ABSTRACT
King Horn is an outstanding example of what may be called a primitive romance. The composer is resolutely concerned with the basic and universal ingredients of romance—religion, love, and warfare (Dante’s salus, venus, and virtus)—but he is not concerned with the attendant subtleties of pictorialization, characterization, and motivation. Here, as with the ballad, the listeners provided their own interpretations. The highly developed art of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (p. 376) with all its ethical, courtly, and chivalric nuances was not to emerge in England until a century and a half later. Yet the very simplicity of King Horn gives it a universal appeal.
