Continuities and discontinuities in the production and reception of Middle Dutch narrative literature

Abstract: In this article, we argue that in the development of Middle Dutch narrative literature three stages can be distinguished. In the first phase, indicated in this contribution as ‘Middle Dutch narrative literature in manuscripts’, authors of romances stuck to verse instead of prose, and stopped writing these texts after the middle of the fourteenth century. Between c. 1400 and c. 1470, Middle Dutch romances were only read in the eastern part of the Low Countries, in aristocratic circles, and not in Flanders or Brabant, the central parts of the region. The second phase, indicated as ‘Hol... Mehr ...