The English Novel in the Time of ShakespeareJusserand, J. J. (Jean Jules)
History
The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare
Jusserand, J. J. (Jean Jules)
English fiction -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- History and criticism
With the diffusion of these small handy volumes of tales of all kinds,
from all countries, a quite modern sort of literature, a literature for
travellers, was being set on foot. Manuscript books did not easily lend
themselves to be carried about; but it was otherwise with the printed
pamphlets. Authors began to recommend their productions as convenient
travelling companions, very much in the same manner as the publishers
recommend them now as suitable to be taken to the Alps or to the
seaside. Paynter, for example, who circulated in England from the year
1566 his collection of tales translated or imitated from Boccaccio and
Bandello, Apuleius and Xenophon, the Queen of Navarre, and Bonaventure
Desperriers, Belleforest and Froissart, Guevara and many others, assures
his reader that: "Pleasaunt they be for that they recreate, and refreshe
weried mindes defatigated either with painefull travaile or with
continuall care, occasioning them to shunne and to avoid heavinesse of
minde, vaine fantasies and idle cogitations. Pleasaunt so well abroad as
at home, to avoide the griefe of winters night and length of sommers
day, which the travailers on foote may use for a staye to ease their
weried bodye, and the journeours on horsback, for a chariot or lesse
painful meane of travaile in steade of a merie companion to shorten the
tedious toyle of wearie wayes."[49]
It is pleasant to think of Shakespeare in some journey from Stratford to
London, sitting under a tree, and in order to forget "the tedious toyle
of wearie wayes," taking out of his pocket Paynter's book to dream of
future Romeos and possible Helenas.
III.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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