Pierre Daniel Huet: "The History of Romances." an Annotated Text Edited, with Introduction (France).

This edition, following Stephen Lewis's 1715 English translation, presents the complete form of Pierre Daniel Huet's The History of Romances, unpublished since 1720. Huet's discussion of prose romances, prefixed to the first edition of La Fayette's Zayde (1670), the first comprehensive treatment of prose fiction in English, defines romances as "Fictions of Love Adventures disposed into an Elegant Style in Prose, for the Delight and Instruction of the Reader." Huet traces the history of romance, providing copious references to earlier romance writers and their works, from its beginnings in the East, to the Greek and Latin novels, through the Arab world, to the medieval "historians," to the "Excellent Degree of Art and Elegance" of the French seventeenth-century romances. In addition, Huet defends romance from critics calling it mere entertainment and immoral temptation. The Introduction discusses Huet's life, his ideas on romance, the use that eighteenth-century English authors like Henry Fielding, Thomas Warton, and Clara Reeve make of Huet, and the text, actually a re-working of an earlier translation. The notes to the text substantially annotate Huet's prolific citations from, and allusions to, classical and medieval romance writers. The Appendix discusses Huet's own romance, Diana de Castro, a book available only in scattered rare book collections. An Index closes the edition.PhDBritish and Irish literatureUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/159427/1/8314328.pd