SOURCE: “Old Barons in New Robes: Percy's Use of the Metrical Romances in the Reliques of Ancient English Poetry,” in Hermeneutics and Medieval Culture, edited by Patrick J. Gallacher and Helen Damico, State University of New York Press, 1989, pp. 225-35.

In the following essay, Donatelli analyzes the Folio manuscript that was the primary source for Percy's Reliques, and notes the influence of metrical romances on Percy's editorial selections for this work.

The publication of Thomas Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry in 1765 changed the course of English literature. Wordsworth claimed that England's poetry “had been absolutely redeemed by it,” and he acknowledged the debt which he and other Romantic poets, most notably Coleridge, owed to the Reliques.¹ In later life, Scott recounted how his happy discovery of Percy's anthology “beneath a large platanas tree in the ruins of an … old fashioned arbour” caused him to miss his dinner...