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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/8555-8.txt b/8555-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b740eea --- /dev/null +++ b/8555-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5429 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Initiation into Literature, by Emile Faguet + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Initiation into Literature + +Author: Emile Faguet + +Translator: Home Gordon + + +Release Date: July, 2005 [EBook #8555] +This file was first posted on July 22, 2003 +Last Updated: May 22, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INITIATION INTO LITERATURE *** + + + + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Marlo Dianne, Charles Franks and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + + + +INITIATION INTO LITERATURE + +By Émile Faguet + + +Translated From The French By Sir Home Gordon, Bart. + +The Translator begs to acknowledge with appreciation the courtesy of the +Author in graciously consenting to make some valuable additions, at his +request, specially for the English version. + + + + +PREFACE + + +This volume, as indicated by the title, is designed to show the way to +the beginner, to satisfy and more especially to excite his initial +curiosity. It affords an adequate idea of the march of facts and of +ideas. The reader is led, somewhat rapidly, from the remote origins to +the most recent efforts of the human mind. + +It should be a convenient repertory to which the mind may revert in order +to see broadly the general opinion of an epoch--and what connected it +with those that followed or preceded it. It aims above all at being _a +frame_ in which can conveniently be inscribed, in the course of +further studies, new conceptions more detailed and more thoroughly +examined. + +It will have fulfilled its design should it incite to research and +meditation, and if it prepares for them correctly. + +E. FAGUET. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER I + +ANCIENT INDIA + +The Vedas. Buddhist Literature. Great Epic Poems, then very Diverse, much +Shorter Poems. Dramatic Literature. Moral Literature. + + +CHAPTER II + +HEBRAIC LITERATURE + +The Bible, a Collection of Epic, Lyric, Elegiac, and Sententious +Writings. The Talmud, Book of Ordinances. The Gospels. + + +CHAPTER III + +THE GREEKS + +Homer. Hesiod. Elegiac and Lyric Poets. Prose Writers. Philosophers and +Historians. Lyric Poets, Dramatic Poets. Comic Poets. Orators. Romancers. + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE LATINS + +The Latins, Imitators of the Greeks. Epic Poets. Dramatic Poets. Golden +Age: Virgil, Horace, Ovid. Silver Age: Prose Writers, Historians, and +Philosophers: Titus-Livy, Tacitus, Seneca. Decadence Still Brilliant. + + +CHAPTER V + +THE MIDDLE AGES: FRANCE + +_Chansons de Geste: Song of Roland_ and Lyric Poetry. Popular +Epopee: _Romances of Renard_. Popular Short Stories: Fables. +Historians. The Allegorical Poem: _Romance of the Rose_. Drama. + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE MIDDLE AGES: ENGLAND + +Literature in Latin, in Anglo-Saxon, and in French. The Ancestor of +English Literature: Chaucer. + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE MIDDLE AGES: GERMANY + +Epic Poems: _Nibelungen_. Popular Poems. Very Numerous Lyric Poems. +Drama. + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE MIDDLE AGES: ITALY + +Troubadours of Southern Italy. Neapolitan and Sicilian Poets: Dante, +Petrarch, Boccaccio. + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE MIDDLE AGES: SPAIN AND PORTUGAL + +Epic Poems: _Romanceros_. Didactic Books. Romances of Chivalry. + + +CHAPTER X + +THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES: FRANCE + +First Portion of Sixteenth Century: Poets: Marot, Saint-Gelais; Prose +Writers: Rabelais, Comines. Second Portion of Sixteenth Century: Poets: +"The Pleiade"; Prose Writers: Amyot, Montaigne. First Portion of +Seventeenth Century: Intellectual and Brilliant Poets: Malherbe, +Corneille; Great Prose Writers: Balzac, Descartes. Second Portion of +Seventeenth Century: Poets: Racine, Molière, Boileau, La Fontaine; Prose +Writers: Bossuet, Pascal, La Bruyère, Fénelon, etc. + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES: ENGLAND + +Dramatists: Marlowe, Shakespeare. Prose Writers: Sidney, Francis Bacon, +etc. Epic Poet: Milton. Comic Poets. + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES: GERMANY + +Luther, Zwingli, Albert Dürer, Leibnitz, Gottsched. + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES: ITALY + +Poets: Ariosto, Tasso, Guarini, Folengo, Marini, etc. Prose Writers: +Machiavelli, Guicciardini, Davila. + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES: SPAIN AND PORTUGAL + +Poets: Quevedo, Gongora, Lope de Vega, Ercilla, Calderon, Rojas, etc. +Prose Writers: Montemayor, Cervantes, etc. Portugal: De Camoèns, etc. The +Stage. + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES: FRANCE + +Of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: Fontenelle, Bayle. Of the +Eighteenth: Poets: La Motte, Jean Baptiste Rousseau, Voltaire, etc.; +Prose Writers: Montesquieu, Voltaire, Buffon, Jean Jacques Rousseau, etc. +Of the Nineteenth Century: Poets: Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Musset, Vigny, +etc.; Prose Writers: Chateaubriand, Michelet, George Sand, Mérimée, +Renan, etc. + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES: ENGLAND + +Poets of the Eighteenth Century: Pope, Young, MacPherson, etc. Prose +Writers of the Eighteenth Century: Daniel Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, +Swift, Sterne, David Hume. Poets of the Nineteenth Century: Byron, +Shelley, the Lake Poets. Prose Writers of the Nineteenth Century: Walter +Scott, Macaulay, Dickens, Carlyle. + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES: GERMANY + +Poets of the Eighteenth Century: Klopstock, Lessing, Wieland. Prose +Writers of the Eighteenth Century: Herder, Kant. Poets of the Nineteenth +Century: Goethe, Schiller, Körner. + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES: ITALY + +Poets: Metastasio, Goldoni, Alfieri, Monti, Leopardi. Prose Writers: +Silvio Pellico, Fogazzaro, etc. + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES: SPAIN + +The Drama still Brilliant: Moratin. Historians and Philosophers, +Novelists, Orators. + + +CHAPTER XX + +RUSSIAN LITERATURE + +Middle Ages. Some Epic Narratives. Renaissance in the Seventeenth +Century. Literature Imitative of the West in the Eighteenth Century. +Original Literature in the Nineteenth Century. + + +CHAPTER XXI + +POLISH LITERATURE + +At an Early Date Western Influence Sufficiently Potent. Sixteenth Century +Brilliant; Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries highly Cultured; +Nineteenth Century Notably Original. + + +INDEX + + + + +INITIATION INTO LITERATURE + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +ANCIENT INDIA + +The _Vedas_. Buddhist Literature. Great Epic Poems, then very +Diverse, much Shorter Poems. Dramatic Literature. Moral Literature. + + +THE _VEDAS_.--The ancient Indians, who spoke Sanscrit, possess a +literature which goes back, perhaps, to the fifteenth century before +Christ. At first, like all other races, they possessed a sacred +literature intimately bound up with their religion. The earliest volumes +of sacred literature are the _Vedas_. They describe and glorify the +gods then worshipped, to wit, Agni, god of fire, of the domestic hearth, +of the celestial fire (the sun), of the atmospheric fire (lightning); +Indra, god of atmosphere, analogous to Zeus of the Greeks; Soma, the +moon; Varuna, the nocturnal vault, the god who rewards the good and +punishes the evil; Rudra, the irascible god, more evil than well +disposed, though sometimes helpful; others too, very numerous. + +The style of the _Vedas_ is continually poetic and metaphorical. +They contain a sort of metaphysics as well as continual allegories. + +BUDDHA.--Buddhism, a philosophical religion, sufficiently analogous to +Christianity, which Sakyamuni, surnamed Buddha (the wise), spread through +India towards 550 B.C., created a new literature. It taught, as will be +remembered, the equality of all castes in the sight of religion, +metempsychosis, charity, and detachment from all passions and desires in +order to arrive at absolute calm (_nirvana_). The literature it +inspired was primarily _gnomic_, that is, sententious, analogous to +that of Pythagoras, with a tendency towards little moral tales and +parables, as in the Gospel. + +This literature subsequently expanded into large and even immense epic +poems, of which the principal are the _Mahabharata_ and the _Ramayana_. + +THE _MAHABHARATA_; THE _RAMAYANA_.--The _Mahabharata_ (that is, the +_great history of the Bharatas_) is a legend or a novel in verse +intersected with moral digressions, with episodes vaguely related to the +subject, with discourses and prayers. There are charming episodes full of +delicate sensibility, of moving tenderness--that is to say, of human +beauty, comparable to the farewells of Hector and Andromache in Homer; +and everywhere, amid tediousness and monotony, is found a powerful and +superabundant imagination. + +The _Ramayana_, the name of the author of which, Valmiki, has come +down to us, is a poem yet more vast and unequal. There are portions which +to us are quite unreadable, and there are others comparable to the most +imposing and most touching in all epic poetry. Reduced to its theme, the +subject of _Mahabharata_ is extremely simple; it is the history of +Prince Rama, dispossessed of his throne, who saw his beloved wife, Sita, +ravished by the monstrous demon Ravana, who made alliance with the good +monkeys and with them constructed a bridge over the sea to reach the +island on which Sita was detained, who vanquished and slew Ravana, who +re-found Sita, and finally went back happily to his kingdom, which had +also been re-conquered. + +The most noticeable exterior characteristic of the _Mahabharata_ is +the almost constant mingling of men and animals, a mingling which one +feels is in conformity with the dogma of the transmigration of souls. Not +only monkeys but vultures, eagles, gazelles, etc., are brought into the +work and form important personages. We are in the epoch when the animals +spoke. Battles are numerous and described in great detail; the +_Ramayana_ is the _Iliad_ of the Indians; pathetic scenes, as +well as those of love, of friendship, of gratitude are not rare, and are +sometimes exquisite. The whole poem is imbued with a great feeling of +humanity, heroism, and justice. Victory is to the good and right is +triumphant; the gods permit that the just should suffer and be compelled +to struggle; but invariably it is only for a time and the merited +happiness is at the end of all. + +After these two vast giant epics there were written among the Indians a +number of shorter narrative poems, very varied both in tone and manner, +which suggest an uninterrupted succession of highly important and +animated schools of literature. Nearer to our own time--that is, towards +the fifth or sixth century of our era, lyric poetry and the drama were, +as it were, detached from the epopee and existed on their own merits. +Songs of love, of hate, of sadness, or of triumph took ample scope; they +were more often melancholy than sad, for India is the land of optimism, +or at least of resignation. + +DRAMATIC POETRY.--As for the dramatic poetry, that is very curious; it is +not mixed with epopee in the precise sense of the word; but it is +continually mingled with descriptions of nature, with word-paintings of +nature and invocations to nature. The Indian dramatic poet did not +separate man from the air he breathed nor from the world around him; in +recalling the moment of the day or night in which the scene takes place, +_the actual hour_, the poet, no doubt in obedience to a law dictated +to him by his public, kept his characters in communication with earth +and heaven, with the dawn he described, the moon he painted, the evening +he caused to be seen, the plants he portrayed as withering or reviving, +the birds which he showed everywhere in the country or returning to their +habitation, etc. + +From the purely dramatic aspect, these plays are often affecting or +curious, possessing penetrating and thoughtful psychology. The most +celebrated dramas still left to us of the Indian stage are _The Chariot +of Baked Clay_ and the affecting and delicate _Sakuntala_ the gem +of Indian literature, the work of the poet Kalidas, who was also a +remarkable lyric poet. + +GNOMIC POETRY.--Gnomic, that is sententious, poetry, which, it has been +indicated, very early enjoyed high appreciation among the Indians, long +continued to obtain their approval. It was always wise and often +intellectual. The collection of Barthari, who belonged to the sixth or +seventh century A.D., contains thoughts which would do honour to the +highest moralists of the most enlightened epochs. "The fortune, ample or +restricted, which the Creator hath inscribed on thy forehead thou wilt +assuredly attain; wert thou in the desert or in the gold-mines of Meru, +more couldst thou not acquire. Therefore, of what avail to torment +thyself and to humiliate thyself before the powerful. A pot does not draw +more water from the sea than from a well." + +And this might be by a modern man opposing La Rochefoucauld: "The modest +man is one poor in spirit, the devout a hypocrite, the honest man is +artful, the hero is a barbarian, the ascetic is a fool, the unreserved +a chatterbox, the prudent a waverer. Tell me, which is the virtue among +all the virtues that human malice cannot vilify?" + +Here, finally, is a truth for all time: "It is easy to persuade the +ignorant, still easier to persuade the very wise; but he who hath a +commencement of wisdom Brahma himself could not cajole." + +Indian literature continued to be productive, though losing much of its +fecundity, until the fifteenth or sixteenth century of our era. Without +exaggeration, it is permissible to conject that its scope extended over +twenty-five centuries. It possesses the uniquely honourable trait that it +is, assuredly, the only one which owes nothing to any other and is +literally indigenous. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +HEBRAIC LITERATURE + +The Bible, a Collection of Epic, Lyric, Elegiac, and Sententious +Writings. The Talmud, Book of Ordinances. The Gospels. + + +THE BIBLE.--The Hebrew race possessed a literature from about 1050 B.C. +It embodied in poems the legends which had circulated among the people +since the most remote epoch of their existence. It was those poems, +gathered later into one collection, which formed what, since +approximately the year 400, we call the Bible--that is, the Book of +books. + +In the Bible there are histories (_Genesis_, _History of the Jews +up to Joshua_, the _Book of Joshua_, _Judges_, _Kings_, etc.), then +anecdotal episodes (_Ruth_, _Esdras_, _Tobit_, _Judith_, _Esther_), then +books of moral philosophy(_Proverbs of Solomon_, _Ecclesiastes_, +_Wisdom_, _Ecclesiasticus_), then books of an oratorical and lyrical +character (_Psalms of David_ and all the _Prophets_). Finally, a single +work, still lyrical but in which there are marked traces of the dramatic +type (the _Song of Songs_). + +THE TALMUD.--To the works which have been gathered into the Bible, it is +necessary to add the Talmud, a collection of commentaries on the civil +and religious laws of the Jews, which forms an indispensable supplement +to the Bible, to anyone desiring to understand the Hebraic civilisation. + +THE GOSPELS.--The Gospels, published in the Greek tongue, have nothing +Hebraic except that they were compiled by Jews or by their immediate +disciples and that they have preserved something of the manner of writing +of the Jews. + +BIBLICAL WRITINGS.--The Biblical writings, regarded solely from the +literary point of view, form one of the finest monuments of human +thought. The sentiment of grandeur and even of infinity in _Genesis_; +the profound and simple sensibility as in the _History of Joseph_, +_Tobit_, and _Esther_; eloquence and exquisite religious sentiment as in +the _Book of Job_ and the _Psalms of David_; ecstatic lyricism, vehement +and fiery, accompanied with incredible satiric force as in the +_Prophets_; wisdom alike equal to that of the Stoics and of the serious +Epicureans as in _Ecclesiastes_ and the _Proverbs_; everywhere +marvellous imagination, always concise at least, if not restrained; +lyrical sensuality which recalls the most perturbed creations of erotic +Greeks and Latins, whilst surpassing them in beauty as in the _Song of +Songs_; and throughout there is this grandeur, this simple majesty, this +easy and natural sublimity which in the same degree is to be found only +occasionally in Homer and which appears to be the privilege of the +people who were the first to believe in a single God. That is what +makes, almost in a continuous way, the astonishing beauty of the Bible, +and which explains how whole nations, of other origin, have made down to +our own day, and still continue to make, the Bible their uninterrupted +study, and draw from it courage, serenity, exaltation of soul, and a +singular ferment of their poetic and literary genius. + +As has been the case with many other literary monuments, it is possible, +without owning that it is desirable, that the Bible may even survive the +numerous and important religions which have been born from it. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +THE GREEKS + +Homer. Hesiod. Elegiac and Lyric Poets. Prose Writers. Philosophers and +Historians. Lyric Poets. Dramatic Poets. Comic Poets. Orators. Romancers. + + +HOMER.--The most ancient Greek writer known is Homer, and it cannot be +absolutely stated in what epoch he lived. + +Since the seventeenth century it has even been asked if he ever existed +and if his poems are not collections of epic songs which had circulated +in ancient Greece and which at a very recent epoch, that of Pisistratus, +had been gathered into two grand consecutive poems, thanks to some +rearrangement and editing. At the commencement of the nineteenth century +the erudite were generally agreed that Homer had never existed. Now +they are reverting to the belief that there were only two Homers, one the +author of the _Iliad_ and the other of the _Odyssey_. + +THE _ILIAD_.--The _Iliad_ is the story of the wrath of Achilles, of his +retreat far from his friends who were endeavouring to capture Troy and of +his return to them. + +It is the poem of patriotism. It is filled with the spirit that when a +people is divided against itself, all misfortunes fall on and overwhelm +it. Achilles, unjustly offended, deprived his fellow-countrymen of his +support; they are all on the point of perishing; he returns to them in +order to avenge the death of his dearest friend and they are saved. + +The _Iliad_ is almost entirely filled with battles, which are very +skillfully diversified. Some episodes, such as the farewell of Hector to +his wife Andromache when he quits her for the fight, or King Priam +coming, in tears, to ask Achilles for the corpse of his son Hector that +he may piously inter it, are among the most beautiful passages that ever +came from a human inspiration. + +THE _ODYSSEY_.--The _Odyssey_ is also the poem of patriotism, +of the _little homeland_, of the native land. It is the story of +Ulysses, after the siege of Troy, reconquering Ithaca, the small island +of which he is king, and taking ten years to acquire it. What makes the +unity of the poem, what forms the backbone of the poem, is the smoke +which rises above the house of Ulysses, which he always perceives in the +dream of his hopes and desires, which invincibly attracts him, which he +desires to see again before he dies, and the thought of which sustains +him in his trials and causes him to scorn all joys on his road thither. +The thousand adventures of Ulysses, his sojourn with the nymph Calypso, +his terrible perils in the cave of the giant Polyphemus and near the isle +of the Sirens, the tempests which he survives, the hospitality he +receives from King Alcinoüs, the visit he pays to the dead--among whom is +Achilles regretting the earth and preferring to be a ploughman among the +living rather than king among the dead; these are vigorous, curious, +interesting, touching, picturesque scenes from which all subsequent +literatures have drawn inspiration and which still delight all races. + +HESIOD.