A Literary Middle English Reader (Classic Reprint) - Softcover

Excerpt from A Literary Middle English Reader

Medieval European literature at least if we except technical works and prose Chronicles or histories - is Characterized, in contrast with the ancient Classics, by a certain expansiveness, resulting at times in an approach to garrulity. The author is not bent upon treating the matter in hand with the utmost economy, in order with the fewest possible strokes to achieve the finest proportions, the utmost simplicity, the most telling effect. The mediaeval writer is more apt to be loose and desultory. At times he does not hesitate to be long-winded in description, discursive in the development of epi sodic reflection, tedious in the analysis of sentiment, or didactic in the enforcement of a moral. In all too few instances has he a sure Sense of art avoiding superfluity and digressions, and making straight for his goal. He employs repetition for instance, in the refrain, or in the recurrent lines of the roundel; and, for the sake of rhyme, or to fill out a line, he will introduce conventional, almost mean ingless, tags.

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