English Literature Part 47

Footnote 52: According to mediaeval literary custom these songs were rarely signed. Later, when many songs were made over into a long poem, the author signed his name to the entire work, without indicating what he had borrowed

Footnote 53: An English book in which such romances were written was called a Gest or Jest Book. So also at the beginning of _Cursor Mundi_ (_c_. 1320) we read:

Men yernen jestis for to here And romaunce rede in diverse manere,

and then follows a summary of the great cycles of romance, which we are considering.

Footnote 54: Tennyson goes farther than Malory in making Gawain false and irreverent. That seems to be a mistake; for in all the earliest romances Gawain is, next to Arthur, the n.o.blest of knights, the most loved and honored of all the heroes of the Round Table.

Footnote 55: There were various French versions of the story; but it came originally from the Irish, where the hero was called Cuchulinn.

Footnote 56: It is often alleged that in this romance we have a very poetical foundation for the Order of the Garter, which was inst.i.tuted by Edward III, in 1349; but the history of the order makes this extremely doubtful. The reader will be chiefly interested in comparing this romance with _Beowulf_, for instance, to see what new ideals have taken root in England.

Footnote 57: Originally c.o.c.kaygne (variously spelled) was intended to ridicule the mythical country of Avalon, somewhat as Cervantes' _Don Quixote_ later ridicules the romances of chivalry. In Luxury Land everything was good to eat; houses were built of dainties and s.h.i.+ngled with cakes; b.u.t.tered larks fell instead of rain; the streams ran with good wine; and roast geese pa.s.sed slowly down the streets, turning themselves as they went.

Footnote 58: Child's _English and Scottish Popular Ballads_ is the most scholarly and complete collection in our language. Gummere's _Old English Ballads_ is a good short work. Professor Kittredge's Introduction to the Cambridge edition of Child's _Ballads_ is the best summary of a very difficult subject. For an extended discussion of the literary character of the ballad, see Gummere's _The Popular Ballad_.

Footnote 59: little bird.

Footnote 60: in her language.

Footnote 61: I live

Footnote 62: fairest

Footnote 63: I am

Footnote 64: power, bondage.

Footnote 65: a pleasant fate I have attained.

Footnote 66: I know

Footnote 67: gone

Footnote 68: lit, alighted

Footnote 69: For t.i.tles and publishers of reference books see General Bibliography at the end of this book.

Footnote 70: The reader may perhaps be more interested in these final letters, which are sometimes sounded and again silent, if he remembers that they represent the decaying inflections of our old Anglo-Saxon speech.

Footnote 71: _House of Fame_, II, 652 ff. The pa.s.sage is more or less autobiographical.

Footnote 72: _Legend of Good Women_, Prologue, ll. 29 ff.

Footnote 73: wealth.

Footnote 74: the crowd.

Footnote 75: success.

Footnote 76: blinds.

Footnote 77: act.

Footnote 78: trouble.

Footnote 79: i.e. the G.o.ddess Fortune.

Footnote 80: kick.

Footnote 81: awl.

Footnote 82: judge.

Footnote 83: For the typography of t.i.tles the author has adopted the plan of putting the t.i.tles of all books, and of all important works generally regarded as single books, in italics. Individual poems, essays, etc., are in Roman letters with quotation marks. Thus we have the "Knight's Tale," or the story of "Palamon and Arcite," in the _Canterbury Tales_. This system seems on the whole the best, though it may result in some inconsistencies.

Footnote 84: _Troilus and Criseyde_, III.

Footnote 85: See p. 107.

Footnote 86: For a summary of Chaucer's work and place in our literature, see the Comparison with Spenser, p. 111.

Footnote 87: clad.

Footnote 88: wonder.

Footnote 89: brook.

Footnote 90: sounded.

Footnote 91: theirs

Footnote 92: rule

Footnote 93: righteousness

Footnote 94: called

Footnote 95: theirs

Footnote 96: yield

Footnote 97: say

Footnote 98: them

Footnote 99: hate