Can Middle English Romances be considered popular and non-courtly? Discuss Middle English romance is one of the most comprehensive of literary forms and its range of subject matter and metrical styles is vast. It is difficult to 'classify' romances as they exhibit so much variety, and some critics have questioned whether it is possible to speak of a romance genre at all. In the beginning of the Middle Ages, the word 'romance' was a term …showed first 75 words of 1474 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1474 total…a large range of people thus producing a wide range of interest in them. A more difficult question to answer is whether they can be described as non-courtly, because although the examples looked at do contain elements of the courtly romance, they do not deal with the key features traditionally. BIBLIOGRAPHY Finlayson, J., Definitions of Middle English Romance, in "Chaucer Review", 15 (1980) Gamin, J.M., Style and Consciousness in Middle English Narrative, (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1983).