Gesta Romanorum Summary

In the following excerpt, originally published in 1824, Swan, the first translator of the complete Gesta Romanorum into English, offers a brief history of the work. I now hasten to the Gesta Romanorum... Read more

In the following excerpt, Weld accounts for the disjunction between the written tales in the Gesta Romanorum and their oral versions. The Gesta Romanorum, a collection of allegorized stories compiled ... Read more

In the following essay, Lyall argues that the fifteenth-century Scots poem The Thre Prestis of Peblis, was not influenced by the Gesta Romanorum, as crtiics who interpret it as a harbinger of humanism... Read more

In the following essay, Hope examines the French translation of an assortment of tales from the Gesta Romanorum. The Gesta Romanorum is an anonymous collection of moralized tales in the exemplum tradi... Read more

In the following essay, Mabillard explores Shakespeare's use of the Gesta Romanorum as the basis of the three caskets motif in The Merchant of Venice. There are many possible texts that Shakesp... Read more

In the following excerpt, Hooper discusses the textual history of the Gesta Romanorum. It is somewhat remarkable that, in spite of the great interest attaching to the Gesta Romanorum, as the most popu... Read more

In the essay below, Bourne examines the themes and sources of a number of tales in the Gesta Romanorum. The popularity of the Gesta Romanorum during the Middle Ages is abundantly shown by the enormous... Read more

In the following essay, Trienens traces the relationship of the cloud-shaped whale—which Hamlet points out to Polonius– in Hamlet to the Gesta Romanorum's depiction of the whale a... Read more

In the following essay, Maurer examines how William Morris used tales from the Gesta Romanorum in his The Earthly Paradise. “When you are using an old story,” Morris once observed, ... Read more