This article attempts to consider various aspects of the change from verse to prose romances and various linguistic problems related to the rendering of verse into prose.
In France towards the end of the Middle Ages, especially during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, prose became the pre-eminent medium for works of narrative fiction, and many of the verse narratives of the previous centuries were rewritten to conform to this change in taste and form. Georges Doutrepont lists some 55 epic poems and some 18 adventure romances that were revised in this manner, and it would be unwise to regard his catalogue as complete. Although Doutrepont analyzes a few of these “mises-en-prose,” his analyses are largely concerned with the appearance of the manuscripts, their dates, and the over-all expansion or condensation of the narratives.