Author's Preface
Of the three volumes in this series given to pre-Renaissance literature, two deal with a wide variety of forms and types over lengthy periods; this volume, the third, surveys a group of texts from the same periods on the assumption that they constitute a distinctive genre, Medieval Romance.

Romance, though we scarcely recognize it, is so much with us, penetrating so many aspects of our lives, that the objective attention needed to define it confuses and embarrasses us.