The Fourteenth Century, by J. F. Snell (W. Blackwood and
Sons, 5s. net). is one of the volumes of the series, " Periods of European Literature," appearing under the editorship of Pro- fessor Saintsbury. The great literary figures of the period are Dante, Petrarch, and Chaucer. In the second line come Boccaccio, Gower, Froissart, Mandeville, Marco Polo. Then we have various groups,—epics, romances, ballads, Fsc. All these branches of his subject Mr. Snell treats out of a full knowledge, though he modestly states in his preface the limitations of his qualifications for his task. But if we are to wait for information till we find some one who has read all these literatures—Scandi- navian, Welsh, Provençal, Italian, German, Spanish, and all the rest—in their originals, we may wait long enough. We may point out as chapters which will take the reader into probably un- familiar fields, 2, " Town Verse and Folk Song," and 3, "The Rise of a New Lyric," dealing with the Italian predecessors of Dante.
Previous page
