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PHILO

STUDIES AND NOTESA STATE

COLLEGE

PHILOLOGY AND LITERATURE

: VOL. XI

BALLAD AND EPIC

A STUDY IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE

NARRATIVE ART

BY

WALTER MORRIS HART

PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE

MODERN LANGUAGE DEPARTMENTS OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY
By GINN & COMPANY, 29 BEACON STREet, Boston


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PREFACE

What will, perhaps, cause most alarm to the cautious or scientifically-minded reader of these pages will be the use of modern ballads to represent something anterior to the epics, and the absence of the usual summary and criticism of the "literature of the subject." I have attempted in my Introduction to justify this use of the ballads, and I venture to hope that it finds justification in the book as a whole. The faint-hearted, moreover, may be encouraged by the knowledge that to ten Brink and Gaston Paris such use of the ballads did not seem unreasonable, unless I misinterpret the passages quoted in my Conclusion. The value of the study, however, does not depend wholly upon a time element and a theory of literary evolution or development: in any case, the comparison of a relatively complex with a relatively simple form of narrative may conceivably lead to results of some value in the appreciation of both.

Although, as I have said, ten Brink and Paris seem to suggest a comparative study of this kind, it has, so far as I know, never been attempted; and though comment on the narrative art of the Roland, the Beowulf, and the ballads has not been lacking, it has never, so far as I know, covered quite the same ground. Thus, although my evidence is in every case the result of first-hand study of the documents concerned, it is not to be supposed that all my facts are new. Far from it. But my use of the facts is new, and there is, therefore, strictly speaking, no "literature of the subject." The limits of the present volume forbid summary or discussion even enumeration of the vast general literature of the Beowulf 65112

and the Roland.

If I owe little to predecessors in the field, I am all the more deeply indebted to friends, masters, and colleagues. To Professor Gummere I owe my introduction, some fifteen years ago, to the study of popular poetry. I have endeavored elsewhere to make due acknowledgment of my indebtedness to his books; of my indebtedness to his lectures, and of the suggestion and inspiration of a long

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friendship, I cannot speak adequately. To my friend and colleague Professor Lange I am indebted for methodological suggestions, made, indeed, in other connections, but of direct value for the present study. To the editors of this series I am under special obligations: Professor Sheldon has read in the manuscript the chapter on the Roland; Professor Robinson, that on the Beowulf; both have also read the proofs of the volume, and have made invaluable comments and suggestions. To Professor Kittredge my debt is of the kind which it is impossible to estimate or adequately to acknowledge. He has read the manuscript of this essay, first as a thesis written in connection with his course on the ballads, again as a doctoral dissertation, and yet again in its present shape. Without his criticism, without his unfailing and generous encouragement, this book could hardly have been undertaken or completed. For the general plan, however, and for the method of treatment, and for all defects and shortcomings, the writer is alone responsible.

BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA,

May 1, 1907.

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