Are youfamiliar enough with different periods of literature to pick up broad scale trends in literary traditions?I feel like I made a connection after reading Scandinavian eddas, Romanesque chivalric romances, and late medieval poetry. Now I am much more familiar with the former two categories than the last, but Taking things like Elig's saga, Volsunga, and Frithgilds saga, comparing those the song of Roland, Lancelot the knight of the Cart, and Yvain the knight of the lion, and comparing that to the later 15ht century The green knight I find a very clear pattern. the sagas are very terse and to the point. the early romances have a balance of succinctness and poetics, and the latter green knight is suffused with purple prose. This seems like an almost linear development of stylistic trends towards the more verbose. However I do not think this is a direct relationship, as I heard the troubors of southern french, as opposed to the poets of Northern france who wrote the early romances I listed, tended to be more flowery with their language. Also there is some geographic distance between these writing traditions, but they arent completely isolated. My personal favorite genre of all of these has been that middle period of early romances, it has a truly wonderous balance of clarity and refinement.Have you noticed any broad scale patterns in your historical readings?
