Medieval Romance: Themes and Approaches (Norton Library, N703)

“A fine analysis of the enduring qualities of medieval romance, which Mr. Stevens suggests are qualities found in good fiction of any era.” —E. Talbot Donaldson

The romance, the major secular genre for three hundred years, stands to medieval literature as the novel stands to the literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Mr. Stevens stresses, especially in his introductory chapters, the continuity between medieval and later literature. The subjects of medieval romance are the great and permanent concerns of the human mind—man loving, man fighting, man alone, man with his lover, his leader, or friends, man facing mystery, or death, man seeking God.