ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on two important critics of old 'romance' who represent a then vital but now outmoded position in the eighteenth-century debate over the fantastic: Richard Hurd in his Letters on Chivalry and Romance and James Beattie in 'On Fables and Romance'. The thrust of Hurd's criticism is the call for the marvelous romances to be appreciated on their own antiquated 'Gothick' terms instead of by modern neoclassic standards that can only judge old romance as lacking in form and function. Working more closely to the spirit of Burke's Enquiry, both agree with and importantly expand Burke's criticism of the modern form, helping define the permeable border of 'the fantastic' in the eighteenth century with finer precision. However, unlike Beattie, Addison's essay seeks to reclaim the genre for the enlightened reader of taste who has lost something, not to allow the enlightened reader to instruct the vulgar.
