A History of the French Novel (Vol. 1&2). Saintsbury George

      CHAPTER III

      ROMANS D'AVENTURES

       Table of Contents

      Variety of the present groups.

On the whole, however, the most important influence in the development of the novel originally—that of the nouvelle or novella in French, and Italian taking the second place in order of time—must be assigned to the very numerous and very delightful body of compositions (not very long as a rule,[58] but also never exactly short) to which the name Romans d'aventures has been given with a limited connotation. They exist in all languages; our own English Romances, though sometimes derived from the chansons and the Arthurian Legend, are practically all of this class, and in every case but one it is true that they have actual French originals. These Romans d'aventures have a habit, not universal but prevailing, of "keying themselves on" to the Arthurian story itself; but they rarely, if ever, have much to do with the principal parts of it. It is as if their public wanted the connection as a sort of guarantee; but a considerable proportion keep independence. They are so numerous, so various, and with rare exceptions so interesting, that it is difficult to know which to select for elaborate analysis and translated selection; but almost the entire corpus gives us the important fact of the increased freedom of fiction. Even the connection with the Arthurian matter is, as has been said, generally of the loosest kind; that with the Charlemagne cycle hardly exists. The Graal (or things connected with its legends) may appear: Gawain is a frequent hero; other, as one might call them, sociable features as regards the older stories present themselves. But as a rule the man has got his own story which he wants to tell; his own special hero and heroine whom he wants to present. Furthermore, the old community of handling, which is so noticeable in the chansons more particularly, disappears almost entirely. Nothing has yet been discovered in French, though it may be any day, to serve as the origin of our Gawain and the Green Knight, and some special features of this are almost certainly the work of an Englishman. Our English Ywain and Gawain is, as has been said, rather better than Chrestien's original. But, as a rule, the form, which is French form in language (by no means always certainly or probably French in nationality of author), is not only the original, but better; and besides, it is with it that we are busied here, though in not a few cases English readers can obtain an idea, fairly sufficient, of these originals from the English versions. As these, however, with the exception of one or two remarkable individuals or even groups, were seldom written by men of genius, it is best to go to the sources to see the power and the variety of fictitious handling which have been mentioned.

      Different views held of it.

      The richness, indeed, of these Romans d'aventures is surprising, and they very seldom display the flatness and triviality which mar by no means all but too many of their English imitations. Some of the faults which are part cause of these others they indeed have—the apparently irrational catalogues of birds and beasts, stuffs and vegetables; the long moralisings; the religious passages sometimes (as it may seem to mere moderns) interposed in very odd contexts; the endless descriptions of battles and single combats; the absence of striking characterisation and varied incident. Their interest is a peculiar interest, yet one can hardly call the taste for it "an acquired taste," because the very large majority of healthy and intelligent children delight in these stories under whatever form they are presented to them, and at least a considerable number of grown-up persons never lose the enjoyment. The disapproval which rested on "romances of chivalry" for a long time was admittedly ignorant and absurd; and the reasons why this disapproval, at least in its somewhat milder form of neglect, has never been wholly removed, are not very difficult to discover. It is to be feared that Don Quixote, great as it is, has done not a little mischief, and by virtue of its greatness is likely to do not a little more, though the Amadis group, which it specially satirises, has faults not found in the older tales. The texts, though in most cases easily enough accessible now, are not what may be called obviously and yet unobtrusively so. They are to a very large extent issued by learned societies: and the public, not too unreasonably, is rather suspicious, and not at all avid, of the products of learned societies. They are accompanied by introductions and notes and glossaries—things the public (again not wholly to be blamed) regards without cordiality. Latterly they have been used for educational purposes, and anything used for educational purposes acquires an evil—or at least an unappetising—reputation. In some cases they have been messed and meddled in usum vulgi. But their worst enemy recently has been, it may be feared, the irreconcilable opposition of their spirit to what is called the modern spirit—though this latter sometimes takes them up and plays with them in a fashion of maudlin mysticism.

      Partenopeus of Blois selected for analysis and translation.

To treat them at large here as Ellis treated some of the English imitations would be impossible in point of scale and dangerous as a competition; for Ellis, though a little too prone to Voltairianise or at least Hamiltonise things sometimes too good for that kind of treatment, was a very clever man indeed. For somewhat full abstract and translation we may take one of the most famous, but perhaps not one of the most generally and thoroughly known, Partenopeus (or -pex[59]) of Blois, which, though it exists in English, and though the French was very probably written by an Englishman, is not now one of the most widely read and is in parts very charming. That it is one of the romances on which, from the fact of the resemblance of its central incident to the story of Cupid and Psyche, the good defenders of the bad theory of the classical origin of romance generally have based one of their few plausible arguments, need not occupy us. For the question is not whether Denis Pyramus or any one else (modernity would not be modernity if his claims were not challenged) told it, but how he told it. Still less need we treat the other question before indicated. Here is one of the central stories of the world—one of those which Eve told to her children in virtue of the knowledge communicated by the apple, one with which the sons of God courted the daughters of men, or, at latest, one of those which were yarned in the Ark. It is the story of the unwise lover—in this case the man, not as in Psyche's the woman—who will not be content to enjoy an unseen, but by every other sense enjoyable and adorable love, even though (in this case) the single deprivation is expressly to be terminated. We have it, of course, in all sorts of forms, languages, and differing conditions. But we are only concerned with it here as with a gracious example of that kind of romance which, though not exactly a "fairy tale" in the Western sense, is pretty obviously influenced by the Eastern fairy tale itself, and still more obviously influences the modern kind in which "the supernatural" is definitely prominent.

It was perhaps excusable in the good M. Robert, who wrote the Introduction to Crapelet's edition of this poem eighty years ago, to "protest too much" in favour of the author whom he was now presenting practically for the first time—to a changed audience; but it was unnecessary and a little unfortunate. Except in one point or group of points, it is vain to try to put Partenopeus above Cupid and Psyche: but it can perfectly well stand by itself in its own place, and that no low one. Except in Floire et Blanchefleur and of course in Aucassin et Nicolette, the peculiar grace and delicacy of romance are nowhere so well shown; and Partenopeus, besides the advantage of length, has that of personages interesting,