480 Schevill — Studies in Cervantes. 



became an important source of inspiration to Renaissance fiction, 

 lias been touched upon at the outset, and must be kept in mind. 

 Owing to the great vogue of the romances of chivalry, whether in 

 prose as in Spain or in verse as in Italy, a story of adventure, such 

 as the Aeneid, quite naturally fell in with the current taste. On 

 the other hand, the inclination of some readers toward a gentler 

 kind of narrative, a kind of counterpart to the literature of combat 

 and adventure, had given rise to the more idyllic pastoral novel, a 

 type which is most deeply indebted to the Eclogues^ and the 

 Georgics. It was, therefore, by appealing to various tastes that 

 Virgil easily acquired a new kind of supremacy. In his excellent 

 work, Origines de la novela, Menendez y Pelayo asks apropos of 

 epic poetry: 



i Que es la Odisea sino una gran novela de aventuras, en la mayor 

 parte de su contenido? Pero los naufragios y trabajos del prota- 

 gonista, los detalles domesticos mas menudos, estan envueltos en 

 una atmosfera luminosa y divina que los ennoblece y realza, bauan- 

 dolos de pura y serene idealidad. La categoria estetica a que tal 

 obra corresponde es sin duda superior a la de la ficcion novelesca, 

 que mas 6 menos se caracteriza siempre por el predominio de la 

 fantasia individual, por el libre juego de la imaginacion creadora 

 (p. iv). 



Precisely the same thing could have been said of the Aeneid; 

 for its novelistic qualities would come home convincingly to six- 



2a edicion. Vol. I (Madrid, 1885). 5. Ovid, various translations of the 

 Metamorphoses, 1580, 1589, etc.; Heroides, 1G08; Italian version, De 

 Remedi contra V aniore, 1576. 6. Aiilns Persiiis Flaccus, Satyras, 1609. 



7. Cicero, De los Officios, de la Amicicia, de la Senectud, etc., 1549. 



8. Pliny, Historia natural, books VII, VIII, 1599, IX, 1603, complete, 1624- 

 29. 9. Seneca, the philosoi^her, Los siete lihros de Seneca, etc., 1601 ; Las 

 epistolas, 1555; Los Proverhios, 1550; Flores de Seneca, 1550. 10. Lucan, 

 Historia, etc. {la Farsalia) , 1541. 11. Apuleius, del Asno de Oro, 1513. 

 12. Statius, La Tehaide, in Italian, 1570. 13. Musaeus, Boscan wrote a 

 Leandro based on Hero and Leonder. The examples could be greatly 

 increased. Cf. also, Dieze, Geschichte der Spanisclien Dichtknnst, p. 454 

 flf. ; Graesse, Tresor des livres rares, etc., op. cit.; SalvA, Catalogo de la 

 biblioteca de Salvd; Gallardo, Ensayo etc., op. cit.; the British Museum; 

 the Biblioteca nacional, [Madrid; the royal libraries of Vienna, Berlin, 

 Munich, etc., contain most of the Renaissance classics. 



^ Dunlop-Liebrccht, op. cit., p. 350; Menendez y Pelayo, Origcnes, etc., 

 p. cdxix; H. Korting, Geschichte des franzosischen Fomans im XTII 

 Jahrhundert, 2te Ausgabe (Oppeln und Leipzig, 1891), Vol. I, p. 61, 120. 