--Posterior, very probably, to Homer, Hesiod has left two great +poems, one on the families of the gods (_Theogenia_) and the other +on the works of man (_Works and Days_). The _Theogenia_ is very +valuable to us because we learn from it and it makes us understand how +the Greeks understood the divinity, its different manifestations, and, so +to say, its evolution through the world. _Works and Days_ is a poem +filled with both sadness and courage, the author finding the world wicked +and men unjust; but always concluding that with energy, perseverance, and +obstinacy it is possible to save oneself from anything, and that there is +only one real misfortune, which is to know despair. + +ELEGIACAL AND LYRICAL POETS.--Almost from the most remote antiquity, from +the seventh century, perhaps the eighth century before the Christian era, +the Greeks possessed elegiacal and lyrical poets--that is to say, poets +who put into verse their personal sentiments, the joys and sorrows which +they felt as men. Such were Callinos, the satiric Archilochus, the +satiric Simonides of Amorgos, the martial Tyrtaeus. Then there were +the poets who made verses to be set to music: Alcaeus, Sappho, Anacreon, +Alcman. Alcaeus appears to have been the greatest lyrical Greek poet +judging by the fragments we possess by him and by the lyrical poems of +Horace, which there are reasons for believing were imitated from Alcaeus. + +Of the poetess Sappho we have too little to enable us to judge her very +exactly; but throughout antiquity she enjoyed a glory equal to that of +the greatest. She specially sang of love and in such a manner as to lead +to the belief that she herself had not escaped the passion. + +Anacreon sang after the same fashion and with a charm, a grace, a witty +ingenuity which are fascinating. He was the epicurean of poetry (before +the birth of Epicurus) and from him was born a type of literature known +as anacreonotic, which extended right through ancient times and has been +prolonged to modern times. + +PROSE WRITERS.--Finally prose was born, in the sixth century before +Christ, with the philosophers Thales, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, and with +the historians, of whom only one of that epoch has remained famous, +namely Herodotus. + +HERODOTUS.--Herodotus, in a general history of his own time and of that +immediately preceding it, is often not far from epic poetry. His style is +at once limpid and warm, he possesses a pleasing power of distinction, +the taste for and curiosity about the manners of foreign peoples, a +laughing and easy imagination without any pretence at the philosophy of +history or of moralising through history. He was, above all, a delightful +writer. + +AESOP.--To this period (albeit somewhat at hazard) it is possible to +ascribe Aesop, about whom nothing is known except that he wrote the +fables which have been imitated from generation to generation. The +collection that we possess under his name is one of these imitations, +perpetrated long after his death, but as to which it is impossible to +assign a date. + +PINDAR.--Pindar, the Theban, broadened and extended the lyrical type. +Under him it preserved its power, its high spirits, its verse and, so to +say, its fine fury; but he introduced into the epic the narration of +ancient legends, the acts and gestures of the ancient heroes, and +effected this so admirably that the most lyrical of Grecian lyricists is +an historian. Capable of sustained elevation, of sublime thoughts and +expressions, of a fine disorder which has been overpraised, and which on +close expression is found to be very careful, he has been regarded as the +very type of dignified and poetic style, and more or less to be imitated +by all ambitious poets commencing with Ronsard. The wise, like Horace, +have contented themselves with praising him. From fragments left to us he +is infinitely impassioned to read. + +GREEK TRAGEDY.--Greek tragedy, which is one of the miracles of the human +brain, began in the sixth century B.C. It was born of the dithyramb. The +dithyramb is a chant in chorus in honour of a god or a hero. From this +chorus emerged a single actor who sang the praises of the god, and to +which the choir replied. When, instead of one actor, there were two who +addressed one another in dialogue and were answered by the choir, the +dramatic poem was founded. When there were three--and there were hardly +ever any more--tragedy, as the Greeks understood it, existed. + +THESPIS; AESCHYLUS; SOPHOCLES.--Thespis was the earliest known to us who +took rudimentary tragedies from town to town in Attica. Then came +Aeschylus, whose tragedy, already rigid and hieratical, was very +powerful, imbued with terrible majesty; then came Sophocles, a religious +philosopher, having a feeling for the old religion and the art of giving +it a moral character, great lyrical poet, master of dialogue, eloquent, +moving, knowing how to construct and carry on a dramatic poem with +infinite skill, to whom, in fact, can be denied no quality of dramatic +poetry and who attains a conception of perfection. + +EURIPIDES.--Euripides, less religious as a philosopher, sometimes +suggesting the sophist and a little the rhetorician, but full of ideas, +eloquent, affecting, "the most tragic" (that is, the most pathetic) of +all the acting dramatists, as Aristotle observed, the most modern, too, +and the one we best understand, has been the true source whence have been +freely drawn the tragedies of modern times, more particularly of our own. + +The greatest works of Aeschylus are _Seven Against Thebes_ and +_Prometheus Bound_; the greatest of Sophocles: _Antigone_, _Oedipus +the Tyrant_ and _Oedipus at Colonos_; the greatest of Euripides: +_Hippolytus_ and _Iphigenia_. + +After Euripides tragedy was exhausted and only produced very second-rate +works. + +COMEDY.--Comedy enjoyed a longer existence. Very obscure in origin, no +doubt proceeding from the opprobrious jests exchanged by the lower +classes in mirthful hours, it was at first freely fantastical, composed +in dialogue, oratorical, lyrical, satirical, even epical at times. Like +tragedy, it possessed a chorus for which the lyrical part was specially +reserved. It was personal--that is, it directly attacked known +contemporaries, often by name and often by bringing them on the stage. +The celebrated authors of this "ancient comedy" were Eupolis, Cratinos, +of whom we have only fragments, and Aristophanes, whose work has come +down to us. + +ARISTOPHANES.--Aristophanes was a great poet, with incisive humour and +also incomparable lyrical power, with voluntary vulgarity which is often +shocking and an elevation of ideas and language which frequently raise +him to the heights of Aeschylus and Sophocles. Here was one of the +grandest poetic minds that the world has produced. His most considerable +achievements are _The Frogs_, the earliest known work of literary +criticism, in dramatic form too, wherein he sets up a parallel between +Aeschylus and Euripides and cruelly jeers at the latter; _The +Clouds_, in which he mocks the sophists; _The Wasps_, wherein he +ridicules the Athenian mania for judging, and magnificently praises the +old Athenians of the time of Marathon. + +MENANDER.--To this "ancient comedy," immediately succeeded the "middle +comedy," in which it was forbidden to introduce personalities and of +which Aristophanes gave an example and a model in his _Plutus_. +Later, in the fourth century before Christ, with the refined, witty, and +discreet Menander, the "new comedy" was analogous to that of Plautus, of +Terence, and that of our own of the seventeenth century. + +THUCYDIDES.--To return to the time of Pericles; Attic prose developed in +the hands of historians, sages, and philosophers. Thucydides founded true +history, scientific, drawn from the sources, supported and strengthened +by all the information and corroboration that the skilled historian can +gather, examine, and control. As a writer, Thucydides was terse, bare, +limpid, and possessed an agreeable sober elegance. He introduced into his +history imaginary discourses between great historical personages which +allowed him to show the general state of Greece or of particular portions +of Greece at certain important times. It is not known why these +discourses were written in a style differing from that of the rest of the +work, wise, even beautiful, but so extremely concise and elliptic as, in +consequence, to be extremely difficult to understand. + +HIPPOCRATES.--Hippocrates created scientific medicine, the medicine of +observation, denying prodigies, seeking natural causes for diseases, and +already setting up rational therapeutics. There are seventy-two works +called "Hippocratical," which belong to his school; some may be by +himself. + +SOPHISTS AND ORATORS.--The language grew flexible in the hands of the +learned, subtle, and ingenious sophists (Gorgias, Protagoras) who +attacked Socrates by borrowing his weapons, as it were, and making them +perfect. + +A new type of literature was created: the oratorical. Antiphon was the +earliest in date alike of the Athenian orators and of the professors of +eloquence. In a crowd after him came Isocrates, Andocides, Lysias, +Aeschines, Hyperides, and the master of them all, that astonishing +logician, that impassioned and terrible orator, Demosthenes. + +THE PHILOSOPHERS: PLATO.--Contemporaneously the philosophers, quite as +much as the sophists, even confining the matter to the literary aspect, +cast immortal glory on Attica. Imbued with the spirit of Socrates, even +when more or less unfaithful to him, Plato, psychologist, moralist, +metaphysician, sociologist, marvellous poet in prose, seductive and +fascinating mythologist, really created philosophy in such fashion that +even the most modern systems, if not judged by how much they agree or +differ from him, at least invariably recall him, whether they seem a +distant echo of him or whether they challenge and combat him. + +ARISTOTLE; XENOPHON; THEOPHRASTUS.--Aristotle, pre-eminently learned, +admirably cultivated naturalist, acquainted also with everything known in +his day, more prudent metaphysician than Plato but without his depth, a +precise and sure logician and the founder of scientific logic, a clear +and dexterous moralist, an ingenious and pure literary theorist; +Xenophon, who commanded the retreat of the ten thousand, moralist and +Intelligent pedagogue displaying much attractiveness in his +_Cyropoedia_, the sensible, refined, and delightful master of +familiar and practical life in his _Economics_; Theophrastus, +botanist, very witty satirical moralist, highly caustic and +realistic--these three established Greek wisdom for centuries, and +probably for ever, erecting a solid and elegant temple wherein humanity +has almost continuously sought salutary truths, and where some at least +of our descendants, and those not the least illustrious, will always +perform their devotions. + +The chief works of Plato are the _Socratic Dialogues_, the +_Gorgias_, the _Timoeus_, the _Phaedo_ (immortality of the +soul), the _Republic_, and the _Laws_. The principal books of +Aristotle are his _Natural History_, _Metaphysics_, _Logic_, _Rhetoric_, +_Poetica_. The most notable volumes of Xenophon are the _Cyropoedia_, +the _Economics_ and the _Memorabilia of Plato_. The only work of +Theophrastus we possess is his _Characters_, which was translated +and _continued_ by La Bruyère. + +STOICS AND EPICUREANS.--In the fourth and even the third century, +philosophy spoke to mankind through two principal schools: those of the +Stoics and of the Epicureans. The chief representatives of the Stoics +were Zeno and Cleanthes. Chrysippus taught an austere morality which may +be summed up in these words: "Abstain and endure." The Epicureans, whose +chief representatives were Epicurus and Aristippus, taught, when all was +taken into account, the same morality but starting from a different +principle, which was that happiness must be sought, and in pursuance of +this principle they advised less austerity, even in their precepts. +Although these are schools of philosophy, yet they must be taken into +account here because each of them has exercised much influence over +writers, the first on Seneca and much later on Corneille; the second on +Lucretius and Horace; both sometimes on the same man, one example being +Montaigne. + +After Alexander, intellectual Greece extended and enlarged itself so that +Instead of having one centre, Athens, it possessed five or six: Athens, +Alexandria, Antioch, Pergamos, Syracuse. This was an admirable literary +efflorescence; the geniuses were less stupendous but the talents were +innumerable. + +In the cities named, and in others, history, rhetoric, geography, +philosophy, history of philosophy, philology, were taught with ardour and +learnt with enthusiasm; the literary soil was rich and it was assiduously +cultivated. + +ALEXANDRINE LITERATURE.--From this soil rose a fresh literature--more +erudite, less spontaneous, less rich in popular vigour, yet very +interesting. This is the literature known as _Alexandrine_. With +this literature first appeared the _romance_, unknown to the +ancients. The historical romance began with Hecataeus of Abdera, the +philosophical romance with Evemerus of Messenia, who pretended to have +found an ancient inscription proving that the gods of ancient Greece were +old-time kings of the land deified after death, an ingenious invention +from which was to come a whole school of criticism of ancient mythology. + +THE ELEGY AND IDYLL: THEOCRITUS.--True and, at the same time, great poets +belonged to this period. One was Philetas of Cos, founder of the Grecian +elegy, celebrated and affectionately saluted centuries later by André +Chénier. Of his works only a few terse fragments remain. Another was +Asclepiades of Samos, both elegiac and lyric, of whose _epigrams_, +(short elegies) those preserved to us are charming. Yet another was the +sad and charming Leonidas of Tarentum. The two leaders of this choir were +Theocritus and Callimachus. Theocritus, a Sicilian, passes as the founder +of the idyll which he did not invent, but to which he gave the importance +of a type by marking it with his imprint. The idyll of Theocritus was +always a picture of popular customs and even a little drama of popular +morals; but at times it had its scene set in the country, at others in a +town, or again by the sea, and consequently there are rustic idylls +(properly _bucolics_), maritime idylls, popular urban idylls. An +astonishing sense of reality united to a personal poetic gift and a +highly alert sensitiveness made his little poems alike beautiful for +their truth and also for a certain ideal of ardent and profound passion. +It is curious without being astonishing that the idyll of Theocritus +often suggests the poetry of the Bible. + +PUPILS OF THEOCRITUS.--Moschus and Bion were the immediate pupils of +Theocritus. He had more illustrious ones, commencing with Virgil in his +_Eclogues_, continuing with the numerous idylls of the Renaissance +in France and Italy, as well as with Segrais in the seventeenth century, +and ending, if it be desired, with André Chénier, though others more +modern can be traced. + +CALLIMACHUS.--Callimachus, more erudite, more scholastic, was what is +termed a neoclassic, which is that he desired to treat in a new way the +same subjects that had been dealt with by the great men of ancient +Greece, and so far as possible to conceive them in the same spirit. +Therefore he wrote tragedies, comedies, "satiric dramas" (a kind of farce +in which secondary deities were characterised), lyric and elegiac poems +after the manner of Alcaeus or Sappho, a familiar epopee, a romance in +verse, which was perhaps a novel type, but more probably imitated from +certain poems of ancient Greece which we no longer possess. To us his +poetry seems cold and calculated, although clever and dexterous. It was +held in high esteem not only in his own day but to the close of +antiquity. + +DIDACTIC POETRY: ARATUS; APOLLONIUS.--Didactic poetry, of the cultivation +of which there had been no trace since Hesiod, was destined to be revived +in this clever period; and, in fact, at this time Aratus wrote his +_Phoenomena_, which is a course of astronomy and meteorology in +conformity with the science of his era. More ambitious, and desirous not +only of writing an epic fragment like Callimachus, but also of restoring +the old-time grand epic poem after the manner of Homer (Callimachus and +he had a violent quarrel on the subject), Apollonius of Rhodes in his +_Argonautics_ narrated the expedition of Jason. It was a fine epic +poem and especially an astonishing psychological poem. The study of +passion and of the progress and catastrophe of the infatuation of Medea +form a masterpiece. Assuredly Virgil in his _Dido_, and perhaps +Racine in his _Phèdre_ remembered Apollonius. + +LYCOPHRON.--Lycophron also belongs to this period. He left such an +admirable poem (_Alexandra_, that is Cassandra) that his +contemporaries themselves failed to understand it in spite of all their +efforts. He is the head and ancestor of that great school of inaccessible +or impenetrable poets who are most ardently admired. Maurice Scève in the +sixteenth century is the illustrious example. + +THE EPIGRAMMATISTS: MELEAGER.--To these numerous men of great talent must +be added the epigrammatists--that is, those who wrote very short, very +concise, very limpid poems wherein they sought absolute perfection. They +were almost innumerable. The most illustrious was Meleager, in whom we +can yet appreciate delicate genius and exquisite sensibility. + +POLYBIUS.--Reduced to Roman provinces (successively greater Greece, +Greece proper, Egypt, Syria), the Grecian world none the less continued +to be an admirable intellectual haven. As early as the Punic wars, the +Greek Polybius revealed he was an excellent historian, military, +political, and philosophical, inquisitive about facts, inquisitive, too, +about probable causes, constitutions, and social institutions, the +morals, character, and the underlying temperament of races. His principal +work is the _Histories_--that is, the history of the Graeco-Roman +world from the second Punic war until the capture of Corinth by the +Romans. He was an intellectual master; unfortunately he wrote very badly. + +EPICTETUS; MARCUS AURELIUS.--It must, however, be recognised that in the +first century before Christ and in the first after, Greece--even +intellectually--was in a state of depression. But dating from the Emperor +Nerva--that is, from the commencement of the second century--there was a +remarkable Hellenic revival. Primarily, it was the most brilliant moment +since Plato in Grecian philosophy. Stoicism exerted complete sway over +the cultivated classes; Epictetus gave his _Enchiridion_ and +_Manual_, wherein are condensed the elevated and profound thoughts +most deeply realised of the doctrine of Zeno; later, the Emperor Marcus +Aurelius, in his solitary meditations entitled _For Myself_, depicts +his own soul, admirable, chaste, pure, severe to himself, indulgent to +others, pathetically resigned to the universal order of things and +adhering to them with a renunciation and a faith that are truly +religious. Less severe, even playful and smiling, Dion Chrysostom (that +is, mouth of gold, nickname given to him because of his eloquence) is +penetrated with the same spirit a little mingled with Platonism, which +makes him, therefore, perhaps, penetrate more easily than the +over-austere pure Stoics. + +PLUTARCH.