Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series B - 01.10.1983, Qupperneq 16

XIV
class belong the French verse romance (PartFra) and
various more or less direct translations of this into
English, Italian, High German, Low German and
Dutch.* * * 4 To the Z-class belong Partal., the Danish
poem Persenober and Konstantianobis5 (P & K, MS
from c. 1500), a Spanish prose version and a Catalan
translation of this6, and a fragment (308 verses) of an
English version (E2, MS from c. 1450).7
The most obvious distinguishing feature between
the two groups is, as mentioned above, the land in
which the narrative begins. The reason for the diffe-
rence, however, is that the Z-texts provide a straight-
forward chronological account of events, while the
French poem adheres to a more sophisticated prin-
ciple of composition: a puzzling series of events with
a dénouement that informs the reader as well as the
hero of the heroine’s antecedents. The change from
ordo artificialis to ordo naturalis might well have
been made in the various Z-texts independently of
each other and it does not, therefore, provide conclu-
tive des versions islandaise et danoise (Videnskabs-Selskabets Skrif-
ter. n. Hist.-filos. Kl. 1904. No. 3) (Christiania, 1904). The
designations Y- and Z-versions are borrowed from Trampe Bodt-
ker.
4 Bibliography in Trampe Bodtker, op.cit., pp. 1-2 (add: The
Middle English Versions of Partonope of Blois, ed. Trampe Bodtker
(London, 1912); A. Fourrier, op.cit., p. 316).
5 Editions: 1. Romantisk Digtning fra Middelalderen II, ed. C. J.
Brandt (Copenhagen, 1870). 2. Danske Folkebeger VI, ed.
Jorgen Olrik (Copenhagen, 1925).
6 Found in several editions from the 16th century and later.
Bibliography in Manual del librero hispanoamericano, por Antonio
Palau y Dulcet, 2a ed., XII (Barcelona, 1959), pp. 320-23, and (less
comprehensive) Trampe Bodtker, op.cit., pp. 4-6.
7 A Fragment of Partonope of Blois from a Manuscript at Vale
Royal. Printed for the Roxburghe Club (London, 1873); reprinted
with some corrections in The Middle English Versions of Partonope
of Blois, op.cit.