Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature (Volume 6) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1899. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... In the present chapter we have attempted to discover how much of the common material of the Court of Love allegory was a legacy from preceding literatures. The investigation has dealt mainly with two points--the source of those allegorical figures that form the courtiers of Venus, and the beginnings of the descriptions of the Palace of Venus. Of both of these we have found evidence of much more than a trace. The Palace seems to be derived almost entirely from the classics, unless we suppose that the account of the New Jerusalem in the Revelation may also have given suggestions. The personifications, as was perhaps to have been expected, are found both in the classics and in Hebrew literature. The Christian contribution is increased by the patristic tendency to force an even fourfold meaning out of all Scripture, so that the clerical mind had its familiarity with personification increased by many instances which would never have been recognized as such by their authors. This matter of personification1 has been dealt with much more fully than will be possible or desirable in the succeeding chapters. We have, as it were, been collecting material to show from what soil the allegory of the Court of Love sprang; having realized that, we can now confine our attention more exclusively to the growth of the plant itself.-CHAPTER III. THE CENTRAL CONCEPTION OF THE COURT OF LOVE. The general principle of arrangement in this and the following chapter will be according to language: Provencal, Old French, Italian, Middle-High German, and English. Latin documents, belonging as they do to various, and often to uncertain, nationalities, will be discussed at points where their relation to vernacular pieces makes it most convenient. 1 For further instances of personification after ...