The mediaeval legends had lived on after the gradual extinction of the poetry of chivalry, partly in the form of rhyming adaptations and collections, and partly of novels in prose.The latter was the case in Italy during the fourteenth century; but the newly-awakened memories of antiquity were rapidly growing up to a gigantic size, and soon cast into the shade all the fantastic creations of the Middle Ages.
Boccaccio, for example, in his 'Visione Amorosa,' names among the heroes in his enchanted palace Tristram, Arthur, Galeotto, and others, but briefly, as if he were ashamed to speak of them; and following writers either do not name them at all, or name them only for purposes of ridicule.But the people kept them in its memory, and from the people they passed into the hands of the poets of the fifteenth century.These were now able to conceive and represent their subjects in a wholly new manner.But they did more.They introduced into it a multitude of fresh elements, and in fact recast it from beginning to end.It must not be expected of them that they should treat such subjects with the respect once felt for them.All other countries must envy them the advantage of having a popular interest of this kind to appeal to; but they could not without hypocrisy treat these myths with any respect.
Instead of this, they moved with victorious freedom in the new field which poetry had won.What they chiefly aimed at seems to have been that their poems, when recited, should produce the most harmonious and exhilarating effect.These works indeed gain immensely when they are repeated, not as a whole, but piecemeal, and with a slight touch of comedy in voice and gesture.A deeper and more detailed portrayal of character would do little to enhance this effect; though the reader may desire it, the hearer, who sees the rhapsodist standing before him, and who hears only one piece at a time, does not think about it at all.