--Plutarch, as historian discreetly romantic, as philosophical +moralist decidedly dexterous, gently obstinate in conciliation and +concord, in a large portion of his _Parallel Lives_ narrated those +of illustrious Romans and Greeks to show how excellent they were and how +highly they ought to esteem one another; elsewhere, in his moral works, +he sought to conciliate philosophy and paganism, no doubt believing in a +single God, as did Plato, but also believing in a crowd of intermediary +spirits between God and man, which allowed him to regard the deities of +paganism as misunderstood beings and even in a certain sense to admit +their authority. Emphatically a man who observed the golden mean, he +opposed the Stoics for being too severe on human nature and the +Epicureans for being too easy or for too lightly risking the future. He +was an elegant writer--gracious, self-restraining; nearer, all said and +done, to eclecticism than to simplicity, and he must not be judged by the +geniality which was virtually imparted to him by Amyot in translating +him. Throughout Europe, since the Renaissance, of all the Grecian authors +he has perhaps been the most read, the most quoted, the best loved, and +the most carefully edited. + +THE GREEK HISTORIANS.--Greek historians multiplied about this period. To +mention only the most notable: Arrian, philosopher, disciple of +Epictetus, and historian of the expedition of Alexander; Appian, who +wrote the history of the Roman people from their origin until the time of +Trajan; Dion Cassius, who also compiled Roman history in a sustained +manner full of elegance and nobility; Herodian, historian of the +successors of Marcus Aurelius, who would only narrate what he had himself +witnessed, a showy writer who seems over-polished and a little +artificial. + +A historian of a highly individualistic character was Diogenes of +Laertius, who wrote the _Lives of Philosophers_, being very little +of a philosopher himself and too prone to drop into anecdotage, but +interesting and invaluable to us because of the scanty information we +possess about ancient philosophy. + +LUCIAN.--Immeasurably superior to those just cited since Plutarch, Lucian +of Samosata (Syria) may be regarded as the Voltaire of antiquity--witty, +sceptical, amusing, even comic. He was primarily a lecturer, wandering +like a sophist from town to town, in order to talk in vivacious, +animated, nimble, and paradoxical fashion. Then he was a polygraphic +writer, producing treatises, satires, and pamphlets on the most diverse +subjects. He wrote against the Christians, the pagans, the philosophers, +the prejudiced, sometimes against common sense. Amongst his works were +_The Way to Write History_, partly serious, partly sarcastic; _The +Dialogues of the Dead_, moralising and satirical, imitated much later +in very superior fashion by Fontenelle; _The Dialogues of the Gods_, +against mythology; _True History_, a parody of the false or romantic +histories then so fashionable, more especially about Alexander. He +certainly possessed little depth, but his talent was incredible: +alertness, causticity, amusing logic, burlesque dialectics, an +astonishing instinct for caricature, the art of natural dialogue, gay +insolence, light but vivid psychological penetration, an almost profound +sense of the ridiculous, joyous fooling; above all, that first essential +of satire, to be himself amused by what he wrote to amuse others; all +these he possessed in a high degree. Rabelais has been called the Homeric +buffoon, Lucian is certainly the Socratic. + +POETRY AND ROMANCE.--Greek poetry no longer existed at this period. +Hardly is it permissible to cite the didactic Oppian, with his poem on +sin, and the fabulist Babrius, imitator of Aesop in his fables. In +reparation, the romance was born and the scientific literature was +important. The romance claimed among its representatives Antonius +Diogenes, with his _Marvels Beyond Thule_; Heliodorus, with his +_Aethiopica_ or _Theagenes and Chariclea_, the love-story so +much admired by Racine in his youth; Longus, with his _Daphnis and +Chloe_, which still retains general approval and which possesses real, +though somewhat studied grace, and of which the ability of the style is +quite above the normal. + +SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE.--Scientific literature includes the highly +illustrious mathematician and astronomer Ptolemy, whose system obtained +respect and belief until the advent of Copernicus; the physician Galen; +the philosopher-physician Sextus Empiricus, who was a good historian, +highly sceptical, but well informed and intelligent about philosophical +ideas. + +DECADENCE OF THE GREEK SPIRIT.--Vitality was slowly withdrawn from the +Grecian world, although not without revivals and highly interesting +semi-renaissances. In the fourth century, the sophist--that is, the +professor of philosophy and of rhetoric--Libanius left a vast number of +official or academic discourses and letters which were dissertations. +Like his friend the Emperor Julian, he was a convinced pagan, and with +kindly but firm spirit combated the Christian bishops, priests, and +particularly the monks, who were objects of veritable repulsion to him. +He possessed talent of a secondary but honourable rank. + +THE EMPEROR JULIAN.--The Emperor Julian, a Christian in childhood, but +who on attaining manhood reverted to paganism, which earned him the title +of "the Apostate," was highly intelligent, pure in heart, and filled with +a spirit of tolerance; but he was a heathen and he wrote against +Christianity. He possessed satiric force and wit, even a measure of +eloquence. A pamphlet by him, the _Misopogon_, directed against the +inhabitants of Antioch, who had chaffed him about his beard, makes +amusing reading. He died quite young; he would, in all probability, have +become a very great man. + +PROCOPIUS.--It is necessary to advance to the sixth century to mention +the historian Procopius, that double-visaged annalist who, in his +official histories, was lost in admiration of Justinian, and who, in his +_Secret History_, only published long after his death, related to us +the turpitude, real or imagined, of Theodora, wife of the Emperor +Justinian, and of Antonina, wife of Belisarius. + +POETRY.--Greek poetry was not dead. Quintus of Smyrna, who was of the +fourth century, perhaps later, wrote a _Sequel to Homer_, without +much imagination, but with skill and dexterity; Nonnus wrote the +_Dionysiaca_, a poetic history of the expedition of Bacchus to +India, declamatory, copious, and powerful, full alike of faults and +talent; Musaeus (date absolutely unknown) has remained justly celebrated +for his delicious little poem _Hero and Leander_, countless times +translated both in prose and verse. + +GRECIAN CHRISTIAN WRITERS.--It is necessary to revert to the fourth +century in order to enumerate Grecian Christian writers. As might be +expected these were almost all controversial orators. Saint Athanasius of +Alexandria was an admirable man of action, a fiery and impassioned +orator, the highly polemical historian of the Church, after the manner of +Bossuet in his _History of Variations_. Saint Basil, termed by his +admirers "the Great," without there being much hyperbole in the +qualification, was an incomparable orator. He, as it were, reigned over +Eastern Christianity, thanks to his word, his skill, and his courage. +Even to us his works possess charm. He intermingled the finest ideas of +Plato and of Christianity in the happiest and most orthodox manner. The +humanists held him in esteem for having rendered justice to antiquity in +his _Lecture on Profane Authors_ and having advised Christians to +study it with prudence but with esteem. Saint Gregory of Nazianzen, the +intimate friend of Saint Basil, was also a great orator, exalted, ardent, +and lyrical, whilst he was also as a poet, refined, gracious, and full of +charm. Saint Gregory of Nyssa, brother of Saint Basil, was essentially a +theologian and in his day a theological authority. + +SAINT JOHN CHRYSOSTOM.--The most splendid figure of the Greek Church was +Saint John Chrysostom, celebrated in political history for his struggle +with the Emperor Arcadius and the Empress Eudoxia, and for the +persecutions he had in consequence to suffer. His heated, fiery, and +violent eloquence, which was altogether that of a tribune of the people, +can still profoundly affect us because therein can be felt a deeply +sincere ardour, a passion for justice, charity, and love. A bellicose +moralist, he was, like Bourdaloue, a realist and therefore an exact and +cruel delineator of the customs of his time, which were not good; and he +teaches us better than anyone else what was the sad state of Eastern +morality in his day. His widely varied genius, passing from the most +spiritually familiar of tones to the height of moving and imposing +eloquence, was one of the grandest of all antiquity. + +EUSEBIUS.--Allusion should be made to that good historian Eusebius, who +narrated Christian history from its origins until the year 323. + +THE BYZANTINE PERIOD.--What is termed the Byzantine period extended from +the close of the reign of Justinian to the definite fall of the Eastern +Empire (565-1453). This long epoch, practically corresponding to the +Middle Ages of the West, is very weak from the literary point of view, +but yet possessed a number of interesting and valuable historians (Joseph +of Byzantium, Comnenus, etc.) and skilled and learned grammarians, that +is professors of language and literature (Eustathius, Cephalon, Planudes, +Lascaris). It was the later of these grammarians, among them Lascaris, +who after the fall of Constantinople being welcomed in France and Italy, +brought the Greek writers to the West, commentated on them, made them +known, and thence came the Renaissance of Literature. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +THE LATINS + +The Latins, Imitators of the Greeks. Epic Poets, Dramatic Poets. Golden +Age: Virgil, Horace, Ovid. Silver Age: Prose Writers, Historians and +Philosophers:--Titus-Livy, Tacitus, Seneca. Decadence Still Brilliant. + + +LATIN LITERATURE.--Latin literature is little more than a branch of Greek +literature. It commenced much later, finished earlier, and has always +poured into the others at least a portion of its living force. Roman +literature really begins only at the moment when the Romans came into +contact with the Greeks, read their works, and were tempted to imitate +them; that is to say, it commences in the third century before Christ. +The first manifestation of this literature was epic. Naevius and Livius +Andronicus made epopees. They are destitute of talent. Ennius made one: +it possessed merit; what the Latin critics have quoted of his +_Annals_ is marked, first by an energetic patriotic sentiment which +affords pleasure; then it possesses energy and sometimes even a certain +brilliance. In addition, Ennius wrote several didactic and satiric poems. +Among the Romans, Ennius was the great ancestor and father of Latin +literature. + +LUCILIUS.--Lucilius was a satirist. Judging by the fragments of his work +which have come down to us, he was a very acute and penetrating political +satirist. Horace, despite his sovereign disdain for all that preceded his +own century, did not fail to value him and agreed that there was +something to be drawn and appreciated from this "muddy torrent." + +COMEDY: PLAUTUS; TERENCE.--Comedy and tragedy existed at this period. It +may be apposite here to point out that it was later and in the finest +period of Latin literature that they ceased to exist. Plautus conceived +the plan of transporting to Rome Grecian comedies of the time of the new +comedy and of adapting them more or less to Latin morals. He possessed a +strong and brutal verve which did not lack power, and more than once +Molière did him the honour of taking inspiration from him. Terence, after +him, the friend of Scipio the second Africanus, and perhaps in +collaboration with him, in a way widely different from that of Plautus so +far as type of talent, tender, gentle, romantic, sentimental, smiling +rather than witty, so far as can be judged directly inspired by Menander, +wrote comedies which are highly agreeable to read, but it is doubtful if +they could ever have been widely appreciated on the stage. However, the +Roman writers held him in great esteem, and at one epoch of our own +history, in the seventeenth century, he enjoyed remarkable and unanimous +appreciation. + +L'ATELLANE.--To comedy strictly defined, whether it dealt with Romans or +Greeks, the Romans also added the atellane, which came to them from the +Etruscans (Atella, a city of Etruria) and which was a sort of farce with +stereotyped characters (the fat glutton, the lean glutton, the old miser +always baffled, etc.). Pomponius and Naevius endeavoured to raise this +popular recreation to a literary standard and succeeded. It then became a +thoroughly national characteristic. There was considerable analogy +between it and the modern popular Italian comedy, showing its Cassandras, +its Pantaloon, and its Harlequin, without it being possible to assert +that the Italian comedy proceeded from the atellane. The atellane enjoyed +much success in the second century before Christ. It was, however, ousted +by the mime, which was the kind of comic literature thoroughly national +at Rome. The mime was a farce of popular morals, particularly of the +lower classes; it was a portrayal of the dregs of society in their comic +aspects. It maintained its sway until the close of the Roman Empire +without becoming more dignified; rather the reverse. The names of some +authors of mimes have survived: Publius Syrus and Laberius, in the time +of Caesar. What is curious is that these mimes, licentious and even +obscene though they were, throughout gave occasional utterance to highly +moral observations which Latin grammarians have preserved for us. This +curious mixture may be explained or contrasted at pleasure; perhaps it +was only a conventional habit. + +TRAGEDY.--As for what there was of tragedy, it was destined to be yet +shorter-lived than comedy, but it was evidently very brilliant and it is +regrettable that it has not been preserved. Livius Andronicus and Nasvius +wrote tragedies, but the three greatest tragedians were Ennius, his +nephew Pacuvius, and Attius. Ennius imitated Euripides, Pacuvius +Sophocles, and Attius Aeschylus. All three soared to the grand, the +majestic, and the sublime; all seem to have been very sententious and +replete with maxims; but it is needful to be cautious: these authors are +known to us only by the citations made by grammarians, and grammarians +who, having naturally cited phrases rather than fragments of dialogue, +make it possible that these authors appear to us sententious when they +were in reality not abnormally so. + +PROSE LITERATURE.--Prose literature at Rome appeared almost at the same +time as the poetic. Cicero has given us the names of great orators, +contemporaries of Ennius, and there were historians and didacticians in +prose of the same period. The elder Cato, the great censor, was an +historian; he wrote a work, _The Origins_, which seems to have been +the history not only of Rome but of all Italy since the foundation of +Rome; he was didactic; he wrote a _De Re Rustica_ (On Rural Life) +which has come down to us and is infinitely valuable as showing the +simplicity, the hardness, and the avarice of the old Roman proprietors, +all qualities which Cato thoroughly well knew they possessed. + +THE AGE OF CAESAR.--The age of Caesar was a great literary epoch. Before +all and almost over all was Caesar himself: great orator, letter-writer, +grammarian, and historian. His _Commentaries_, that is, his memoirs, +history of his campaigns, are admirable in their conciseness and +precision of rapid and running narrative. Apart from him, Cornelius Nepos +made a very clear abridgment, characterised by marked sobriety, of +universal history under the title of _Chronica_. Varro, a kind of +encyclopaedist, wrote a _De Re Rustica_, also a work on the Latin +language, _Menippic Satires_--satires it is true, but mixtures of +prose and verse--and a work on _Roman Life_, as well as a crowd of +small books dealing with every possible subject. Cicero told him, "You +have taught us all things human and divine." He possessed immense +erudition and a violent mind not without charm. He can be imagined as a +sage of our own sixteenth century. + +CICERO.--Cicero was perhaps the greatest _littérateur_ that has ever +lived. It is obvious that all tastes were in his soul at the same time, +as Voltaire said of himself, and he gratified them all. He was +politician, lawyer, orator, poet, philosopher, professor of rhetoric, +moralist, grammarian, political writer, correspondent; he encompassed all +human knowledge, involved himself in all human matters and was a very +great writer. What to-day interests us most in his immense output are his +political discourses, his letters and his moral treatises. His political +discourses are those of an honest man who always held upright views and +the sentiment of the great interests of his country; his letters are +those of a witty man and of an excellent friend; his moral treatises, +more particularly his _De Officiis_ (On Duties), are in a very +elevated spirit which subordinates all other human duties beneath +obligations towards one's country. He did not always rise to +circumstances; he was well content, on the contrary, that they should +serve him. + +SALLUST.--Sallust, who as an individual seems to have been contemptible, +was a highly sagacious and excellent historian. He has left a history of +Catiline and another of Jugurtha. They are masterpieces of lucidity and +of dramatic vivacity. Admirable especially are his maxims, which seem as +well thought out as those of La Rochefoucauld: "Friendship is to desire +the same things and to hate the same things"; "the spirit of faction is +the friendship of scoundrels." + +POETRY: CATULLUS.--Poetry was not less brilliant than prose in the time +of Caesar. It was the era of Lucretius and of Catullus. Catullus, a +delightful man of the world, a charming voluptuary, passionate and +eloquent lover, formidable epigrammatist, a little coloured by +Alexandrianism (but barely, for this trait has been much exaggerated), +comes very close to being a great poet. In many respects he closely +recalls André Chénier, who, it may be added, was thoroughly conversant +with his writing. + +LUCRETIUS.--Lucretius is a very noble poet. If we knew Epicurus otherwise +than by fragments, it is highly probable we should be tempted to assert +that Lucretius was only a translator; but on that we cannot pronounce, +and of the didactic part of the poem of Lucretius (_On Nature_), +even if it were a simple translation, all the oratorical and the +descriptive portions would remain, and they are the most beautiful of the +work. In his invocations to Epicurus, in his prosopopoeia of nature to +man inviting resignation to death, in his descriptions of the immolation +of Iphigenia and of the cow wandering in the fields in search of her lost +heifer, there are a breadth, a grasp, and an epic grandeur, which recall +Homer, arouse thoughts of Dante, and which Virgil himself, whilst much +less unequal though never greater, has not attained. + +THE AUGUSTAN AGE.--The Augustan Age, which was only really very great if +under this title is also included the epoch of Caesar and also that of +Octavius, and thus it was understood by our ancestors, does not fail to +offer writers of fine genius. These are Virgil, Horace, and Titus-Livy. + +TITUS-LIVY.--Titus-Livy, who is one of the purest and most beautiful +writers and an orator of seductive talent in his own chamber, wrote a +Roman history composed, as to the first portion, of the legends +transmitted at Rome from generation to generation, and in which it is +impossible for us to distinguish the false from the true; for two-thirds +of the work made very accurate investigations of all that previous +historians and the annals of the pontiffs could give the author. As has +been observed, Titus-Livy, being a Cisalpine, was a Gaul who already +possessed the French qualities: order, clearness, regulated development, +sustained and careful style, oratorical tastes. An ardent patriot, +republican at his soul, yet treated in friendly fashion by Augustus, he +wrote Roman history at first, no doubt, to make it known, but above all +to inspire the Romans of his own time with admiration, respect, and love +for the austere morals and exalted virtues of their ancestors. He erected +a monument, one portion of which is unhappily destroyed, but into which +modern tragedians have often quarried and which orators have not scorned +when desiring to instruct themselves in their art. + +VIRGIL.