Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online

Get access

Chivalric romance
(762 words)

In a broader sense, the term chivalric romance denotes all novels in which knights play a central role. It would thus also include the (mostly verse) courtly romances of the High and Late Middle Ages. However, literary scholars generally use the term to refer to an early modern form of the prosaroman that was widespread throughout Europe. Such works were often based on medieval antecedents, being prose reworkings of Arthurian and heroic epics (Heroic poetry) (epics with Lancelot, Tristan, or Roland as protagonists), but could also derive from their early modern au…

Cite this page
Wolf, Klaus, “Chivalric romance”, in: Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online, Editors of the English edition: Graeme Dunphy, Andrew Gow. Original German Edition: Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit. Im Auftrag des Kulturwissenschaftlichen Instituts (Essen) und in Verbindung mit den Fachherausgebern herausgegeben von Friedrich Jaeger. Copyright © J.B. Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung und Carl Ernst Poeschel Verlag GmbH 2005–2012. Consulted online on 19 March 2024 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2352-0272_emho_SIM_026763>
First published online: 2015
First print edition: 20160907



▲   Back to top   ▲