Paul Edward Kretzmann
Published: 2013-09
Total Pages: 134
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1916 edition. Excerpt: ... chroniclers was to select such hideously realistic beings as have been alluded to, their fictional vehicle would be a variety of realistic narrative. Its relation to heroico-historical romance, however, precludes this classification. Moreover, one "creation" of the scandalous chroniclers was wildly unreal-- that animal, supernatural being, or inanimate object referred to in my definition of this genre. His origin is difficult to ascertain. One thinks of the Golden ass. But, declares Miss Morgan (Novel of manners, 9), "As a whole, or as a prose narrative, the Ass of Apuleius was not imitated until the end of the [eighteenth] century, when it furnished a model for travels of inanimate objects, and encouraged the use of fictitious travels for satirical purposes." The contention seems dubious. Adlington's translation and Firenzuola's paraphrase were well-known to the sixteenth century. Did Cervantes, then, invent the situation in the Dogs' colloquy (1613), and Boucher that in the Roman des oiseau.v (1662)? The supernatural observer, also, appeared early. The hero of the Gyges Gallus (1587) owned a ring of invisibility. Calliante, the unhappy husband in the Synode nocturne (1608), pierced among the tribadcs in peculiar disguise. The powerful limping devil of Guevara's Diablo cojuelo (1641) lifted the roofs from the houses of Madrid. Cupidon in the Roman bourgeois (1666) underwent experiences impossible for mortals. Admission of the reason for these characterizations is, indeed, late. Possibly it is first advanced in the Dialogues of the chimneys prefixed to the Diable boiteux (1707); Chimney C observes to Chimney D: "This is the advantage we chimneys enjoy; we are witnesses to a thousand sights that men would pay any price for seeing." In the...