--Virgil came from almost the same country. His was a charming +soul, tender and gentle, infinitely capable of friendship, very pure and +white, as Horace said, with a tendency to melancholy. The two sources of +his inspiration were Homer and love of Rome; add, for a time, Theocritus. +Lover of the country and of moral life, he first wrote those delicious +_Bucolics_ wherein he did not venture to be as realistic as the +Sicilian poet, but in which there is not only infinite grace and delicate +sensibility, but also, in certain verses, admirable descriptions that +arouse memories of those of La Fontaine. Lover of the soil and desirous, +in harmony with Augustus, to attract the Italians back to a taste for +agriculture, he wrote the _Georgics_: that is, the toils of the +field, describing these labours with singular exactitude and precision; +then, to give the reader variety, he introduced from time to time an +episode which is a fragment of history or of mythological legend. At +length, desirous of attributing to Rome the most glorious past possible, +he revived the old legend which claimed that the ancient kings of Rome +descended from the famous kings of Troy in her zenith, and he composed +the _Aeneid_. The _Aeneid_ is at once both an _Odyssey_ and an +_Iliad_. The first five books containing the adventures of +Aeneas after the fall of Troy until his arrival in Italy form an +_Odyssey_; the last six books, containing the combats of Aeneas in +Italy in order to conquer a place for himself, form an _Iliad_. In +the middle, the sixth book is a descent into hell, again an imitation of +Homer, yet altogether new, enriched as it is with very fine philosophical +ideas which Homer could never have known. The main theme of the poem and +what gives it unity is Rome, which does not yet exist, but which is +always to be seen looming in the future. All the poem leans in that +direction, and alike by ingenious artifices, by prophecies more and more +exact, by the description of the shield of Aeneas, Roman history itself, +in its broad lines, is traced. + +The sovereign merit of Virgil is his artistic sense. Others are more +powerful or more profound. No man has written better verse than he on any +subject on which he wrote. + +HORACE.--Horace was a man of infinite wit, profoundly conversant with the +Grecian poets. With that knowledge of the poets he filled his odes with +recollections of Alcasus and Stesichorus; they were minutely and finely +polished, accustoming the Romans to find in Latin words the musical +phrases of the Greeks, but withal remaining very cold. With his wit, his +verve, his very lively sense of humour, his pretty moral philosophy +borrowed a little from the Stoics but mainly from the Epicureans, he +created his _Satires_ and his _Epistles_, which form the most +delicate feast and which have no more lost their interest for us than +Montaigne has. Here was a charming man. He was not a great poet. He was +the most witty of poets, the poet of the men of wit. + +TIBULLUS; PROPERTIUS; OVID.--Tibullus, Propertius, and Ovid immediately +followed him. Tibullus was a tender and sad elegiast, less passionate and +less powerful than Catullus, but gracious and touching. All the elegiacal +poets, and André Chénier in particular, have evinced recollections of +him. Propertius possessed great talent for versification, but was more +erudite than inspired; being almost pure Alexandrine, he is more +interesting to the humourist than to the ordinary man. Ovid, gifted with +facility and the skill of a prodigious versifier, dexterous descriptist +in his _Metamorphoses_, ingenious and cold in his _Art of +Love_, has found some pathetic notes in his elegies wherein as an +exile he weeps over his own misfortunes. + +DECADENCE.--With the second century arrived the commencement of +decadence. The rhetoricians, who in Rome were what the sophists were in +Athens, only far less intelligent, directed the public mind. They did +not spoil it completely, but they did not give it strength, and the +Latins, believing they had reached the zenith of the Greeks, seemed to +draw less inspiration from the eternal models. + +QUINTUS CURTIUS.--However, the Latin sap is still strong. Quintus +Curtius, romantic historian, who wrote a history of Alexandria which is +too generous towards the legendary, narrates brilliantly and strews his +pages with vigorously phrased maxims and apothegms. He is a remarkable +author. The elder Pliny, a very erudite sage and a somewhat precious +writer, is a worthy successor of Varro. + +SENECA.--Seneca, who certainly was well nurtured in Greek philosophy, +preached stoicism in concise, antithetic, and epigrammatic styles, all in +highly thoughtful points which sometimes attain power. + +PETRONIUS; LUCIAN; MARTIAL.--Petronius was a man possessing highly +refined taste who painted extremely ugly morals. Tragedy endeavoured to +obtain renaissance with Seneca the tragic, who is perhaps the same as the +moralist Seneca, alluded to above, and the effort was sufficiently +brilliant for our tragedians of the sixteenth century, and even Racine in +his _Phèdre_, frequently to follow it. Perseus, pupil of Horace so +far as his satires are concerned, was concise to the point of obscurity, +but often displayed such vigour and ruggedness as to be powerfully +moving. Lucian, spoilt by a certain taste for declamation, is really a +sound poet, more especially as a poetic orator, and in this respect he is +often admirable. Silius Italicus, Valerius Flaccus, Statius, revert to +the school of Virgil and display talent for versification. Martial, +almost exclusively epigrammatic, was extremely witty. + +JUVENAL.--Juvenal, arising sardonically from the crowd, is the prince of +satirists for all time. He possessed a passion for honesty, spirit, and +oratorical breadth, and incredible vigour as colourist, the gift of verse +cast in medallions and also the gift of energetic metallic sonorousness. +Victor Hugo, in the satiric portion of his work, not merely drew +inspiration from but seemed saturated with him. + +THE TRAJAN EPOCH.--now came the Trajan epoch. Quintilian, in elegant +fashion, with point and rather affected graces, taught us excellent +rhetoric full of sense and taste. Pliny the Younger, gentle and gay, +honest and amusing, pleaded as an insinuating orator, and, under the +pretext of _Letters_ to his friends, wrote essays of amiable +morality which evoke recollections of Montaigne. + +TACITUS.--Tacitus is a great psychological historian and moralist. He is, +as Racine observed, "the greatest painter of antiquity," and Racine meant +the greatest painter of portraits. He possessed an entirely fresh style +of his own creation: nervous, articulate, coloured, concise, with brief +metaphors which reveal not only a poet, but a fine poet, in the vein of +Michelet, but with the difference of febrility to the potent discharge of +power. + +AULUS GELLIUS; APULEIUS.--Under Marcus Aurelius Latin literature fell +into decay. Aulus Gellius was only a rather untidy or at least not very +methodical scholar who wrote feebly; Apuleius with his _Golden Ass_ +was merely a fantastic romancist, very complex, curious about everything, +more especially with regard to singularities, lively, amusing, mystical +at times; in short, distinctly disconcerting. + +WRITERS ON CHRISTIANITY.--Christianity was at an adult age. There were +writers of importance and some who were really great; the energetic and +violent Tertullian, beloved by Bossuet; Saint Cyprian, full of unction, +gentleness, and charity; Lactantius, skilful Christian philosopher, +ingenious and possessing insinuating subtlety; Saint Hilarius, an ardent +polemist, impetuous and torrential; Saint Ambrose, exalted, wise, serene, +very well read, very "Roman," who may be styled the Cicero of +Christianity; Saint Jerome, ardent, impassioned, possessing lively +sensibility, an animated and seductive imagination, who--excluding all +idea of scandal--suggests what is purest and most beautiful in Jean +Jacques Rousseau; finally, that great doctor and noble philosopher of +the Church, Saint Augustine. + +SAINT AUGUSTINE.--Saint Augustine is pre-eminently a philosopher, a man +who analysed ideas and saw all that they contained, their first principle +and their trend as well as their ultimate consequences. He was in +addition a great orator; he was also a historian, or at least a +philosopher of history, in his _City of God_; finally, he was a poet +at heart and imbued with the most exquisite sensibility in his immortal +_Confessions_. Probably he was the most extraordinary man of the +world of antiquity. + +CHRISTIAN POETS.--Christianity even had its poets: Commodian, Juvencus, +the impassioned and skilful Prudentius, St. Paulinus of Nola. None were +very prominent, all possessed lively sentiment, such as Chateaubriand +evinced, for what is profoundly poetic in Christianity. + +SECULAR POETS.--The last mundane poets were more brilliant than those of +Christianity. Avienus possessed charming elegance and rather effeminate +grace. It should be noted that he (with Prudentius) was the sole lyric +poet after Horace. Ausonius had sensibility and remarkable descriptive +talent; Claudian, rhetorician in verse, rose sometimes to veritable +eloquence and maintained a continual brilliance which is fatiguing +because it is continual, but does not fail to be a marvellous fault. +Finally must be cited Rutilius, first because he had talent, then because +even amid the invasions of the barbarians he made an impassioned eulogy +of Rome which is, involuntarily, a funeral oration; finally, because, +despite being a bitter foe to Christianity, he once more involuntarily +defined the great and noble change from paganism to Christianity: _Tunc +mutabantur corpora, nunc animi_ ("Formerly bodies were metamorphosed, +now souls"). + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +THE MIDDLE AGES: FRANCE + +_Chansons de Geste: Song of Roland_ and Lyric Poetry. Popular +Epopee: _Romances of Renard_. Popular Short Stories: Fables. +Historians. The Allegorical Poem: _Romance of the Rose_. Drama. + + +_CHANSONS DE GESTE_.--The literature of the Middle Ages freed itself from +Latin about the tenth century. This was the moment when the great epopees +which are called _chansons de geste_ began to be heard. The most +celebrated is the one entitled _The Song of Roland_. It is the story +of the last struggle in which Roland engaged on returning from Spain at +the pass of Roncevaux and of his death. The form of this poem is rather +dry and a little monotonous; but there are admirable passages such as the +benediction of the dying by the Bishop Turpin, the farewell of Roland to +Oliver, Roland holding out his glove to his Lord God at the moment of +death, etc. The _chansons de geste_ were numerous. Some +commemorated Charlemagne and his comrades, others Arthur, King of +Britain, and his knights, others, as a rule less interesting, were about +the heroes of antiquity, Troy, Alexander, not well known but not +forgotten. The _chansons de geste_ permeated the whole of the +eleventh and twelfth centuries. + +JOINVILLE; VILLEHARDOUIN.--In the thirteenth century appeared an +historian, Joinville, friend of St. Louis, who described the crusade in +which he took part with his master. He possessed _naïvéte_, grace, +naturalness, and picturesqueness. Villehardouin, who described the fourth +crusade, in which he played his part, was a realist--exact, precise, +luminous--in whom the strangeness and grandeur of the things he had +witnessed sometimes inspired a true nobility, simple enough but +singularly impressive. + +THE TROUBADOURS.--Lyric poetry barely existed during these centuries +except south of the Loire, in the Latin country, among the poets called +troubadours; nevertheless, in the north, the noble Count Thibaut of +Champagne, to cite only one, wrote songs possessing amiable inspiration +and happily turned. Beside him must be instanced the highly remarkable +Ruteboeuf, narrator, elegiast, lyric orator, admirably gifted, who, to be +a great poet, only needed to live in a more favourable period and to have +at his disposition a more flexible language, one more abundant and more +widely elaborated. + +_THE ROMANCES OF RENARD_.--In the fourteenth century, the _Romances of +Renard_ enjoyed remarkably wide popularity and multiplied in +abundance. Each was like a fable by La Fontaine expanded to the +proportions of an epic poem. Under the names of animals they were human +types in action and concerned in multifarious adventures: the lion was +the king; the bear, called Bruin, was the seigneurial lord of the soil; +the fox was the artful, circumspect citizen; the cock, called +Chanticleer, was the hero of warfare, and so on. Some of the _Romances +of Renard_ are insipid; others possess a satiric and parodying spirit +that is extremely diverting. + +THE FABLES.--Contemporaneously the _Fables_ amused our ancestors. +They were anecdotes, tales in verse for the most part dealing with +adventures of citizens, analogous to the tales of La Fontaine. The +majority were jeering, bantering, and satirical; some few were affecting +and refined. They were certainly the most living and characteristic +portion of old French literature. + +THE BIBLES.--The Middle Ages, after the manner of the ancients, delighted +in gathering into one volume all the knowledge current. These didactic +books were called bibles. Some were celebrated: the _Bible_ of Guyot +of Provence, the _Bible_ of Hugo of Berzi. As a rule, whilst learned +as far as the resources of the times permitted, they were also satiric, +precisely as almost the whole of the literature of the Middle Ages is +satiric. + +_THE ROMANCE OF THE ROSE_.--The _Romance of the Rose_, which was by +two authors writing with almost half a century of interval between them, +was in the first portion, of which the author is William of Lorris, an +art of love in the form of a romance in verse; and the second part, +written by John de Meung, formed in some measure a continuation of the +first, but above all was a work of erudition and instruction, in which +the poet put all that he knew as well as his philosophical conceptions, +often of a remarkable and highly unexpected boldness. Aptly John de Meung +has been compared with Rabelais, and it is not astonishing that the +popularity of this poem should have lasted more than two centuries nor +that it should have charmed or irritated our ancestors according to the +tendency of their minds. + +FROISSART.--The representative of history in the fourteenth century was +Froissart, a picturesque chronicler, very vital, always full of interest, +although it is indisputable that he was lacking in historical criticism; +and among the orators, polemists, and controversialists of the times must +at least be cited the impassioned and virtuous Gerson, who expended his +life in incessant struggles on behalf of his Christian faith. + +To him, without decisive proof, has often been attributed the +_Imitation of Jesus Christ_, which, in any case, whoever wrote it, +must be emphasised as one of the purest products of the religious spirit +of the Middle Ages. + +CHARLES OF ORLEANS; VILLON.--The fifteenth century, otherwise somewhat +sterile, introduced one distinguished poet, Charles of Orleans, graceful +and pleasing; and one who at moments rose to the height of being almost +a great poet: this was Francis Villon, the celebrated author of _The +Ballade of Dames of Ancient Times_, of which the yet more famous +refrain was, "Where are the snows of last year?" + +MYSTERIES AND MIRACLES.--To deal with the theatre of the Middle Ages it +is necessary to go further back. Without considering as drama those pious +performances which the clergy organised or tolerated even in the churches +from the tenth century and probably earlier, there was already a popular +drama in the twelfth century outside the church whereat were performed +veritable dramas drawn from holy writ or legends of saints. This +developed in the thirteenth century, and in the fourteenth and fifteenth +it was prolific in immense dramatic poems which needed several days for +their performance. These were _Mysteries_, as they were termed, or +_Miracles_, wherein comedy and tragedy were interwoven and a great +deed in religious history or sometimes in national history commemorated, +such as the _Mystery of the Siege of Orleans_, by Greban. + +FARCES; FOLLIES; MORALITIES.--The comic theatre also existed. It provided +_farces_, which were really little comedies (the most famous was the +_Farce of the Lawyer Patelin_); _follies_, which are farcical +but good-humoured caricatures of students and clerks; and +_moralities_, which are small serious dramas, interspersed with +comedy, having real personages mingled with allegorical ones. The drama +of the Middle Ages was very living and highly original, coming from the +soil and exactly adapted to the sentiments, passions, and ideas of the +people for whom and, a little later, by whom it was written. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +THE MIDDLE AGES: ENGLAND + +Literature in Latin, in Anglo-Saxon, and in French. The Ancestor of +English Literature: Chaucer. + + +THE THREE LITERATURES.--In England, prior to the Norman invasion, that is +before 1066, England possessed Saxon bards who sang of the prowess of +forbears or contemporaries, and monks who wrote in Latin the lives of +saints or even lay histories. + +From 1066 must be distinguished in England three parallel literatures: +the Latin literature of the cloister, the Anglo-Saxon literature, and the +French literature of the conquerors. + +Latin literature, so far as prose is regarded, was devoted exclusively to +philosophy and history; in verse the subjects are more diversified, +satire more especially flourished. + +The poets of the French tongue wrote more particularly _chansons de +geste_, and those of such songs which form what is termed the _Cycle +of Artus_ are for the most part the work of poets born in England. + +Finally, in the different popular dialects, Saxon, Western English, etc., +epic poems were written in verse, or romances, discourses, homilies, +different religious work in prose. The Normans, ardent, energetic, and +practical, had founded universities whence issued, endowed and equipped, +those who by patriotic sentiment or taste were destined to write in +Anglo-Saxon or in English. + +CHAUCER; GOWER.--The greatest name of the period and the one which +radiates most brilliantly is that of Chaucer in the fourteenth century, +author of _The Canterbury Tales_ and a crowd of other works. He +possessed very varied imagination, sometimes vigorous, sometimes +humorous, an extraordinary sense of reality, much spirit, and a fertility +of mind which made him the ancestor and precursor of Shakespeare. To his +illustrious name must be added that of his friend and pupil Gower, who is +curious because he is representative of the three literatures still in +use in his day, having written his _Speculum Meditatus_ in French, +his _Vox Clamantis_ in Latin, and his _Confessio Amantis_ in +English. So far as I am aware this phenomenon was never repeated. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +THE MIDDLE AGES: GERMANY + +Epic Poems: _Nibelungen_. Popular Poems. Very numerous Lyric Poems. +Drama. + + +FIRST LITERARY WORK.--The most ancient monument of German literature is +the _Song of Hildebrand_, which goes back to an unknown antiquity, +perhaps to the ninth century, and a very beautiful fragment of which has +been preserved by a happy chance. We are entirely ignorant of works +written in German between the _Song of Hildebrand_ and the +_Nibelungen_, except for some religious poems such as the +_Heliand_ in low German and the _Book of the Gospels_ in high +German. + +THE NIBELUNGEN,--The _Nibelungen_ form a vast poem, written probably +in the thirteenth century (or, at that epoch, formed by juxtaposition of +more ancient popular songs). It is a great national monument wherein are +collected the legendary exploits of all the ancestors of the Germans, +Huns, Goths, Burgundians and Franks especially. Portions possess +admirable dramatic qualities. The analogy with the _Iliad_ is +remarkable, and the comparison may be made even from the literary point +of view. + +VARIOUS PRODUCTIONS.