Love, chivalry, and religion, all pervaded by the spirit of romance,—these are the three great literary ideals which find expression in the metrical romances. Read these romances now, with their knights and fair ladies, their perilous adventures and tender love-making, their minstrelsy and tournaments and gorgeous cavalcades,—as if humanity were on parade, and life itself were one tumultuous holiday in the open air,—and you have an epitome of the whole childish, credulous soul of the Middle Ages. The Normans first brought this type of romance into England, and so popular did it become, so thoroughly did it express the romantic spirit of the time, that it speedily overshadowed all other forms of literary expression.
English Literature / Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English-Speaking World
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William J.Long
