M. Pauphilet, dans son article “Sur la Chanson de Roland” (Rom. LIX, 176) a montré l'origine toute littéraire, nullement historique, du personnage de l'ami “sage” et mesuré du turbulent et vaillant Roland: ce n'est que le poète Turoldus qui a pu être amené à créer ce contre-type de Roland;

L'enthousiasme orgueilleux de Roland, la sagesse d'Olivier, ce contraste est la plus immortelle beauté du poème, ou pour mieux dire, il est l'essence même de l'episode de Roncevaux; la première mention d'Olivier auprès de Roland présuppose le poème, et la tombe d'Olivier à Blaye est un monument à la gloire du poète créateur.

As though from a sudden awareness of the ethical void in which we have been living since the first World War, a growing number of scholars, several among them Americans, have lately been turning their attention eagerly and fruitfully to the doctrine of the gentleman. They have studied its varied aspects in different national environments and have examined painstakingly its effects upon human conduct as this is reflected in the various literatures of Western Europe. A large segment of that vast aggregation of dust-laden volumes bearing the forbidding name “didactic literature” has been taken from library shelves and scanned anew in this effort to lay bare the minutest details of the doctrine. The initiator of this contemporary revival of interest in the ideals which nourished the gentleman appears to have been Maurice Magendie, whose study of the doctrine in seventeenth-century France gave rise to a healthy polemic regarding the appropriate scope and methods of literary history. This work was followed by Ruth Kelso's Doctrine of the English Gentleman in the Sixteenth Century, a model of erudite scholarship especially rich in bibliographical lore. Fittingly enough in a German work of the totalitarian period, August Hoyler's Gentleman Ideal and Gentleman Erziehung, dealing with the doctrine in England, sets up the Führerprinzip as the nucleus of the ideal. J. E. Mason's Gentlefolk in the Making continues Kelso's investigations down into the eighteenth century. The Italian contribution to the doctrine has been summarily discussed by F. R. Bryson. Written in semi-popular vein, In Praise of Gentlemen expresses the nostalgic longing of H. E. Sedgwick for a return to the social ideals of our forefathers. Perhaps the most complete analysis of the workings of the doctrine is found in E. Wingfield-Stratford's Making of a Gentleman. The number of these investigations is alone sufficient to show the interest which the subject holds for the literary and social historian, in spite of the doubt cast in some quarters on the present vitality of the ideal of the gentleman as an active social force. There is good reason to believe that we shall presently witness attempts, based upon these studies, to reinterpret the literature of the Renaissance as a reflection, in part, of the workings of the doctrine upon the minds of authors as disparate as Rabelais and Shakespeare or Spenser and Cervantes. Recalling the fruitful results obtained during the past half-century from the application of the investigations of Renaissance Platonism to literary interpretation, who can doubt that a similar success awaits the scholar who will launch forth upon a similar quest concerning the literary influence exerted by the concept of the “perfect gentleman,” of which concept Platonic love was but a part, however important?

A resemblance between Malory's story of Gareth in Book vii of the Morte Darthur and the romances of the “Fair Unknown” group has been noted frequently, and described as “slight,” “undeniable,” or “distant” according to the critic's point of view. It has never been considered in any of the thorough studies of the group, and has more than once been completely ignored in the presentation of similarities between Malory's account and other medieval stories.

The present paper reprints the text of Dümmler's expert edition of the important and much studied Latin prose text by Otfrid of Weissenburg i. El., medieval Germany's Martin Opitz namely, a petition for episcopal approbation of his Liber Evangeliorum, addressed to his diocesan Liutbert, archbishop of Mainz (863–889). To this is joined an essay at a translation into English and a commentary. This document, commonly known as Ad Liutbertum—though it is without manuscript title—is one of five pieces closely connected with Otfrid's poem. These may be briefly described: there is an explanatory preface, like the poem itself, written in German verse and forming Bk. i, i, 1–126, of that work; it is commonly cited as Cur Scriptor from the MS heading “Cur Scriptor hunc librum Theotisce dictaverit.” The three remaining, all written in the verse of the poem, are dedicatory epistles in acrostichs and telestichs: “Ludovvico Orientalium Regnorum regi sit salus aeternal,” addressed to Ludwig the German (regn. 843–876) as king of the East-Frankish domains (Francia Orientalis), and “Salomoni episcopo Otfridus,” to Salomo, bishop of Constance (839–871). Similar in language and style is a less formal letter “Otfridus Uuizanburgensis monachus Hartmuate et Uuerinberto Sancti Galli monasterii monachis,” addressed to the St. Gall monks Hartmut (later abbot, 872–884) and Werinbert; this comes at the very end of the work, i.e., after Bk. v, xxv(“Conclusio voluminis totius”).

In Speculum, xvi (1941), pp. 149–166, A.C. Krey devoted to William, archbishop of Tyre, an article most welcome to students of French medieval romance. Rousing our interest in the work of this great chronicler of the crusades, he makes us read it, and reading it we find what we least expected: a historical background for Chrétien's Conte del Graal.