--Then come productions less national in type, +imitations of French poems. _Song of Roland_, _Alexander_, songs of +the _Cycle of Arthur_ or of the _Round Table_, imitations of +Latin poems: for instance, the _Aeneid_, etc. Here, too, was spread +the _Story of Renard_, as in France, and even now the question is +unsettled whether the first poem of _Renard_ is French or German. +Religious and satiric poems were abundant in the thirteenth and +fourteenth centuries, but what is highly characteristic is the large +number of lyrical poets (Dietmar of Ast, Kürenberg, Frederic of Hausen, +the Emperor Henry VI, etc.) produced by the Middle Ages in Germany. This +poetry was generally amorous and melancholy, sometimes full of the +warlike ardour which is found among our own troubadours. The poets who, +as in France, wandered through Germany, from court to court and from +castle to castle, called themselves minnesingers (singers of love). The +one who has remained most famous is Tannhäuser. A fantastic and touching +legend has formed about his name. + +Germany, like France, possessed a popular drama, less prolific possibly, +but very similar. Among the most ancient popular tragedies now known may +be cited _The Prophets of Christ_ and the _Game of Antichrist_, +which are curious because of the juxtaposition of biblical acts and +contemporaneous events. Later came _The Miracles of the Virgin_, +_The Wise and Foolish Virgins_, dramas more varied, with more +numerous characters, more elaborate mounting, and with the interest +relatively more concentrated. + +COMEDY.--Comedy, as a rule very gross in character, enjoyed wide esteem, +especially in the fourteenth century. What were performed under the title +of _Carnival Games_ were generally nothing but _fables_ in +dialogue, domestic scenes, incidents in the market, interludes at the +cross-roads. Here was the vulgar plebeian joy allowing itself full +licence. The literary activity of Germany in the Middle Ages was at least +equal to that of the three literary western nations. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +THE MIDDLE AGES: ITALY + +Troubadours of Southern Italy. Neapolitan and Sicilian Poets. Dante, +Petrarch, Boccaccio. + + +THE TROUBADOURS.--The Italian literature of the Middle Ages is intimately +associated with the literature of the Troubadours in the south of France. +To express the case more definitely, the literature styled "Provençal," +apart from mere differences of dialect, extended from the Limousine to +the Roman campagna, and French literature existed only in the northern +and central provinces of France, the rest being Provençal-Italian +literature. The Italian Troubadours, by which I mean those born in Italy, +who must at least be cited, are Malaspina, Lanfranc Cicala, Bartolomeo +Ziorgi (of Venice), Bordello (of Mantua), etc. + +NAPLES AND SICILY.--Naples and Sicily, where were founded large +universities, were the seat of a purely Italian literature in the +thirteenth century, thanks to the impetus of the Emperor Frederick II. At +this seat were Peter of Vignes (_Petrus de Vineis_), who passes as +inventor of the sonnet; Ciullo of Alcamo, author of the first known +Italian _canzone_, etc. The influence of Sicily on all Italy was +such that for long in Italy all writing in verse was termed Sicilian. + +BOLOGNA; FLORENCE.--The literary centre then passed, that is in the +thirteenth century, to Bologna and Florence. Among the celebrated Tuscans +of this epoch was Guittone of Arezzo, mentioned by Dante and Petrarch +with more or less consideration; Jacopone of Todi, at once both mystic +and buffoon, in whom it has been sought, in a manner somewhat flattering +to him, to trace a predecessor of Dante; Brunetto Latini, the authentic +master of Dante, who was encyclopaedic, after a fashion, and who +published, first in French, whilst he was in Paris, _The Treasure_, +a compilation of the knowledge of his time, then, in Italian, +_Tesoretto_, a collection of maxims drawn from his previous work, +besides some poetry and translations from Latin. + +The fourteenth century, which for the French, Germans, and English was +the last or even the last century but one of the Middle Ages, was for the +Italians the first of the Renaissance. Two great names dominate this +century: Dante and Petrarch. + +DANTE: _THE DIVINE COMEDY_.--Dante, highly erudite, theologian, +philosopher, profound Latin scholar, not ignorant of Greek, much involved +in the agitations of his age, exiled from his home, Florence, in the +tumult of political discords, proscribed and a wanderer, coming as far as +France, studied at the University of Paris, wrote "songs," that is to +say, lyrical poetry gathered into the volume entitled _The +Canzoniere_, the _Vita Nuova_, which is also a collection of +lyric efforts, though more philosophical, and finally _The Divine +Comedy_, which is a theological epic poem. _The Divine Comedy_ is +composed of three parts: hell, purgatory, and heaven. Hell is composed +of nine circles which contract as they approach the centre of the earth. +There Dante placed the famous culprits of history and his own particular +enemies. The most popular episodes of hell are Ugolino in the tower of +hunger devouring his dead children, Francesca of Rimini relating her +guilty passions and their disastrous consequence, the meeting with +Sordello, the great Lord of Mantua, ever invincibly proud, looking "like +the lion when he reposes." Purgatory is a cone of nine circles which +contract as they rise to heaven. Heaven, finally, is composed of +nine globes superimposed on one another; over each of the first seven +presides a planet, the eighth is the home of the fixed stars, and the +last is pure infinity, home of the Trinity and of the elect. The power of +general imagination and of varied invention always renewed in style, and +the warmth of passion which throws life and heat into each part, have +assured Dante universal admiration. The community of literature +pre-eminently admires the hell; the eclectic have been compelled to +assert and therefore to believe that the paradise is infinitely superior. + +PETRARCH.--Petrarch, a Florentine born in exile, brought up at Avignon, +Carpentras, and Montpellier, during four fifths of his life thought only +of being a great scholar, of writing in Latin, and of obtaining the +repute of an excellent humanist. Hence his innumerable works in Latin. +But when twenty-three he was deeply affected by love for a maiden of +Avignon, and he sang of her living and dead and still triumphant in glory +and eternity, and hence his poems in Italian, the _Rhymes_ and +_Triumphs_. The sensitiveness of Petrarch was admirable; never did +pure love, growing mystical and mingling with divine love, find accents +alike more profound and noble than came from this Platonist refined with +Italian subtlety. Petrarchism became a fashion among the mediocre and a +school among these above the common. In the fifteenth and sixteenth +centuries there were innumerable imitators of Petrarch in Italy, and +later still in France. It is impossible not to instance Lamartine as the +last in date. + +BOCCACCIO: _THE DECAMERON_.--Immediately after these two great men +came Boccaccio, born in Paris but of Italian parentage, who resided at +Naples at the court of King Robert. He was a great admirer of Dante and +Petrarch, and himself wrote several estimable poems, but, in despair no +doubt of attaining the height of his models and also to please the taste +of Mary, daughter of King Robert, he wrote the libertine tales which are +gathered in the collection entitled _The Decameron_ and which +established his fame. He is one of the purest authors, as stylist, of all +Italian literature, and may be regarded as the principle creator of prose +in his own land. + +THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY IN ITALY.--The fifteenth century, less great among +the Italians than the fourteenth, yielded many wise men: Marsiglio +Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, Aurispa, etc. But omission must not be +made of poets such as Ange Politien, refined humanist, graceful lyrist; +and the earliest of dramatic poets of any rank, such as Pulci and +Bojardo. In prose note Pandolfini, master and delineator of domestic +life, as was Xenophon in Greece, and Leonardo da Vinci, the great painter +who left a treatise on his art; nor must it be forgotten that Savonarola +was a remarkably fine orator. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +THE MIDDLE AGES: SPAIN AND PORTUGAL + +Epic Poems: _Romanceros_. Didactic Books, Romances of Chivalry + + +COMMENCEMENTS OF SPANISH LITERATURE.--Known Spanish literature does not +go back beyond the twelfth century. Like that of the French it began with +a _chanson de geste_, and if France has Roland, Spain has the Cid. +The _Poem of the Cid_, or _The Song of the Cid_, dates from the +commencement of the thirteenth century; in rude but expressive language +it narrates the ripe years and old age of the famous captain. + +ALPHONSO X; JOHN MANUEL.--At the close of this century, Alphonso X, King +of Castile, surnamed the Sage or the Wise, versed in all the knowledge of +his time, produced, no doubt with collaborators, the universal chronicle, +history mingled with legends, of all peoples on the earth, and the +_Seven Parts_, a philosophical, moral, and legal encyclopaedia. His +nephew, Don John Manuel, regent of Castile during the minority of +Alphonso XI, a very pure and erudite writer, collated the code of the +kingdom in his _Book of the Child_, and the code of chivalry in his +_Book of the Knight and Squire_, with a series of apologues in the +volume known under the title of _The Count Lucanor_. + +_THE ROMANCERO_.--Of the same period and going back to the commencement +of the thirteenth century, if not earlier, is what is called the +_Romancero_. The _Romancero_ is the collection of all the +national romances, which are more or less short but are never long epic +poems. All the romances relating to a hero form the _Romancero_ of +that personage, and all the _Romanceros_ are called the Spanish +_Romancero_. It is in the _Romancero_ of Rodriguez that we find +the youth of Cid as known to us, or approximately, for it is purified +and spiritualised by ageing and, for example, Chimanes curses Rodriguez +but also asks for him in marriage: "Oh, king ... each day that shines, I +see him that slew my father parading on horseback and loosing his falcon +to my dovecot and with the blood of my doves has he stained my skirts and +he has sent me word he will cut the hem of my robe.... He who slew my +father, give him to me for equal; for he who did me so much harm I am +convinced will do me some good." And the king said: "I have always heard +said and now see that the feminine sex is most extraordinary. Until now +hath she asked of me justice against him and now she doth ask him of me +in marriage. I will do it with a good will. I shall send him a letter, +etc...." + +THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.--The fifteenth century in Spain, as everywhere +else, was destitute of great works. In poetry it was the era of lovesongs +and of the influence of Italian literature, which only later was +decidedly happy. In prose may be found many chronicles extremely valuable +to the historian, and some moral works such as the _Dialogue of the +Happy Life_ of Lucena and, finally, the famous _Amadis des +Gaules_, an ancient chivalric romance of unknown origin, brought to +publicity in that century by Montalvo. + +PORTUGUESE LITERATURE.--Portuguese literature, which is highly +interesting though evolved in too restricted a circle, is, above +all, epic and lyrical. The Portuguese lyrics almost exclusively dealt +with love; the epic poets celebrated a certain number of salient +achievements in national history. It is only in the sixteenth century +that a genuine expansion of Portuguese literature can be noted. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES: FRANCE + +First Portion of Sixteenth Century: Poets: Marot, Saint-Gelais; Prose +Writers: Rabelais, Comines. Second Portion of Sixteenth Century: Poets: +"The Pleiade"; Prose Writers: Amyot, Montaigne. First Portion of +Seventeenth Century: Intellectual and Brilliant Poets: Malherbe, +Corneille. Great Prose Writers: Balzac, Descartes. Second Portion of +Seventeenth Century: Poets: Racine, Molière, Boileau, La Fontaine; Prose +Writers: Bossuet, Pascal, La Bruyère, Fénelon, etc. + + +THE RENAISSANCE OF LETTERS.--The sixteenth century was for France the +epoch of the Renaissance of letters. What is called the Renaissance of +letters is the result, to each race, of the closest contact of the +educated people with ancient literature, contact which sometimes +strengthened the national vein, sometimes weakened it, according to the +divergent temperaments of these races. + +MAROT; SAINT-GELAIS.--The sixteenth century in France was ushered in by +Marot and Saint-Gelais. Marot was a gracious, fluent, and satiric singer. +He was infinitely witty without venom, or mannerism, or affectation; at +times he attained to a somewhat serious philosophic poesy and also to +eloquence. Saint-Gelais, because he was most emphatically court-poet of +all those who have ever been court-poets, was placed by his +contemporaries above Marot, and literary historians have left him for the +most part in that position. The truth is that his work is worthless. It +would be impossible, however, to rob him of the glory of having brought +the sonnet from Italy, where he long abode in youth. + +COMINES.--In this first half of the sixteenth century must be noted +Comines, the historian of Louis XI, a political historian and a +historical statesman, remarkably subtle in perceiving the characters and +temperaments of prominent individuals, as well as a writer possessing +exactitude and limpidity rare in his generation. + +RABELAIS.--Francis Rabelais, in his two epic romances, _Gargantua_ +and _Pantagruel_, was erudite, capable of a certain philosophic +wisdom which has been greatly exaggerated, but above all was picturesque +to one's heart's content, and possessed the art of telling a tale as well +as any one in the wide world. He has been called "the buffoon Homer," and +the nickname may be legitimately granted to him. + +THE PLEIADE.--The second half of the sixteenth century was in all +respects the more remarkable. In poetry there was the Pleiade: +that is, the true and complete "Renaissance," although Marot had already +been a good workman at its dawn. The Pleiade consisted of Ronsard, Du +Bellay, Pontus of Tyard, Remy Belleau, and others; that is, folk who +wished to give to France in French the equivalent of what the classics +had produced in nobility and beauty. They did not succeed, but they had +the honour of having undertaken the task, and they also, all said and +done, produced some fine things. + +RONSARD; DU BELLAY.--If the truth must be written, Ronsard created an +epic poem which it is impossible to read, and some rather overpowering +odes after the Pindaric manner; but he wrote detached epic pieces which, +though always a trifle artificial, possess real beauty, and some +_odelettes_ which are enchanting in their grace and genuineness of +feeling, as well as sonnets that are in all respects marvellous. Joachim +du Bellay, on his part, wrote sonnets which must be numbered among the +most beautiful in the French tongue--the rest often had agreeable +inspirations. + +DRAMATIC POETS.--Add to their group some dramatic poets who did not yet +grasp what constituted a living tragedy and who, even when they imitated +Euripides, belonged to the school of Seneca, but who knew how to write in +verse, to make a discourse, and, occasionally, a gentle elegy. To mention +only the chief, these were Jodelle, Robert Garnier, and Montchrestien. + +PROSE WRITERS: AMYOT; CALVIN.--In prose, in this second half of the +sixteenth century, there were translators like Amyot, who set forth +Plutarch in a limpid French full of ease and geniality, as well as +somewhat careless. Religious writings such as those of Calvin, in a hard +style and "dreary," as Bossuet expressed it, exhibited vigour, power, and +sobriety. Among political writers was the eloquent La Boëtie, the friend +of Montaigne, who in his _Discourse on Voluntary Servitude_ +vindicated the rights of the people against _One_, that is the +monarch. Among authors of _Memoirs_ were Montluc and Brantôme, +picturesque in divergent manners, but both inquisitive, well-informed, +very alert and furnishing important contributions to history. + +MORALISTS: DU VAIR.--Finally, there were moralists such as Du Vair, too +long forgotten, and Montaigne. Du Vair was an eloquent orator who +exhibited plenty of courage during the troubles of the League; he left +some fine philosophical treatises: _The Moral Philosophy of the Stoics_, +_On Constancy and Consolation in Public Calamities_, etc. + +MONTAIGNE.--Montaigne, less grave and stoical, a far better writer, and +one of the two or three greatest masters of prose France ever produced, +possessed excellent sense sharpened with wit and enriched with a charming +imagination. According to his humour--now stoic, next epicurean, then +sceptic--always wise and refined and also always the sincere admirer of +greatness of soul and of courage, he is the best of advisers and of +companions through life, and of him more than of anyone else it ought to +be said: "To have found pleasure in him is to have profited by him." The +sole reproach could be that he wrote a little too much of himself, +that is, in entering into personal details that could well have been +spared. + +COMMENCEMENT OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.--The first half of the +seventeenth century in France was only the corollary of the sixteenth, +though naturally with some distinctive personalities and with one, +practically isolated, effort of reaction against that sixteenth century. +At that period could be found writing men, like Agrippa d'Aubigné, who +were absolutely in the spirit of the previous century; d'Aubigné, +amiable, gracious, and also fairly often witty, which is too frequently +forgotten, was ardent, passionate, a rough and violent fighter more +particularly in his _tragedies_, which are baldly crude satires, +illumined with astonishingly beautiful passages fairly frequent in +recurrence, against the Catholics and their leaders. Others of very +different temperament displayed yet more than the poets of the sixteenth +century that liberty, that fantasy, that disorder which were +characteristic of the times of Ronsard. So far as poets were concerned, +that generation must be regarded as entering on a first romanticism. +Theophilus de Vian, a fine but over-prodigal poet, without ballast, did +not live long enough to grow wise and acquire self-mastery: Cyrano +de Bergerac was a brilliant madman, sometimes sparkling with wit and +imagination, but often dirty and ridiculous. Saint-Amant possessed plenty +of imagination and capacity for exquisite poetical feeling, but he lacked +taste and too often was puerile. Wiser than they, yet themselves verbose, +long-winded, slow, and spun out, Desportes translated into French verse +Italian poetry of the sixteenth century, often with very happy turns of +expression, and Bertaut, melancholy and graceful, lacked brilliance even +if he possessed poetic emotion. + +REGNIER.--Regnier the satirist, pupil of Horace and Juvenal, also assumed +the mental attitude of the sixteenth century owing to his viridity, his +crudity, his lack of avoidance of obscenity, even though he was a true +poet, vigorous, powerful, oratorical, and epigrammatical, as well as a +witty and mordant caricaturist. + +PRÉCIEUX AND BURLESQUES.--Then succeeded the _précieux_ and the +_burlesques_, who resembled each other, the _précieux_ seeking +wit and believing that all literary art consisted in saying it did not +matter what in a dainty and unexpected fashion; the _burlesques_ +also sought wit but on a lower plane, desiring to be "droll," buffoons, +prone to cock-and-bull stories or crude pranks in thought, style, and +parody. Voiture is the most brilliant representative of the +_préieux_ and Scarron the most prominent of the _burlesques_. + +MALHERBE.--In the midst of this unrestrained literature one man attempted +to impose reason, accuracy of mind, taste, and conciseness. This was +Malherbe, who was also a powerful lyric poet, a stylist with an ear for +melody. His influence was considerable, but forty years after his own +time; for it was the poets of 1660 who were formed of him and proclaimed +themselves his disciples. In his own day he had only Maynard and Racan +as pupils, or rather as partisans, for their work but little resembled +his. + +THE THEATRE.