'Tue writing of rotonnce in Europe was attempted successfully by Cervantes in Don Quixote and he was under the influence of tales like the Arabian Nights' Entertainments. he combi tion of Semitic and Indo-European thought in Spain woke up new kinds of literature and among them romances took an important place. The object of Cervantes and writers like him was sarcastic. He felt that the chivalrous compositions of a past generation afforded him a ready help in the rapid composition of a popular tale, What is sentimental is followed by the comic in literature and gives rise to the comic by a natural evolution, The pastoral romance was ridiculed by Cervantes in Don Quizote. Before his time Dante, 'I'asso, and Boccaccio had all written long narratives. Among them some were in prose, but mostly they wrote in verse. Their object always was to add to the existing literature of mankind new works which readers would admire. 'Their aim was literary as was' that of Homer who did all that was possible to engage the interested attention. of his readers. It is with this object that Homer brings into his narrative the acts and speeches of gods and goddesses. He wished to unite human action with divine action and in doing this he was the exponent of. the national desire to develop a rich variety in narrative. lhe Greek liked to listen to the account of a storm at sea, of a grent battle, of a conference between heroes. More than this he liked to think about the gods on Mount Olympus. On this account the poet Homer aimed to make use of the divine element to increase the interest of the listener. Nor did Homer in his endeavour to present a complete view of human life which presents to us the actions of fools as well as of wise men omit those amusing features which lend variety while they provoke smiles: 'I'he fact that the Greeks should be fond of listening to long tales of war and the disputes of heroes when met in council shows that a great pet must be the product of his age. Homer could not have made the use he did of Venus, Jupiter, Jane, and Neptune, if these mythological persons had not been at the time objects of popular belief. Virgil makes use of Homer and Hesiod, Dante and Milton made use of both.
Nhe process observed in building cities is repeated in works of new literature. - New walls and houses are made by collecting the stones which belonged to older structures and are found in Sundry ancient walls and houses, Old ornamental carvings are observed in new structures which they do not suit because the masons made use of stones which were handy, New palaces are constructed by the hand of mau from the ruins of the older time when a different generation of men occupied the same locality, There is therefore a great contrast between romance and history. History is trade merely of registers. he chronicler notes down exch day what has occurred. Ihe union of the notes daily made in an_ artistic form constitutes history, Ihe object of the romance is to amuse. 'I'he object of history is to instruct. A reader of romances looks for amusement when the mind is jaded. The reader of history wishes to know what was said and done and what were the causes. of the course events took, A time came when China wished for popular histories. he origin of printing in the tenth century multiplied books and a class of readers grew up who had not. sufficient education to read the histories in the book language. For their use colloquial histories were made. Improvement went on slowly. About the thirteenth.and fourteenth, centuries, a large number
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.