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Reference
>
Cambridge History
>
From the Beginnings to the Cycles of Romance
>
Metrical Romances, 12001500
> Fairy Tales
Breton Lays
Sir Gawayne
and
Sir Tristrem
CONTENTS
·
VOLUME CONTENTS
·
INDEX OF ALL CHAPTERS
·
BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes
(190721).
Volume I. From the Beginnings to the Cycles of Romance.
XIII.
Metrical Romances, 12001500
.
§ 11. Fairy Tales.
The different versions of Launfal
Landavall
in couplets
Launfal Miles
of Thomas Chestre, in
rime couèe,
and the degenerate
Sir Lambewell
of the Percy MShave been carefully studied and made to exhibit some of the ordinary processes of translation and adaptation. They come from Marie de FranceThomas Chestre took something from the lay of
Graelent
besides the main plot of
Lanval.
The story is one of the best known; the fairy bride
The kinges daughter of Avalon,
That is an isle of the fairie
In ocean full fair to see
and the loss of her, through the breaking of her command.
The Wedding of Sir Gawain,
which, in another form, is
The Wife of Baths Tale,
is from the same mythical region, and has some of the same merits.
41
The romance of
Sir Libeaus,
the fair unknown, the son of Sir Gawain, is of different proportions, less simple and direct than
Orfeo
or
Launfal.
But it keeps some of the virtues of the fairy tale, and is one of the most pleasing of all the company of
Sir Thopas.
Adventures are too easily multiplied in it, but it is not a mere jumble of stock incidents. It is very like the story of Gareth in Malory, and, along with Gareth, may have suggested some things to Spenser, for the story of the Red Cross Knight. Also, the breaking of the enchantment in the castle of Busirane may owe something to
Sir Libeaus
: there seems to have been an old printed edition of
Libius Disconius,
though no printed copy is extant. The plot is a good one, the expedition of a young and untried knight to rescue a lady from enchantment; it is a pure romance of knight errantry, very fit to be taken as an example of that order, and, possibly, the best of all the riming tales that keep simply to the familiar adventures of books of chivalry. Sir Libeaus takes a long time to reach the palace of the two enchantersclerkes of nigremaunciewho keep the lady of Sinaudon under their spells in the shape of a loathly worm. But the excursion and digressions have some spirit in them, and no confusion.
42
CONTENTS
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VOLUME CONTENTS
·
INDEX OF ALL CHAPTERS
·
BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
Breton Lays
Sir Gawayne
and
Sir Tristrem
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