--On the stage the first portion of the seventeenth century, +certainly as far as 1636, was only the corollary of the sixteenth. Hardy, +writing without method or rule, being in addition a very weak poet, +presided in the theatre whilst Mairet, in imitation of the Italians and +in imitation too of the bulk of the dramatists of the sixteenth century, +essayed to establish formal tragedy, but without creating much effect +because his talent was of an inferior description. + +At last Corneille arose and, after feeling his way a little, created +French tragedy; but as this was only in 1636, and as in the course of his +long career he came into the second half of the century, he will be dealt +with a little later. + +PROSE: BALZAC; DESCARTES.--In prose, the first half of the seventeenth +century was fruitful in important works. Cardinal de Perron, who began as +an amiable elegant poetaster, became a great orator and formidable +controversialist. Guez de Balzac, a little lacking in ideas yet an +extremely good writer, though but little detached from preciosity, as +Voltaire observed, imparted harmony to his phrases both in his letters +and in his _Socrates a Christian_. Vaugelas arranged the code of +the language founded on custom. Descartes, with whose philosophic ideas +we have here nothing to do, in his broad, ample periods, well delivered +and powerfully articulated, reproduced the Ciceronian phrase though +without its rather weak grace, and in great measure formed the mould +whence later was to flow the eloquence of Bossuet. The important works of +Descartes are his _Discourses on Method_, his _Meditation_, and +his _Treatise on the Passions_. + +THE GOLDEN AGE: CORNEILLE.--The second half of the seventeenth century is +in all respects the golden age of French literature. Great poets and +great prose writers were then crowded in serried ranks. To begin with the +dramatic poets, who furnished the most vivid glory of the epoch, there +was Corneille, who, from 1636, with _The Cid_, was in full splendour +and who before 1650 had produced his most beautiful works, _Cinna_, _The +Horaces_, _Polyeucte_, continued for twenty-four years after 1650 to +furnish the stage with dramas that often possessed many fine qualities, +among which must be cited _Don Sancho of Aragon_, _Nicomedes_, _Oedipus_, +_Sertorius_, _Sophonisba_, _Titus and Berenice_, _Psyche_ (with Molière), +_Rodogune Heraclius_, _Pulcheria_. Corneille must be regarded as the +real creator of _all_ the French drama, because he wrote comedies, +tragedies, operas, melodramas. It was therein, apart from his universal +virtuosity, that he more particularly made his mark, and in his best work +he was the delineator of the human will overcoming passions and, as it +were, intoxicated with this victory and his own power, so that he has +become a great advocate of energy and a prominent apostle of duty. + +RACINE.--Racine, altogether different, without being opposed to duty, +loved to depict passions victorious over man and man the victim of his +passions and of the over-powering misfortunes therefrom resulting, thus +furnishing a moral lesson. He was a more penetrating psychologist than +Corneille, although the latter knew the human heart well, and he showed +himself infallibly wise in composition and dramatic disposition, as well +as an absolutely incomparable master of verse. His tragedies, especially +_Andromache_, _Britannicus_, _Berenice_, _Bajazet_, _Phèdre_, and +_Athalie_ will always enchant mankind. + +MOLIÈRE.--Molière who was admirably gifted to seize the ridiculous with +its causes and consequences, very quick and penetrating in insight, armed +with somewhat narrow but solid common-sense calculated to please the +middle classes of all time, possessed prodigious comic humour, and who +never gave the spectator leisure to reflect or breathe--in short, a great +writer although hasty and careless--created a whole répertoire of comedy +(_The School of Women_, _Don Juan_, _Tartufe_, _The Misanthrope_, +_Learned Ladies_) which left all known comedy far behind, which +eliminated all rivalry in his own time, knew eclipse only in the middle +of the eighteenth century, and for the last hundred and forty years has +proved the delight of Europe. He remains the master of universal comedy. + +BOILEAU.--Boileau was only a man of good sense, of ability, and of +excellent taste, who wrote verse industriously. This was not enough to +constitute a great poet but enough to make him what he was, a diverting +and acute satirist, an agreeable moralist and critic in verse--which his +master Horace had been so often--expert, dexterous, and possessing much +authority. His _Poetic Art_ for long was the tables of the law of +Parnassus, and even now can be read not only with pleasure but even with +profit. + +LA FONTAINE.--La Fontaine was one of the greatest poets of any epoch. He +had a profound sentiment for nature, a fine and penetrating knowledge of +the character of men he depicted under the names of animals; he was free +and fantastic as a philosopher but well instructed and sometimes +profound; he had a gentle and smiling sensibility capable at times of +melancholy and also now and again of a delicious elegiac; above all, he +was endowed with incomparable artistic sense, which rendered him the +safest and most dexterous manipulator of verse, of rhythms, and of +musical sonorities, who appeared in France prior to Victor Hugo. It is +much more difficult to state what he lacked than to enumerate the +multiple and miraculous gifts with which he was endowed. His complete +lack of morality or his ingenuous carelessness in this respect formed the +only subject for regret. + +SECONDARY ABILITY.--Near such great geniuses, it is only possible to +mention those of secondary talent; but no compunction need be felt at +alluding to Segrais, a graceful manufacturer of eclogues, and Benserade, +who rhymed delightfully for masquerades and was capable, on occasions, of +being wittily but also tenderly elegiac. + +GREAT PROSE WRITERS.--The writers in prose of the second half of the +seventeenth century are legion and but few fail to attain greatness. La +Rochefoucauld, in his little volume of _Maxims_, enshrined thoughts +that were often profound in a highly accurate and delicate setting. +Cardinal de Retz narrated his tumultuous career in his _Memoirs_, +which are strangely animated, vivid, and representative of what occurred. +Arnauld and Nicole have explained their rigid Catholicism, which was +Jansenism, in solid and luminous volumes; the latter, more especially, +merits consideration and in his _Moral Essays_ proved an excellent +writer. Mezeray, conscientious, laborious, circumstantial as well as +capable writer, should be reckoned as the earliest French historian. +Bourdaloue, sound logician and good moralist, from his pulpit as a +preacher uttered discourses that were admirable, though too dogmatically +composed, and painted word-pictures that piously satirised the types and +the eccentrics of his day. Malebranche, reconsidering what Descartes had +thought and revitalising his conclusions, arranged in his _Research +after Truth_ a complete system of spiritualist and idealistic +philosophy which he rendered clear, in spite of its depth, +and extremely attractive owing to the merits of his powerful and +facile imagination and of his rich, copious, and elastic style, that +attained the happy mean between conversation and instruction. But five +writers of the highest rank came into the perennial forefront, attracting +and retaining general attention: Pascal, Bossuet, Mme. de Sévigné, +La Bruyère, and Fénelon. + +PASCAL.--Pascal, a scholar and also by scientific education +mathematician, geometrician, physician, turned, not to letters +which he scorned, but to the exposition of those religious ideas which at +the age of thirty-three were precious to him. To defend his friends the +Jansenists against their foes the Jesuits, he wrote _The Provincial +Letters_ (1656), which have often been regarded as the foremost +monument of classic French prose; such is not our view, but they +certainly form a masterpiece of argument, of dialectics, of irony, of +humour, of eloquence, and are throughout couched in a magnificent style. +Dying whilst still young, he left notes on various subjects, more +particularly religion, philosophy, and morality, which have been +collected under the title of _Thoughts_ and are the product of a +great Christian philosopher, of a profound moralist, of a marvellously +concise orator, and also of a poet who lacked neither acute sensitiveness +nor vast and imposing imagination. + +BOSSUET.--Bossuet is universally admitted to be the king of French +orators; all his life he preached with a serious, imposing, vast, +copious, and sonorous eloquence, fed from recollections of Holy Writ and +of the Fathers, being insistent, convincing, and persuasive. His few +funeral orations (on Henrietta of France, Henrietta of England, the +Prince de Condé) are prose poems of glory, grief, and piety. He wrote +against all those he regarded as enemies of true religion (_History +of Variations_, _Quarrels of Quietness_), controversial works sparkling +with irony and exalted eloquence. He traced in his _Universal +History_ the great design in all its stages of God towards humanity +and the world. He knew all the resources of the French language and of +French style, and in his hands they were expanded. Despite his errors, +which were those of his epoch, his date counts in the history of France +as a great date, the date in which the religion to which he belonged +reached its apogee and when the grand style of French prose was in its +zenith. + +MADAME DE SÉVIGNÉ.--Madame de Sévigné only wrote letters to her friends; +but they were so witty, lively, picturesque, admirable in aptly +recounting the anecdotes of her day and in depicting the scenes and +those concerned in them, written in a style so brisk and seductive, +uniting the promise of 1630 with the harvest of 1670, that her work still +remains one of the greatest favourites with people of literary taste. + +She was the friend of M. de la Rochefoucauld, of Cardinal de Retz, and of +that amiable, refined, and gentle Mme. de la Fayette, whose novel, _The +Princess of Cleves_, is still read with interest and emotion. + +LA BRUYÈRE.--La Bruyère translated and continued Theophrastus; he was a +moralist, or rather a depicter of morals. He described the court, the +town, and (very rarely) the village and the country. He was on the +lookout for fools in order to be their scourge. He painted, or, better +still, he engraved in an incisive way that was sharp, like aqua-fortis. +Almost invariably bitter to an extreme, he sometimes had flashes of quite +unexpected and very singular sensibility which make him beloved. Somewhat +in imitation of La Rochefoucauld, but more particularly in conformity +with his own nature, he developed a brief, concise, brusque style which +became that of the moralist and even of the general author for the next +fifty years, a style which was that of Montesquieu and Voltaire, and +superseded the broad, sustained, balanced, harmonious, and measured style +of the majority of the writers of the eighteenth century. In the field of +ridicule, wherein he sowed copiously, more so even than Molière, the +comic poets of the eighteenth century came to glean copiously, which did +them less credit (for it is better to observe than to read) than it +conferred on the wise and ingenious author of the _Characters_. + +FÉNELON.--Fénelon, extremely individual and original, having on every +subject ideas of his own which were sometimes daring, often practical, +always generous and noble, was a preacher like Bossuet; also like +Bossuet, he was a dexterous, skilled, and formidable controversialist, +whilst, for the instruction of the Duke of Burgundy, which had been +confided to him, he became a fabulist, an author of dialogues, in some +degree a romancer or epic poet in prose in his famous _Telemachus_, +overadmired, then overdepreciated, and which, despite weaknesses, remains +replete with strength and dazzling brilliance. Nowadays there is a marked +return to this prince of the Church and of literature, whose brain was +complex and even complicated, but whose heart was quite pure and his +reasoning on a high level. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES: ENGLAND + +Dramatists: Marlowe, Shakespeare. Prose Writers: Sidney, Francis Bacon, +etc. Epic Poet: Milton. Comic Poets. + + +ELIZABETHAN AGE: SPENSER.--In England the Elizabethan Age is the period +extending from the commencement of the reign of Elizabeth to the end of +her successor, James I; that is, from 1558 to 1625. This was the golden +age of English literature: the epoch in which, awakened or excited by the +Renaissance, her genius gave forth all its development in fruits that +were marvellous. + +First, there was Spenser, alike impregnated with the Italian Renaissance +and gifted with the slightly fantastic imagination of his own countrymen, +who wrote eclogues, in his _Shepheard's Calender_, in imitation of +Theocritus and Virgil as well as of the Italians of the sixteenth +century, and who gave charming descriptions in his _Faerie Queene_. + +Next came Sidney, the sonnetist, at once passionate and precious, and +then that highest glory of this glorious period, the dramatic poets. + +THE STAGE: MARLOWE.--As in France, the English stage in the Middle Ages +had been devoted to the performance of mysteries (under the name of +_miracles_), later of moralities. As in France, tragedy, strictly +speaking, was constituted in the sixteenth century. Towards its close +appeared Marlowe, a very great genius, still rugged but with +extraordinary power, more especially lyrical. His great works are +_Doctor Faustus_ and _Edward II_. + +SHAKESPEARE.--Then (at the same time as the rest, for they are of about +the same age, though Marlowe appeared the earlier) came William +Shakespeare, who is perhaps the greatest known dramatic poet. His immense +output, which includes plays carelessly put together and, one may venture +to say, negligibly, also contains many masterpieces: _Othello_, _Romeo +and Juliet_, _Macbeth_, _Hamlet_, _The Taming of the Shrew_, _The Merry +Wives of Windsor_, _As You Like It_, and _The Tempest_. The _types_ and +personages of Shakespeare, which have remained celebrated and are still +daily cited in human intercourse, include Othello, that tragic figure of +jealousy; Romeo and Juliet, the young lovers separated by the feuds of +their families but united in death; Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, the +ambitious criminals; Hamlet, the young man with a great mind and a great +heart but with a feeble will which collapses under too heavy a task and +comes to the verge of insanity; Cordelia, the English Antigone, the +devoted daughter of the proscribed King Lear; Falstaff, glutton, coward, +diverting and gay, a kind of Anglo-Saxon Panurge. A whole dramatic +literature has come from Shakespeare. To France he was introduced by +Voltaire and then scorned by him because he had succeeded only too well +in popularising him; subsequently he was exalted, praised to hyperbole, +and imitated beyond discretion by the romantics. In addition to his +dramatic works, Shakespeare left _Sonnets_, some of which are obscure, +but the majority are perfect. + +BEN JONSON.--Ben Jonson, classical, exact, pretty faithful imitator of +the writers of antiquity, interested in unusual characters and customs, +gifted with a ready and lively imagination in both comedy and tragedy +like Shakespeare, succeeded especially in comedy (_Every Man in his +Humour_, _The Silent Woman_, etc.). Beaumont and Fletcher, who wrote in +collaboration, are full of elevation, of delicacy and grace expressed in +a style which is regarded by their fellow-countrymen as exceptionally +beautiful. + +PROSE WRITERS: LYLY; SIDNEY; BACON; BURTON.--In prose this amazing +period was equally productive. Lyly, who corresponds approximately to the +French Voiture, created _euphemism_: that is, witty preciosity. Sidney, +in his _Arcadia_ furnished a curious example of the chivalric romance. +Further in his _Defence of Poesie_, he founded literary criticism. +Francis Bacon, historian, moralist, philosopher, perhaps collaborator +with Shakespeare, has a place equally allocated to him in a history of +literature as in a history of philosophical ideas. Robert Burton, +moralist or rather _Meditator_, who gave himself the pseudonym of +Democritus Junior because he was consumed with sadness, left a great +work, but one in which there are many quotations, called _The Anatomy of +Melancholy_. There is much analogy between him and the French Sénancour. +Sterne, without acknowledgment, profusely pilfered from him. He is +thoroughly English. He did not create melancholy but he greatly +contributed to it and made a specialty of it. Despite his pranks and +whimsicality, he possessed high literary merit. + +POETRY: WALLER.--The English seventeenth century, strictly speaking, +virtually commencing about 1625, was inferior to the sixteenth, that has +just been considered, which is easily explained by the civil wars +distracting England at this period. In poetry, on the one hand, may be +noticed the softened and pleasing Epicureans, of which the most prominent +representative was Waller, a witty man of the world, who dwelt long in +France, and was a friend of Saint-Évremond (who himself spent a portion +of his life in England). Waller made a very fine eulogy of his cousin +Cromwell, later another of Charles II, and was told by the latter, "This +is not so good as that on Cromwell," whereupon he replied, "Sire, you +know that poets always succeed better in fiction than in fact." Here was +a man of much wit. + +HERBERT; HABINGTON.--Also must be remarked the austere and mystical such +as George Herbert, with his _Temple_, a collection of religious and +melancholy poems, and like Habington, sad and gloomy even as far as the +thirst for dissolution, analogous to the modern Schopenhauer: "My God, if +it be Thy supreme decree, if Thou wilt that this moment be the last +wherein I breathe this air, my heart obeys, happy to retire far from the +false favours of the great, from betrayals where the just are preyed +upon...." + +DRAMATIC POETS.--Let the estimable dramatic poets be alluded to. +Davenant, perhaps a son of Shakespeare; Otway, the illustrious author of +_Venice Preserved_ and of many adaptations from the French (_Titus +and Berenice_, the _Tricks of Scapin_, etc.); Dryden, declamatory, +emphatic, but admirably gifted with dramatic genius, author of _The +Virgin Queen_, _All for Love_ (Cleopatra), _Don Sebastian_, was always +hesitating between the influence of Shakespeare and that of the French, +over-inclined, too, to licentious scenes but pathetic and eloquent. + +MILTON.--Quite apart arose Milton, the imperishable author of _Paradise +Lost_, the type and model of the religious epic permeated, in fact, with +profound and ardent religious feeling, but also possessing very +remarkable grandeur and philosophical breadth. Milton became a second +Bible to the people to whom the Bible was the inevitable and essential +daily study. To _Paradise Lost_, Milton added the inferior _Paradise +Regained_ and the poem of _Samson_. Apart from his great religious poems, +Milton wrote Latin poems (especially in his youth) which are extremely +agreeable, and also works in prose, generally in relation to polemical +politics, which came from a vigorous and exalted mind. Milton, from the +aspect of his prodigious productiveness and his varied life, divided +between literature and the intellectual battles of his times, is +comparable to Voltaire, reservation being made for his high moral +character, wherein no comparison can be entertained with the French +satirist. He did himself full justice. Having become blind, he wrote: + + + "Cyriack, this three years' day these eyes, though clear, + To outward view, of blemish or of spot, + Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot; + Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear + Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year, + Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not + Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot + Of heart or hope, but still bear up and steer + Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask? + The conscience, friend, to have lost them overplied + In Liberty's defence, my noble task, + Of which all Europe rings from side to side. + This thought might lead me through the world's vain mask + Content, though blind, had I no better guide." + + +NOTABLE PROSE WRITERS.