Gesta Romanorum Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Charles Swan

Critical Essay by Charles Swan

SOURCE: Swan, Charles. Introduction to “Gesta Romanorum”: or, Entertaining Moral Stories; Invented by the Monks as a Fireside Recreation, and Commonly Applied in Their Discourses from the Pulpit: Whence the Most Celebrated of Our Own Poets and Others, from the Earliest Times Have Extracted Their Plots, translated by Charles Swan, revised by Wynnard Hooper, pp. xxx-xxxiv. London: George Bell and Sons, 1877.

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; and purpose giving a brief outline of its history, with a notice of certain stories which, without reference to their own individual merit, have been raised into higher importance by furnishing the groundwork of many popular dramas. I shall also take occasion to offer a few remarks upon the translation now before the public, elucidatory...
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