Shapeshifting and Associated Phenomena as Conventions of the Middle English Metrical Romances

Author

Clarence Edward Long

Publication Date

6-4-1957

Abstract

One of the most popular and vigorous genres of medieval English literature is the metrical romance. For more than three hundred years it was the chief literary fare of nearly all classes of Englishmen, from the most literate like Chaucer, who could afford to burlesque the type, to the illiterate who derived enjoyment merely by listening to a retelling of these adventurous, chivalric, romantic tales. Each century since the fifteenth has seen more or less of a revival of interest in the metrical romance. The sixteenth century Englishmen, if he could read at all, whetted his nationalist spirit by reading Caxton's print of Malory's Arthurian legends. This, of course, was a prose redaction of a whole cycle of Arthurian romances popularized by minstrels and perpetuated by scribes since the twelfth century.

Degree Name

English

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

English

First Committee Member (Chair)

Thomas Matthews Pearce

Second Committee Member

Ernest Warren Baughman

Third Committee Member

William Price Albrecht

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Recommended Citation

Long, Clarence Edward. "Shapeshifting and Associated Phenomena as Conventions of the Middle English Metrical Romances." (1957). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/engl_etds/248