--In prose must be noted, on the austere side, +George Fox, founder of the sect of Quakers, impassioned and powerful +popular orator, author of the _Book of Martyrs_; John Bunyan, an +obstinate ascetic, author of _Grace Abounding_, a kind of edifying +autobiography, and of _The Pilgrim's Progress_, which became one of the +volumes of edification and of spiritual edification to the emigrant +founders of the United States of America; on the side of the Libertines, +Wycherley, who, thoroughly perceiving the moral lowness, fairly well +concealed, which lies at the source of Molière, carried this Gallic vein +to an extreme in shameless imitations of _The School for Women_ +and _The Misanthrope_ (_The Country Wife_ and _The Plain Dealer_); +delightful Congreve, a far more amusing companion--witty, spiritual, +sardonic, writing excellently, knowing how to create a type and charming +his contemporaries whilst not failing to write for posterity in his +_Old Bachelor_, _Love for Love_, and _Way of the World_. + +NEWTON; LOCKE.--It must not be forgotten that at this epoch Newton and +Locke, the one belonging more to the history of science and the other to +the history of philosophy, both wrote in a manner entirely commensurate +with their genius. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES: GERMANY + +Luther, Zwingli, Albert Dürer, Leibnitz, Gottsched + + +NO RENAISSANCE.--The great originality of Germany from the literary point +of view--perhaps, too, from others--is that she _had no renaissance_, no +contact, at all events close, with classic antiquity. Her temperament +was no doubt hostile; the Reformation, that is, the impassioned adoption +of a primitive unadulterated Christianity conservative and directly +opposed to antiquity whether pagan or philosophical, added to the +repugnance. However that may be, the fact remains: Germany enjoyed no +renaissance. + +LUTHER.--Also in the sixteenth century in Germany, as in France in the +fourteenth century, there was only popular poetry, and all the prose is +German, all reformist, all moralising, and has little or practically no +echo of antiquity. Luther, by his translation of the Bible into the +vulgar tongue, by his _prefaces_ to each book of the Bible, in his +polemical writings (_The Papacy and its Members_, _The Papacy Elevated at +Rome by the Devil_, etc.), by his _Sermons and Letters_, gave to Teutonic +thought a direction which long endured, and to Teutonic prose a solidity, +purity, sobriety, and vigour which exercised an immense influence on +human minds. + +THE REFORMERS.--Following Luther, Zwingli, Hutten, Eberling, Melanchthon +(but in Latin), Erasmus (most frequently in Latin but sometimes in +French) spread the new doctrine or doctrines in relation thereto. + +ERASMUS; ALBERT DÜRER; GOTTSCHED.--An exception must be made about +Erasmus in what has just been observed. With a very unfettered mind, +often as much in opposition to the side of Luther as to the side of Rome, +and also prone to attack the pure humanists who styled themselves +Ciceronians, Erasmus was a humanist, an impassioned student of ancient +letters, so that he has one foot in the Renaissance and one in reform, +and withal possessed a very original brain, and was, from every aspect, +"ultra-modern." + +Albert Dürer must also be cited: mathematician, architect, painter, yet +belonging to our subject by his _four books on the human proportion_ +wherein he shows, in chastened and precise style, that he himself is +nothing less than the earliest founder of Teutonic æstheticism. + +The seventeenth century--extending it, as is reasonable enough, up to the +region of 1730--is almost exclusively the era of French influence and a +little, if desired, of Italian influence. The critic Gottsched (_Poetic +Art, Grammar, Eloquence_) maintained the excellence of French literature +and the necessity of drawing inspiration from it with an energy of +conviction which drew on him the hatred of the succeeding generation. + +LEIBNITZ.--German poetry of his period, possessing neither originality +nor power, could only interest the erudite and the searchers. The domain +of prose is more enthralling. Leibnitz, who wrote in Latin and French, +and even in German, is pre-eminently the great thinker he is reputed +to be; but though he never possessed nor even pretended to possess +originality in style, he is nevertheless highly esteemed for the purity, +limpidity, and facility of his language. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES: ITALY + +Poets: Ariosto, Tasso, Guarini, Folengo, Marini, etc. Prose Writers: +Machiavelli, Guicciardini, Davila. + + +THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.--Italy, after Dante and Petrarch, possessed +literary strength and much literary glory in the sixteenth century. +She produced an admirable pleiad of poets and prose writers of high +merit. These were Ariosto, Tasso, Berni, Sannazaro, Machiavelli, +Bandello, Guicciardini. Below them were a hundred distinguished writers, +among which must be cited Aretino, Folengo, Bembo, Baldi, Tansillo, +Dolce, Benvenuto Cellini, Hannibal Caro, and Guarini. + +ARIOSTO.--Ariosto wrote _Orlando Furioso_, which is not the epic in +parody, as has been too often observed, but the gay and joyous epopee of +Orlando and his companions. The principal characters are Orlando, +Charlemagne, Renaud, Agramant, Ferragus, Angelica, Bradamante, Marphisa. +The tone is extremely varied and the author is in turns joyous, +satirical, pathetic, melancholy, and even tragical. Ariosto is the +superlative poet of fantastic imagination combined with a foundation of +good sense, reason, and benevolence. Goethe has said of him very aptly: +"From a cloud of gold wisdom sometimes thunders sublime sentences, whilst +to a harmonious lute, folly seems to riot in savage digressions yet all +the while maintains a perfect measure." Ariosto was well read in the +classics, but fundamentally his master was Homer. + +TASSO.--Torquato Tasso, whose life was characterised by a thousand trials +and who was long the victim of a mental malady, wrote a poem on the +crusade of Godfrey de Bouillon. The poem is full of the supernatural; +the chief characters are Renaud, Tancred, the enchantress Armida, +Clorinda. The inspiration of Tasso is specially mystic and lyrical; +his facility for description is delicious. The repute of _Jerusalem +Delivered_ in the seventeenth century was immense, and all the +literatures of Europe have innumerable references to the personages and +episodes of the poem. In Italy there were fervid partisans of the +superiority of Tasso over Ariosto or of Ariosto over Tasso, and many +duels on the subject, the most bellicose being, as always happens, +between those who had read neither. + +BERNI.--Berni, like Ariosto, was half burlesque in the diverting portions +of his works. He wrote satires which were often virulent, paradoxes such +as the eulogy of the plague and of famine, and an _Amorous Orlando_ +which is quite agreeable. The Bernesque type, that is, the humoristic, +was created by him and bears his name. + +SANNAZARO.--Sannazaro wrote both in Latin and Italian. His chief claim to +fame lies in his _Arcadia_, an idyllic poem of bucolic sentiment, +destined to evoke thousands of imitations. He also produced eclogues and +sonnets in Italian which give sufficient grounds for regarding him as one +of the chief masters of that language. + +MACHIAVELLI.--Great thinker, great politician, great moral philosopher, +Machiavelli possessed one of the most powerful minds ever known. He wrote +_The Prince_, _Discourses upon Livius_, an _Art of War_, diplomatic +letters and reports, for he was at one time secretary to the Florentine +Republic, a _History of Florence_, a comedy (_The Mandrake_), +romances and tales. _The Prince_ is a treatise of the art of acquiring +and preserving power by all possible means and more particularly by +intelligent and discreet crime. Machiavelli emphasised the separation, at +times relative, at times absolute, which exists between politics and +morals. His _Discourses upon Livius_ are full of sense, penetration, and +profundity; his light works show a singular dexterity of thought united +to a fundamental grossness which it would be impossible to misunderstand +or excuse. + +BANDELLO.--Bandello is the author of novels in the vein of those of +Boccaccio or of Brantôme. His voluntary or spontaneous originality +consists in mixing licentious tales with sentences and maxims which are +most austere and moral. He also wrote elegiac odes that were highly +esteemed. His very pure style is considered in Italy to be strictly +classical. + +GUICCIARDINI.--Guicciardini wrote with infinite patience, severe +conscientiousness, and imperturbable frigidity in a style that was +pure, though somewhat prolix, that _History of Florence_, virtually a +history of Italy, which from its first appearance was hailed as a classic +and has remained one. His history is altogether that of a statesman; he +passed his life among prominent public affairs, being Governor of Modena, +Parma, and Bologna, a diplomatist involved in the most important +negotiations; this historian is himself a historical personage. + +FOLENGO.--Folengo wrote a macaronic poem: that is to say, one in which +Latin and Italian were mixed, called _Coccacius_ (which must be +remembered because when translated into French it became the earliest +model for Rabelais), as well as _Orlandini_ (childhood of Orlando), which +is amusing. Other serious works did not merit serious consideration. + +ARETINO.--Aretino was a satirist and a poet so fundamentally licentious +that he has remained the type of infamous author. He wrote comedies +(_The Courtesan_, _The Marshal_, _The Philosopher_, _The Hypocrite_), +intimate letters that are extremely interesting for the study of the +customs of his day, religious and edifying books, replete with talent if +not with sincerity, as well as an innumerable mass of satires, pamphlets, +statements, diatribes which caused all the princes of his day to tremble, +and through making them tremble also brought gold into the coffers of +Aretino; he had raised blackmail to the height of a literary department. + +BEMBO; BALDI.--Cardinal Bembo, a devout Ciceronian to the verge of +fanaticism, wrote more especially in Latin, but left Italian poems of +much elegance and charm; he ranks among the most brilliant +representatives of the Italian Renaissance. + +Baldi, a very widely versed scholar, sought relaxation from his erudition +in writing _eclogues_, _moral poems_, and a very curious didactic poem on +_navigation_. + +TANSILLO; DOLCE.--Tansillo, a very fertile poet, composed a rather +licentious poem entitled _The Vintager_, and a religious poem called +_The Tears of St. Peter_ (which the younger Malherbe thought so beautiful +that he partially translated it), _The Rustic Prophet_ and _The +Nurse_, wherein he showed himself the pupil of Tasso, comedies, a +bucolic drama, etc. + +Dolce, not less prolific, produced five epic poems of which the best is +_The Childhood of Orlando_, many comedies, for the most part imitations +of Plautus, tragedies after Euripides and Seneca, and then one which +seems to have been original and was the celebrated _Mariamna_, so often +imitated in French. He was also an indefatigable translator of Horace, +Cicero, Philostrates, etc. + +BENVENUTO CELLINI.--The great sculptor and chaser, Benvenuto Cellini, +belongs to literary history because of his _Treatise on Goldsmithing and +Sculpture_ and his admirable _Memoirs_, which are certainly in part +fictitious, but are a literary work of the foremost rank. + +HANNIBAL CARO; GUARINI.--Hannibal Caro, by his _poems_, his +_letters_, his literary criticism, his comedy, _The Beggars_, and his +metrical translation of the _Aeneid_, acquired high rank in the judgment +both of Italy and Europe. + +Guarini, the friend of Tasso, whom he helped in the labour of revising +and correcting _Jerusalem Delivered_, was unquestionably his pupil. Tasso +having written a bucolic poem, _Aminta_, Guarini wrote a bucolic poem, +_The Faithful Shepherd_, which has been one of the greatest literary +successes ever known. It was a kind of irregular drama mingled with +songs and dances, highly varied, poetic, pathetic sometimes in a rather +insipid way. All the _pastorals_, whether French or Italian, and later +the opera itself, can be traced to Guarini, or at least the taste for the +eclogue may be derived from the dramas Guarini originated. This was a man +whose influence has been considerable not only on literature, but also on +manners, customs, and morals. + +DECADENCE OF LITERATURE.--In the seventeenth century Italian literature +indisputably was in decadence. In verse more especially, but also in +prose, it was the period of ability without depth and even without +foundation, of elegant and affected verbiage or burlesque lacking alike +in power, thought, and passion. Marini loomed large with his _Adonis_, an +ingenious mythological epic, sometimes brilliant but also lame, sometimes +full of points, but also with trifles. Great as was his reputation in +Italy, it was perhaps surpassed in France, where he was welcomed and +flattered by Marie de' Medici and hyperbolically praised by Voiture, +Balzac, Scudéry, etc. + +SALVATOR ROSA; TASSONI; MAFFEI.--The great painter Salvator Rosa devoted +himself hardly less to literature; he left lyrical poems and particularly +satires which are far from lacking spirit, though often destitute of +taste. Satiric, too, was the paradoxical Tassoni, who scoffed at +Petrarch, and who in his _Thoughts_, long prior to J.J. Rousseau, was the +first, perhaps (but who knows?), to maintain that literature is highly +prejudicial to society and humanity, and who achieved fame by his _Rape +of the Bucket_: that is, by a burlesque poem on the quarrel between +the Bolognese and the inhabitants of Modena about a bucket. + +Maffei (intruding somewhat on the eighteenth century), good scholar and +respected historian, produced in 1714 his _Merope_, which was an +excellent tragedy, as Voltaire well knew and also testified. + +HISTORIANS AND CRITICS.--In prose there are none to point out in the +eighteenth century in Italy except historians and critics. Among +the historians must be noted Davila, who spent his youth in France near +Catherine de' Medici, served in the French armies, and on his return to +Padua devoted his old age to history. He wrote a _History of the Civil +Wars in France_ which was highly esteemed, and which Fénelon recollected +when writing his _Letter on the Pursuits of the French Academy_. The +foregoing are what must be mentioned as notable manifestations of +literary activity in Italy during the seventeenth century, but let it +not be forgotten that the scientific activity of the period was +magnificent, and that it was the century of Galileo, of Torricelli; of +the _four_ Cassini, as well as of so many others who were praised, as +they deserved to be, in the _Eulogies of the Learned_ of Fontenelle. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES: SPAIN AND PORTUGAL + +Poets: Quevedo, Gongora, Lope de Vega, Ercilla, Calderon, Rojas, etc. +Prose Writers: Montemayor, Cervantes, etc. Portugal: De Camoens, etc. The +Stage. + + +POETRY: QUEVERO; GONGORA.--The sixteenth century and the first half at +least of the seventeenth century were the golden age of both Spanish and +Portuguese literature. In poetry Quevedo is the first to be noticed, and +he is also notable in prose. Born at Madrid, but compelled by the +consequences of his youthful follies to take refuge in Sicily, then back +in Spain and either at the height of his fortune near the Duke of +Olivares or else pursued, imprisoned, and tortured by that minister, he +possessed facility and force which were alike extraordinary. His poems, +which are most satirical, revealed a glow and a freshness that were very +remarkable. + +Gongora, like Lyly in England and Marini in Italy, enjoyed the fame of +founding a bad school. It was _Gongorism:_ that is, the art of writing +not to make oneself read, which could only suit lawyers, orators, +critics, and scientists, but the art of writing to cause one's idea only +to be discovered after many efforts, or even so as to prevent its being +discovered at all. _Gongorism_ belongs to every epoch, and in each epoch +is the means of scaring away the crowd, of obtaining a small band of +enthusiastic admirers, and of being able to scorn the suffrage of the +multitude. Gongora, both in Spain and in France, found devoted admirers +and imitators. + +LOPE DE VEGA.--Lope de Vega was one of the greatest of the world's poets, +although he was intelligible. Prodigiously fertile, which is not +necessarily a sign of mediocrity, he published some romances in prose +(_Dorothea Arcadia_), some novels, epic or historic poems (_Circe, +_Shepherds of Bethlehem_, Jerusalem Conquered_, _The Beauty of Angelica_, +_The Pilgrim in his Land_, _The White Rose_, _The Tragic Crown_, of which +Mary Stuart is the heroine, _The Laurel of Apollo_, etc.), burlesque and +satirical poems, and dramatic poems the number of which exceed eighteen +hundred. In this mass of production may be discerned comedies of manners, +comedies of intrigue, pastorals, historical comedies (with characters +whose names are known in history), classical and religious tragedies, +mythological, philosophical, and hagiological comedies. Despite these +distinctions, which are useful as a guide in this throng, all the +dramatic work of Lope de Vega is that of imagination which seems to owe +little to practical observation and is valuable through happy invention, +dexterous composition, and the charming fertility and variety of ideas in +the details. The dramatic work of Lope de Vega (as yet incompletely +published and which probably never will be published in its entirety) was +a vast mine wherein quarried not only all the dramatic authors but all +the romancists and novelists of Europe. This prodigious producer, who +wrote millions of verses, is the Homer of Spain and more fertile than +Homer, whilst also a Homer as to whose existence there is no doubt. + +ERCILLA.--Alonso de Ercilla created a peculiar species, that of +memorialist epic poems. He was a man concerned in important events, who +took daily notes and subsequently, or even concurrently, put them into +verse. Thus Ercilla made his _Araucana_: that is, the poem of the +expedition against the Araucanians in Chili, or rather he thus wrote the +first (and best) of the three parts; later, desirous of rising to epic +heights, he had resort to the contrivances and conventional traditional +ornaments of this type of work and became dull, without entirely losing +all his skill. "This poem is more savage than the nations which form its +theme," said Voltaire in a pretty phrase which was somewhat hyperbolical. +The _Araucana_ is agreeably savage in its first part without being +ferocious and fastidiously civilised in the sequels without being +contemptible. + +MENDOZA.--Hurtado de Mendoza must be regarded--that proud, gloomy, +bellicose and haughty minister of Charles V--because he was the earliest +of the picaresque romancists. The picaresque method consisted in +delineating the habits of outcasts, bohemians, spongers, swindlers, and +vagrants. It lasted for about three quarters of a century. To this class +belonged _Guzmar of Alfargue_, by Mateo Aleman; _Marco of Obregon_, by +Espinel; _The Devil on Two Sticks_, by Guevara; and somewhat, in France, +the _Gil Bias_ of Le Sage. Now the prototype of all these was _The +Lazarillo of Tormes_, by Hurtado de Mendoza. + +GUEVARA.