Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/288

 REVIEWS.

Tristan and Isolt. A Study of the Sources of the Romance. By Gertrude Schoepperle. (New York University. Ottendorfer Memorial Series of Germanic Monographs, No. 3.) 2 vols. Frankfurt-a.-Main : J. Baer «&: -Co., 1913. 8vo., pp. 590. No p.

Miss Schoepperle's elaborate study of the sources for the romance of Tristan and Isolt derives its importance from the fact that in many respects her conclusions constitute a challenge to those of M. Bedier in his now classic study of the same subject in Le Roma7i de Tristan par Thomas (Paris, 1902, 1905). Miss Schoepperle submits M. Bedier's methods, as well as his con- clusions, to a fresh and independent examination. In regard to his methods we will repeat her own sum.mary (pp. 3-4) : —

" He analyzes the narrative as it is preserved in the five oldest versions, and points out two striking general characteristics : the logical progress of the action from one step to another, and the harmony of each step in the action with the characters of the persons involved. These two characteristics prove, according to M. Bedier, that the tragic story of Tristan was invented by a poet of great genius at one stroke in the form in which we find it in the extant versions. M. Bedier then proceeds to an examination of the texts of Beroul, Eilhart, Thomas, the Folie, and the Prose Romance. He arrives at the con- clusion that they derive from a single twelfth century poem now lost. He identifies the author of this lost French poem with the single poet of great genius, the author of the first tragic treatment of the-story."

This method Miss Schoepperle holds to be open to serious objections, and she herself adopts an altogether different view. She takes the version of Eilhart von Oberge as preserving a more archaic form of the story than the versions of Thomas or the Prose Romance, holding that it represents current folk-tales, while all other versions appear with modifications, derived from the