ABSTRACT
Growth of the reading public is also shown by the use of prose for works which would earlier have been written in verse. In this century we witness the beginning of the prose romance.7 What is apparently the earliest is a prose Alexander in the Thornton MS (1430-40),8 but from about the middle
Growth of a Reading Public
Prose Romances
of the century date Pontus and Sidone9 and a very long prose Merlin.10 Of about the same date are prose condensations of the Troy and Thebes stories in a Rawlinson MS.11 With the introduction of printing a number of new prose romances were produced, all of them taken from French originals. Caxton translated (1469-71) and printed at Bruges in 1474 or 1475 his Recuyell of the History es of Troye.12 In England he made and printed translations of Godeffroy of Boloyne 13 (1481), the story of the siege of Jerusalem in the first crusade, deriving ultimately from William of Tyre and familiar later in Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata; the excellent story of Paris and Vienne (1485); Charles the Great14 (1485), from the French prose Fierabras; The Foure Sonnes of Aymon15 (c. 1489), recounting Charlemagne’s struggle with these valiant nobles; Blanchardyn and Eglantine16 (c. 1489), a pleasing story reminiscent, in its earlier part, of the Perceval and involving in the remainder the hero’s rescue of his lady from the usual unwelcome suitor. His Eneydos (1490) has been mentioned in a previous chapter. Malory’s great work, which Caxton printed, will be discussed later. Caxton’s practice was followed by his successor Wynkyn de Worde, who set his apprentice Henry Watson to translating books from the French. One such is the romance of Valentine and Orson17 printed by him soon after the turn of the century. Nor did the fashion die with the fifteenth century. About 1525, Sir John Bourchier, Lord Berners, best known for his translation of Froissart, occupied his leisure at Calais by turning into English the story of Huon of Bordeaux,18 loosely connected with the Charlemagne cycle. Many of these prose romances enjoyed considerable popularity throughout the sixteenth century, were frequently reprinted, exerted their influence on Spenser and others, and even furnished material for the Elizabethan drama.
