Ocean State Libraries

Stimulating and masterly study examines the evolution of the great mass of fiction surrounding the Arthurian legend in Western literature - from Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain and the collection of Welsh tales known as The Mabinogion, to Chrétien de Troyes' Arthurian stories, the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach, and such English masterpieces as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Le Morte d'Arthur. Painstakingly researched...

Domenico Comparetti (1835-1927) was a professor of French literature at the University of Florence. He ranks with Auerbach and Curtius as one of the great synthesizing scholars of classical literature and its survival in popular and learned traditions. Jan M. Ziolkowski is Professor of Medieval Latin and of Comparative Literature at Harvard University. From its first complete Italian printing in 1872 up to the present day, Domenico Comparetti's...

In The Discarded Image, C. S. Lewis paints a lucid picture of the medieval world view, providing the historical and cultural background to the literature of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. It describes the "image" discarded by later years as "the medieval synthesis itself, the whole organization of their theology, science and history into a single, complex, harmonious mental model of the universe." This, Lewis's last book, has been hailed as "the...

Heroism, Valor, and Sacrifice When most people think of mythology, the Greek gods and heroes first come to mind. But just as important to Western culture are the stories of the great heroes and villains of the Middle Ages, whose deeds have reverberated through the centuries. This thrilling collection from folklorist H. A. Guerber collects dozens of stories about these larger-than-life characters as they pursue mythic quests for lofty (and sometimes...