, then, without at first too hard and fast requirements in regard to the validation Classes of source. of the claims, we find in Europe about the 11th century (the time is designedly left loose) divers classes of what we should now call imaginative or fictitious literature, nearly all (the exceptions are Scandinavian and Old English) in verse. These are: (i) The saints' lives; (ii) the Norse sagas, roughly so-called; (iii) the French chansons de geste; (iv) the Old English and Old German stories of various kinds; (v) perhaps the beginning of the Arthurian cycle; (vi) various stories more or less based on classical legend or history from the tales of Alexander and of Troy down to things like Apollonius of Tyre, which have no classical authority of either kind, but strongly resemble the Greek romances, and which were, as in the case named, pretty certainly derived from members of the class; (vii) certain fragments of Eastern story making their way first, it may be, through Spain by pilgrimages, latterly by the crusades.
Now, without attempting to fence off too rigidly the classical from the romantic, it may be laid down that these various classes possess that romantic character, to which we are, by a process of netting and tracking, slowly making our way, in rather different degrees, and a short examination of the difference will forward us not a little in the hunt.
With i. (the saints' lives) we have least to do: because by the time that romance in the full sense comes largely and clearly into view, it has for the most part separated itself off—the legend of St Eustace has become the romance of Sir Isumbras, and so forth. But the influence which it may, as has been said, have originally given must have been continually re-exerted; the romantic-dynamic suggestion of such stories as those of St Mary of Egypt, of St Margaret and the Dragon, of St Dorothea, and of scores of others, is quite unmistakable. Still, in actual result, it works rather more on drama than on narrative romance. and produces the miracle plays.
In ii. (the sagas), while a large part of their matter and even not a little of their form are strongly romantic, differences of handling and still more of temper have made some demur to their inclusion under romance, while their final ousting in their own literatures by versions of the all-conquering French romance itself is an argument on the same side. But the Volsung story, for instance, is full of what may be called “undistilled” romance—the wine is there, but it has to be passed through the still—and even in the most domestic sagas proper this characteristic is largely present.
It is somewhat less so in iii. (the chansons de geste), at least in the apparently older ones, though here again the comparative absence of romantic characteristics has been rather exaggerated, in consequence of the habit of paying disproportionate and even exclusive attention to the Chanson de Roland. There is more, that is, of romance in Aliscans and others of the older class, while Amis and Amiles, which must be of this class in time, is almost a complete romance, blending war, love and religion—salus, venus, virtus—in full degree.
The other four classes, the miscellaneous stories from classical, Eastern and European sources, having less corporate or national character, lend themselves with greater ease to the conditions of romantic development; but even so in different degrees. The classical stories have to drop most of their original character and allow something very different to be superinduced before they become thoroughly romantic. The greatest success of all in this way is the story of Troilus and Cressida. For before its development through the successive hands of Benoît de Sainte-More, Boccaccio (for we may drop Guido of the Columns as a mere middleman between Benoît and Boccaccio) and Chaucer, it has next to no classical authority of any kind except the mere names. In the various Alexandreids the element of the marvellous—the Eastern element, that is to say—similarly overpowers the classical. As for the Eastern stories themselves, they are particularly difficult of certain unravelment. The large moral division—such as Barlaam and Josaphat, the Seven Wise Masters in its various forms, &c., comes short of the strictly romantic. We do not know how much of East and how much of West there is in such things as Flore et Blanchefleur or even in Huon of Bordeaux itself. Contrariwise we ought to know, more certainly than apparently is known yet, what is the date and history of such a thing as that story of Zumurrud and Ali Shahr, which may be found partly in Lane and fully in the complete translations of the Arabian Nights, though not in the commoner editions, and which is evidently either copied from, or capable of serving as model to, a Western roman d'aventures itself.
We come, however, much closer to the actual norm itself—closer, in fact, than in any other place save one—in the various stories, English, French, and to a less extent German,[1] which gradually received in a loose kind of way the technical French term just used, a term not to be translated without danger. Nearly all these stories were drawn, by the astonishing centripetal tendency which made France the home of all romance between the 11th and the 13th centuries, into French forms; and in most cases no older ones survive. But it is hardly possible to doubt that in such a case, for instance, as Havelok, an original story of English or Scandinavian origin got itself into existence before, and perhaps long before, the French version was retransferred to English, and so in other cases. If, once more, we take our existing English Havelok and its sister King Horn, we see that the latter is a more romanced form than the former. Havelok is more like a chanson de geste—the love interest in it is very slight; while in King Horn it is much stronger, and the increased strength is shown by the heroine being in some forms promoted into the title. If these two be studied side by side the process of transforming the mere story into the full romance is to no small extent seen in actual
- ↑ Italian romance seems to have modelled itself early on French, and it is doubtful, rich as is the late crop of Spanish romances, whether we have any that deserve the name strictly and are really early.
