Periods of European Literature EDITED BY PROFESSOR SAINTSBURY II. THE TWELFTH AND THIRTEENTH CENTURIES PERIODS OF EUROPEAN LITERATURE. EDITED BY PROFESSOR SAINTSBURY. A COMPLETE AND CONTINUOUS HISTORY OF THE SUBJECT. "The criticism which alone can much help us for the future is a criticism which regards Europe as being, for intellectual and spiritual purposes, one great confederation, bound to a joint action and working to a common result.” THE FLOURISHING OF ROMANCE AND THE RISE OF ALLEGORY BY GEORGE SAINTSBURY FELLOW OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY; LATE PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND ENGLISH WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS MCMXXIII All Rights reserved PREFACE. As this volume, although not the first in chronological order, is likely to be the first to appear in the Series of which it forms part, and of which the author has the honour to be editor, it may be well to say a few words here as to the scheme of this Series generally. When that scheme was first sketched, it was necessarily objected that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to obtain contributors who could boast intimate and equal knowledge of all the branches of European literature at any given time. To meet this by a simple denial was, of course, not to be thought of. Even universal linguists, though not unknown, are not very common; and universal linguists have not usually been good critics of any, much less of all, literature. But it could be answered that if the main principle of the scheme was sound-that is to say, if it 291336 |