Neighbouring Genres

In this chapter the peculiar relationship between romance and its neighbouring genres in late medieval England will be considered. As Simon Gaunt asserts, “dialogue with other genres was a major factor in the evolution of romance and in the formation of its own generic specificity.” But the evolution and formation would therefore not have proceeded the same way in different places that had a different constellation of genres, nor have led to the same generic specificity. On the continent, two very important neighbouring genres for defining the romance by contrast were the chanson de geste and the fabliau. But in England the situation was different.

The role of chansons de geste in literary culture in England has been minimized. William Calin has said, “the genre had relatively little impact in Middle English.” Beate Schmolke-Hasselman, arguing for the importance of Arthurian romance for ideological reasons in England, maintains that by contrast to Arthurian material, “there is very little evidence that the patriotically political literature of the chansons de geste was particularly favoured within the territory of the Angevin rulers.” But Keith Busby's very thorough study of the manuscripts of Old French narrative literature, Codex and Context, has shown a good deal of precisely such evidence: “A picture thus emerges of western France and England as prime movers in the production of early French vernacular narrative manuscripts.” He writes of a “relatively high incidence of chansons de geste in this group of manuscripts.”