The obvious and very necessary distinction between learned and popular loan words was first made by A. Pogatscher in his Zur Lautlehre der griechischen, lateinischen und romanischen Lehnworte im Altenglischen. E. Sievers made a further division, realizing that a distinction, recognized by Pogatscher (for example, on p. 31), but not stressed by him sufficiently for Sievers's purposes, should be made between two classes of learned borrowings. With an approach somewhat different from that of Pogatscher, he at first distinguishes two groups, loan words (Lehnwörter) and foreign words (Fremdwörter), designating by the former term such words as are a part of the vocabulary of living communication and bear a more or less native stamp; by the latter, such words as exist for the most part only in learned literature and are distinctly felt as foreign, such as proper names like Caesar and Suetonius. The loan words of his first division Sievers further subdivides into popular loan words, the earliest of all borrowings, and learned loan words, taken over later than the popular words and owing their adoption to more or less cultural influences such as, in the case of the Old English learned borrowings, the church. These last are to be distinguished, he points out, from foreign words in that they are part of a living vocabulary, even though their use is limited to a certain class of speakers. What Sievers has done simply amounts to extracting from Pogatscher's learned loan words those bookish words which are distinctly felt as foreign and making of them a third class, which he calls foreign words.

Sir Thomas More's History of Richard III has been adequately studied as an historical document, but not as a work of literature; and yet since the time of Ascham it has been praised chiefly and properly for its literary qualities. It is the purpose of this article, therefore, to discuss some of the important literary problems presented by Richard III. An attempt will be made to show how closely More's narrative conforms to classical theory and to what extent it is imitative of classical histories. Of chief concern, however, will be More's use of irony. It will be evident throughout that his approach to history writing was that of a Christian humanist.

Many Italian dramatists of the sixteenth century were thoroughly convinced that ancient playwrights had attained the highest degree of excellence and felt, therefore, that the only thing remaining to do was to imitate their works and endeavor to come as near as possible to their perfection. Others, notwithstanding their equally sincere and profound admiration for the classics, either suggested or introduced into their plays certain innovations which they deemed necessary in the light of the new social order. When doing so, however, they sometimes used a great deal of caution and prudence, so as not to be too severely criticized by those who would not tolerate any departure from classical traditions.

Despite the intensive study of Thomas More during the last decade, a study stimulated by his canonization, by the fourth centenary of his martyrdom, and by the enthusiastic and scholarly work of A. W. Reed, R. W. Chambers, and other writers, there remain significant aspects of his life that have received comparatively little attention. In a stimulating paper published eight years ago, Marie Delcourt demonstrated that the “English” tradition of More biography, the tradition created by More's kinsfolk and devoted followers, represented a conscious attempt to emphasize his saintly qualities and those of his works which supported his claim to canonization. For this reason, these biographers gave little weight to More's humanist activities, his secular Latin writings, and his association with Erasmus, a dubious character from the point of view of the Counter-reformation. Aside from questions of bias, moreover, the period about which the “English” biographical tradition is least informative is that during which More was most interested in the humanities, since Roper, the primary source of the school of hagiographers, became More's son-in-law only after More had left academic study for the business of the royal court. The distortion created either by the ignorance or by the prejudice of More's early biographers, says Delcourt, has been repaired only partly by modern scholarship, and Chambers' account of Thomas More, though by far the best of recent studies, is nevertheless of the pattern laid down by Rastell, Roper, Harpsfield, and their followers. In the following pages, therefore, I have set down a few bits of information, some little known, others quite overlooked, which, in connection with the established circumstances of More's life, serve to emphasize the typically humanist character of his early career.

La Legende de Berte,“ says Léon Gautier, ”est née tardivement et les érudits n'en ont pas encore trouvé de trace réelle avant le comencement du xiiie siècle. Le plus ancien texte où on la rencontre est celui de la Chronique Saintongeaise.“ Gautier's statement remains essentially true today. This article will attempt to indicate some historical reasons that may account for the late origin of the legend, and at the same time try to establish the historical prototype after whom the epic Pépin was fashioned.

The chief purpose of this paper is to describe one phase of the domestication of Latin drama on the Renaissance stage, specifically to show how a conventional type made famous by the Roman comedians, the miles gloriosus, was fashioned by the academic playwrights of sixteenth-century Italy into an instrument of contemporary satire. A secondary aim is to provide a fuller literary background for the study of the braggart in Elizabethan drama. Such analysis requires a summary of themes, situations, and attitudes that have enriched the comic tradition of Europe, and demands also a definition of the comic spirit that exposes and derides the vainglorious folly of the alazon or boaster who struts and brags of his merits in utter disregard of truth. Menander and his disciples in Latin comedy developed a satiric method which the Italians borrowed for the ridicule of modern representatives of the alazon. Any consideration of the commedia erudita must also be prefaced by a review of the political conditions in Italy that brought to prominence such hated types as the Spaniard and other mercenary soldiers. This paper describes the rôle of the Spaniard and traces the evolution of the braggart from the imitations of Plautus and Terence, through the modifications of conventional themes, and finally to the new elements inspired by the changed domestic conditions of the peninsula.

The following list is meant to be a useful tool in locating authors and copies of books; it is not a complete bibliography of all editions. In most cases only the earliest ones available have been noted. Modern editions of separate plays have been listed when found, but modern editions of the works of the various authors have not been included. For Latin plays written by Englishmen, including those printed on the Continent, see Alfred Harbage's “Census of Anglo-Latin Plays,” PMLA, liii, 624–629.