Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 September 1893 — Historical Mistakes in Literature. [ARTICLE]

Historical Mistakes in Literature.

The mediaeval romances are full of blunders, making contemporaries of men who were separated sometimes by hundueds or thousands of years, but as historical criticism had not then a being and the general information of the age was not superior in any particular to that of the novelist*, their plans do not amount to much from a literary point of view. Such an instance is the case of Ariosto, who might be supposed to know something at least of tho truth of history, hut whose once famous poem, “Orlando Furioso,” is a tissue of historical absurdities from beginning to end. Charlemagne and his peers are joined by Edward 1., of England; Richard, Earl of Warwick; Clarence, and the Dukes of York and Gloucester. Cannons are employed hundreds of years before the time of Monk Schwartz. In one place Prester John, who lived 400 years after Charlemagne, and Constantine the Great, who died five centuries before him, are introduced and hold familiar converse with the great Charles, while in another Saladin and Edward the Confessor are joined by tho Black Prince. But there is no need to go back to forgotten poems, or imaginative works known by name only, to find illustrations of the momemtary forgetfulness, ignorance or carelessness of authors. Byron speaks of tho thousands of Xerxes’ ships, wheroas the Persian king had only 1,200 at first, and 400 were destroyed by a 6tortn before the memorable naval review mentioned by the poet off the Island of lolanus, so that only 800 actually participated. But Byron was far from faultless in matters of history and geography, or he would not have made Teos one of the islands of Greece, whereas it is a jseaport in Asia Minor. Mcore falls into a grave error in tho lines describing the sunflower turning to the sun, whereas the sunflower does nothing of the kind, as may be seen by anyone Who cares to make the necessary observations. Nor is Tennyson free from the faults common to most authors. In most of his romances lie followed tho version given by Mallory in his “History of Prince Arthur, ” but made innumerable variations, most of which were in all probability mere slips of memory.—Globe-Democrat.