Abstract
DR. BAKER takes a broader view of the origins of the English novel than is customary. He links it up not only with prose fiction of the Middle Ages, but brings it into relation with much of the material with which the student of the folk-lore and cultural history of Great Britain has to deal in the form of popular tales, legends and romances. His book, therefore, appeals to a wider public than that which is interested only in literary history. He passes beyond early prose fiction in Great Britain, touching upon its complement in France and Brittany, and -goes back to early Greece, the connexion being traced through Euhemerus, the para-phrasts of Homer, and the later Greek and Latin writers of romance. To those who hold the view that the study of the folk-tale in Europe is largely a matter of literary history, Dr. Baker's investigation of sources and, perhaps in particular, of Anglo-Saxon fiction, will prove suggestive. In dealing with the Arthurian cycle, he covers ground which has been made familiar by the work of Miss Jessie Weston, Dr. Oskar Sumner, and, above all, the late Sir John Rhys; but his later chapters, dealing with other or later romances and with popular tales and fabliaux such as appear in the “Gesta Romanorum” and other collections, form a useful guide in a maze much of which, though not untrodden, is as yet inadequately explored. Dr. Baker's work shows wide reading and sound scholarship.
The History of the English Novel. The Age of Romance: from the Beginnings to the Renaissance.
Dr.
Ernest A.
Baker
By. Pp. 336. (London: H. F. and G. Witherby, 1924.) 16s. net.
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The History of the English Novel. The Age of Romance: from the Beginnings to the Renaissance . Nature 116, 536 (1925). https://doi.org/10.1038/116536a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/116536a0