本书是一本论文集，以史诗与罗曼司两种体裁为视角和切入点研究中世纪欧洲文学。在中世纪文学研究领域，将中世纪文本置于其所处时代的语境化研究尚处于萌芽时期。本书继承W.P.Ker的《史诗与罗曼司：论中世纪文学》的研究传统，对中世纪文学进行深入的挖掘。所选文章涉及对W.P.Ker的批评和反思、中世纪英语长诗《贝奥武甫》、中世纪冰岛、西班牙、德国、法国文学等，研究方法有语文学研究、新历史主义研究和叙事学研究等。

伦纳德·耐道夫，纽约大学文学学士，哈佛大学文学博士，南京大学英语系教授，主要研究方向为中世纪英语文学与英语历史。

Introduction
Epic，Romance，Lay and Ballad：W.P.Ker’s Pivotal Role in the History of Scholarship
What Can We Leam from EPics and Romances？
Epic and Romance in Welsh and Irish
The Hybrid Chansons de geste：An Epic—Romance Compromise？
Beginnings and Endings in the Elegiac Poetry of the Early Medieval North
The Icelandic Family Sagas：W.P.Ker and Interpreting the Historical Elements，a Post—Colonial Struggle
The Dialogic Town in the Arthurian Romances of Chrtien de Troyes
Middle English Romance：The Strange Tale of the English Axemen and the Norman Knights
The Epic Scale of Heroic Geographies：Beowulf,Waldere，and Waltharius
The Queens of Beowulf Gender，Violence and Community
“Mythology Within Bounds”：Heroic Narrative in Eddic Poetry
The Narrative Plan of Njal’Saga
The Nibelungenlied,Kudrun，Biterolf und Dietleib：Some Observations on the Concept of the Heroic and the“Genre”of Medieval German Heroic Epic
The Nibelungenlied and W.P.Ker：Older Philology and the Future of Medieval Studies
The Persistence of the Heroic Ideal in Post—Heroic Age Scandinavian Romance Literature
Mediterranean Border Epics：Frontier Ethos in Cantar de Mio Cid and Digenes Akrites
Representing the Sensorium in Medieval Romance：Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Other Texts
Mixture and MiscIlief in a Medieval Irish Heroic Tale
Celtic Influence on French Romance
Fighting the Giant in French Epic and Romance
Arthul Meets Charlemagne：Echoes of chansons de geste in French verse romances from Chrdtien de Troyes to Escanor
A View from the Printshop：Malory，Caxton，and Medieval Narrative Form