--A moment's heed must be paid to the amiable Antonio de Guevara, +an insinuating moralist whose _Familiar Letters_ and _Dial of Princes_, +though rather affectedly grave, contain interesting passages which +commend the author to readers. He is more particularly interesting to +Frenchmen because it was from him La Fontaine borrowed his _Countrymen +of the Danube_, attributing it to Marcus Aurelius (which led to much +confusion), because the principal personage in _The Dial of Princes_ is +one Marcus Aurelius, who is discreetly intended for Charles V. In spite +of what Taine wrote, though his criticisms in detail were accurate, +La Fontaine followed pretty closely the fine and highly original wording +of Guevara. + +THE ROMANCE.--The Spanish romance was at its zenith in the sixteenth and +seventeenth centuries. It had a legion of authors, but here the principal +only can be mentioned. Montemayor, who lived at the close of the +sixteenth century and led an adventurous existence, wrote the _Diana in +Love_, which became celebrated in every country under the title of +"_Diana_ of Montemayor." It is a mythological, bucolic, and magical +romance, entirely lacking in order, being wholly fantastical, sometimes +cruelly dull, sometimes graceful, affecting, seductive, and pathetic, +always ridiculously romantic. Its vogue was considerable in Spain, +France, and Italy. The _Astrea_ of Honoré d'Urfé proceeds in part from +it, but is more sensible and more restrained. + +QUEVEDO.--Here Quevedo is again found, now as prose writer and in this no +worse than as poet. He was prolific in romances or satirical fantasies, +in social reveries wherein contemporary society is not spared and Juvenal +is often suggested. Finally, he put forth all his powers, which were +considerable, in his great romance, _Don Pablo of Segovia_, which, twenty +years ago, would have been called naturalist. Quevedo obviously was an +observer, possessed psychological penetration or, at least, the wisdom of +the moralist; but above all, his imagination was curiously original, he +invented, on an apparently true foundation, adventures which were almost +probable and were diverting, burlesque, or possessed a bitter flavour. +His was one of the most original brains in Spain, which has abounded in +mental originalities. + +CERVANTES.--Montesquieu has said of the Spaniards: "They have only one +good book, the one which mocks at all the others." Nothing could be more +witty nor more unjust; but it is true that the greatest Spanish book is +that in which the author does mock at many other Spanish books. Cervantes +wrote his _Don Quixote_ to ridicule the romances of chivalry which in his +land were a craze among the townsfolk and smaller aristocratic +landowners, but he wrote in no spirit of animosity and even reserved for +his comic hero, that is, for his victim, a discreet sympathy which he +made his reader share. A hero of chivalry himself, warrior with +indomitable courage, thrice wounded at the battle of Lepanto, where he +lost an arm, seven years in captivity in Algiers, on his return to Spain +he became involved in adventures which again consigned him to prison +before he at length attained success, if not fortune, with _Don Quixote_. +_Don Quixote_ is a realistic romance traversed by a frenzied idealist: +here are the manners of the populace, of innkeepers, muleteers, +galley-slaves, monks, petty traders, peasants, and amid them passes a man +who views the entire world as a romance and who believes he finds romance +at every turn of his road. This perpetual contrast is, first, effective +and supremely artistic in itself, then is of a reality superior to that +of any realism, since it is the complete life of humanity which is thus +painted and penetrated to its very foundations and shown in all its +aspects. There are two portions to this romance, and they are constantly +near each other and, as it were, interlaced; namely, the episodes and the +conversations. The episodes, comic incidents, humorous or sentimental +adventures are of infinite variety and display incredible imagination; +the conversations between Don Quixote and his faithful Sancho represent +the two tendencies of the human mind to recognise on the one side, the +goodness, generosity, devotion, the spirit of sacrifice, and the +illusions; on the other side, common sense, the sense of reality, the +sense of the just mean and, as it were, the proverbial reason, without +malice or bitterness. This masterpiece is perhaps the one for which +would have had to be invented the epithet of _inexhaustible_. + +Apart from his immortal romance, Cervantes wrote novels, romances, +sonnets, and also tried the drama, at which he did not succeed. The whole +world, literally, was infatuated with _Don Quixote_, and, despite all +changes of taste, it has never ceased to excite the admiration of all who +read. + +THE DRAMA: FERDINAND DE ROJAS.--The drama, even apart from Lope de Vega, +of whom we have written, was most brilliant in Spain during these two +centuries. The Spanish stage was very characteristic, very original among +all drama in that, more than the ancient drama, more than in the plays of +Shakespeare himself, it was essentially lyrical, or, to express the fact +more clearly, it was based on a continual mixture of the lyric and the +dramatic; also it nearly always laid stress on the sentiment and the +susceptibility of honour, "the point of honour," as it was called, and +upon its laws, which were severe, tyrannical, and even cruel. These two +principal characteristics gave it a distinct aspect differing from all +the other European theatres. Without going back to the confused origins +and without expressing much interest in the Spanish drama until the +religious dramas of the _autos sacramentales_(which continued their +career until the seventeenth century), it is necessary, first, to note, +at the close of the fifteenth century, the celebrated _Celestine_ of +Ferdinand de Rojas, a spirited work, unmeasured, enormous, unequal, at +times profoundly licentious, at times attaining a great height of moral +exaltation, and also at times farcical and at others deeply pathetic. +_Celestine_ was translated several times in various languages, and +especially in Italy and France was as much appreciated as in Spain. + +CALDERON.--In the seventeenth century (after Lope de Vega) came Calderon. +Almost as prolific as Lope, author of at least two hundred plays, some +authorities say a thousand, Calderon was first prodigiously inventive, +then he was dogmatic, moralising, almost a preacher. Whether in his +religious plays, in his love dramas, in his cap and sword tragedies, even +in his comedies and highly complicated intrigues, the great sentiments +of the Spanish soul--honour, faith, the inviolability of the oath, +loyalty, fidelity, the spirit of great adventures--broaden, animate +and elevate the whole work. With Calderon the titles are always +indicative of the subject. His most celebrated plays are: _In this Life +All Is Truth and Falsehood_, _Life is a Dream_, _The Devotion to the +Cross_, _The Lady before All_, _The Mayor of Zamalea_, _Love after +Death_, _The Physician of his Own Honour_. + +ALARCON.--Alarcon comes nearer to us owing to his regular and almost +classic compositions. Nevertheless he was a man of imagination and humour +with an adequate dramatic force. His tragedies must be mentioned: _What +Is Worth Much Costs Much_, _Cruelty through Honour_, _The Master of +Stars_; his comedies, _The Examination of Husbands_, and that charming +_The Truth Suspected_, from which Corneille derived _The Liar_. + +TIRSO DE MOLINA.--Tirso de Molina was another prodigy of dramatic +literature, and his fellow-countrymen assert that he wrote three hundred +dramas, of which sixty-five are in existence. All Spanish dramatists +were unequal, he more especially; he passed from grossness to sublimity +with surprising facility and ease. He particularly delighted in +ingeniously complicated intrigue, in surprises, and in unexpected +theatrical touches. Yet _The Condemned in Doubt_ is a sort of moral +epopee, adapted to the stage, possessing real beauty and not without +depth. His most celebrated drama, in so far as it has aroused direct or +indirect imitations, and owing to the type he was the first to suggest, +was _The Jester of Seville_: that is, Don Juan. All European literatures, +utilising Don Juan, became tributaries to Tirso de Molina. + +FRANCIS DE ROJAS; CASTRO; DIAMANTE.--Francis de Rojas, who must not be +confused with Ferdinand de Rojas, author of _Celestine_, though +possessing less spirit than his predecessors, is nevertheless a +distinguished dramatic poet. The French of the seventeenth century freely +pilfered from him. Thomas Corneille borrowed a goodly portion of his +_Bertrand de Cigarral_, Scarron a large part of his _Jodelet_, Le Sage an +episode in _Gil Blas_. If only for their connection with the French +drama, William de Castro and Diamante must be noticed. William de Castro +wrote a play, _The Exploits of the Cid in Youth_, which Corneille knew +and which he imitated in his celebrated tragedy, adding incomparable +beauty. Diamante in his turn imitated Corneille very closely in _The Son +who Avenges his Father_. Voltaire, mistaken in dates, believed Corneille +had imitated Diamante. + +PORTUGUESE WRITERS.--In Portugal the sixteenth century was the golden +age. Poets, dramatists, historians, and moralists were extremely +numerous; several possessed genius and many displayed great talent. Among +lyrical poets were Bernardin Ribeiro, Christoval Falcam, Diogo Bernardes, +Andrade Caminha, Alvarez do Oriente, Rodriguez Lobo. Ribeiro wrote +eclogues half in narrative or dialogue, half lyrical. He also produced a +romance intersected with tales (Le Sage in his _Gil Blas_ thus wrote, as +is known, and in this only imitated the Spaniards), entitled _The +Innocent Girl_, which often evinces great refinement. + +Christoval Falcam was also bucolic, but his eclogues often ran to nine +hundred verses. He also wrote _Voltas_, which are lyric poems suitable +for setting to music. Diogo Bernardes also wrote eclogues and letters +collected under the title of the _Lyma_. The Lyma is a river. To +Bernardes the Lyma was what the Lignon was to D'Urfé in his _Astrea_. + +Caminha, a court poet decidedly analogous to the French Saint-Gelais, +possessed dexterity and happy phraseology. Eclogues, elegiacs, epitaphs, +and epistles were the ordinary occupations of his muse. + +Alvarez do Oriente has left a great romanesque work, a medley of prose +and verse entitled _Portugal Transformed_ (_Lusitania transformanda_), +which is extremely picturesque apart from its idylls and lyrical poems. + +Lobo was highly prolific. He was author of pastoral romances, medleys of +verse and prose (_The Strange Shepherd_, _The Spring_, _Disenchantment_), +a great epic poem (_The Court at the Village_), in prose conversations +on moral and literary questions which have remained classic in Portugal, +as well as romances and eclogues. + +EPIC POETS.--The most notable epic poets were Corte-Real, Manzinho, +Pereira de Castro, Francisco de Saa e Menezès, Doña de la Lacerda, and, +finally, the great Camoens. Corte-Real, a writer of the highest talent, +was author of an epic which we would style a romance in verse, although +founded on fact, upon _The Shipwreck of Sepulveda_ and her husband +Lianor. The varied and picturesque narrative is often pathetic. It would +be more so, to us at least, were it not for the incessant intervention of +pagan deities. + +Francisco de Saa e Menezès sang of the great Albuquerque and of _Malaca +Conquered_. He mingled amorous and romantic tales with narratives and +descriptions of battles. He possessed the sense of local colour and +brilliant imagination; he has been accused of undue negligence with +regard to correction. + +Doña de la Lacerda, professor of Latin literature to the children of +Philip III, although born at Porto, wrote nearly always in Spanish. The +_Spain Delivered_ (from the Moors), an epic poem, is her chief work; she +also composed comedies and various poems in Spanish. On rare occasions +she wrote in Portuguese prose. + +CAMOËNS.--The glory of these sound poets is effaced by that of Camoëns. +Exiled in early youth for a reason analogous to the one which occasioned +the banishment of Ovid, a soldier who lost an eye at Ceuta, wandering in +India, shipwrecked and, according to tradition, only saving his poem +which he held in one hand whilst swimming with the other, he returned to +Portugal after sixteen years of exile, assisting at the struggles, +decline, and subjection of his country, dying (1579) at the moment when +for a time Portugal ceased to have a political existence. He wrote _The +Lusiad_ (that is the Portuguese), which was the history of Vasco da Gama +and of his expedition to India. The description of Africa, the Cape of +Tempests (the Cape of Good Hope), with the giant Adamaston opposing the +passage, and the description of India were the foundation of the +narrative. Episodes narrated by individuals, as in Virgil and as in the +Spanish romance, formed an internal supplement, and thus was narrated +almost all the history of Portugal, and so it came to pass that the love +of Inez de Castro and of Don Pedro formed part of the story of Vasco da +Gama. Camoëns was a powerful narrator, a magnificent orator in verse, +and, above all, a very great painter. He evinced curious taste, even as +compared with his contemporaries, such as the continual commingling of +mythological divinities with Christian truths: for instance, a prayer +addressed by Vasco to Jesus Christ was granted by Venus. It may also be +observed that the poem lacked unity and was only a succession of poems. +But, as Voltaire said, "The art of relating details, by the pleasure +it affords, can make up for all the rest; and that proves the work to be +full of great beauties, since for two hundred years it has formed the +delight of a clever race who must be well aware of its faults." + +DRAMATISTS.--The principal Portuguese dramatists were Saa de Miranda, +Antonio Ferreira, Gil Vicente. Saa de Miranda was a philosophical poet +or, to express it more correctly, a poet with ideas; he broke with +the eternal idylls, eclogues, bucolics, and pastorals of his predecessors +without declining to furnish excellent examples, but more often aiming +elsewhere and higher. He also reformed the versification, introducing +metres employed in other languages, but hitherto unused in his tongue. He +wrote odes, epistles after the manner of Horace, sonnets, lyric poems in +Latin, and epic compositions. In all this portion of his work he may be +compared to Ronsard. Finally, he wrote two comedies in prose--_The +Strangers_ and _The Villalpandios_ (the _Villalpandios_ are Spanish +soldiers, who have a recognised position in comedy). His mind was one of +the most elevated and best stored with classic literature that Portugal +ever produced. + +FERREIRA.--Ferreira, who wrote lyric poems, elegiac poems, and especially +epistles, by which he gained for himself the name of the Portuguese +Horace, was more particularly a dramatist. He created _Farcas_, which +must not be regarded as farces, but as dramatic poems in which the +profane and religious are interwoven; he wrote _The Bristo_, a popular +comedy; _The Jealous One_, which was perhaps the earliest comedy of +character ever produced in Europe, and finally, a tragedy, _Inez de +Castro_, the national tragedy, a tragedy so orthodox and regular in form +that the author felt bound to introduce a chorus in the classic manner; +it is charged with pathos and handled with much art. + +GIL VICENTE.--Gil Vicente, a prolific poet who wrote forty-two dramatic +pieces, two thirds in Spanish and the rest in Portuguese, touched every +branch of theatrical literature; he produced religious plays (_autos_), +tragedies, romantic dramas, comedies, and farces. His chief works are +_The Sibyl Cassandra_, _The Widow_, _Amadis de Gaule_, _The Temple of +Apollo_, _The Boat of Hell_. His comedies possess a vivacity that is +Italian rather than Portuguese. Tradition has it that Erasmus learnt +Portuguese for the sole purpose of reading the comedies of Gil Vicente. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES: FRANCE + +Of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: Fontenelle, Bayle. Of the +Eighteenth: Poets: La Motte, Jean Baptiste Rousseau, Voltaire, etc. Prose +Writers: Montesquieu, Voltaire, Buffon, Jean Jacques Rousseau, etc. Of +the Nineteenth Century: Poets: Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Musset, Vigny, +etc.; Prose Writers: Chateaubriand, Michelet, George Sand, Mérimée, +Renan, etc. + + +FONTENELLE.--The eighteenth century, which was announced, and announced +with great precision, by La Bruyère, was inaugurated by his enemy +Fontenelle. Fontenelle, nephew of Corneille, began with despicable +trifles, eclogues, operas, stilted tragedies, letters of a dandy, so he +might be justly regarded as an inferior Voiture. Very soon, because he +possessed the passion of the eighteenth century for science and +free-thought, he showed himself to be a serious man, and because he had +wit he showed himself an amusing serious man, which is rare. His +_Dialogues of the Dead_ were very humorous and, at the same time, in many +passages profound; he wrote his _Discourses on the Plurality of_ +(Habitable) _Worlds_; then because he was perpetual secretary of the +Academy of Sciences, came his charming and often astonishing _Eulogies of +Sages_, which ought to be regarded as the best existent history of +science in the seventeenth century and in the eighteenth up to 1740. + +BAYLE.--Bayle, a Frenchman who lived in Holland on account of religion, a +journalist and lexicographer, in his _News of the Republic of Letters_ +and in his immense _Dictionary_, gave proof of broad erudition about all +earthly questions, especially philosophical and religious, guiding his +readers to absolute scepticism. Fontenelle and Bayle are the two heralds +who opened the procession of the eighteenth century. Successively must +now be examined first the poets and then the prose writers of the first +half of that era. + +LA MOTTE.--La Motte, as celebrated in his own time as he is forgotten in +ours, was lyricist, fabulist, dramatic orator, epical even after a +certain fashion. He wrote odes that were deadly cold, fables that were +often quite witty but affected and laboured, comedies sufficiently +mediocre, of which _The Magnificent Lover_ was the most remarkable, +and a tragedy, _Inez de Castro_, which was excellent and enjoyed one of +the greatest successes of the French stage. Finally, becoming the +partisan of the modernists against the classicists, he abridged the +_Iliad_ of Homer into a dozen books as frigid as his own lyric poems. He +had parodoxical ideas in literature, and, being a poet, or believing +himself one, he considered that verse enervated thought and that +sentiments should only be written in prose. It was against these +tendencies that Voltaire so vigorously reacted. + +J.B. ROUSSEAU; POMPIGNAN.--Beside La Motte, being more gifted as a poet, +Jean Baptiste Rousseau was conspicuous. He wrote lyrical poems which were +cold as lyrics but were well composed and, sometimes at least, attained a +certain degree of eloquence. From Malherbe to Lamartine, lyrical poetry +was almost completely neglected by French poets, or at least very badly +treated. Jean Baptiste Rousseau had the advantage of being nearly +solitary and for approximately century was regarded as the greatest +national lyrical poet. + +Le Franc de Pompignan has endured much ridicule, not the least being for +a certain naive vanity perceptible directly he passed from the south to +the north of France; but he had some knowledge; he was acquainted with +Hebrew, then a sufficiently rare accomplishment, and he was an assiduous +student of classic literature. His tragedy, _Dido_, succeeded; his +_Sacred Songs_ enjoyed popularity, no matter what Voltaire might say, +and deserved their success; in his odes, which were too often cold, he +rarely succeeded--only once triumphantly, in his ode on the death of Jean +Baptiste Rousseau. + +THE _HENRIADE_.--So far as poets, strictly speaking, were concerned, the +foregoing are all that have to be indicated in the first half of the +eighteenth century, except the ingenious and frigid _Henriade_ of +Voltaire. + +DRAMATIC POETS.--To counterbalance, the dramatic poets are numerous and +not without merit. Let us recall _Inez de Castro_ by De la Motte. +Campistron, the feeble pupil of Racine (and, moreover, there could be no +pupil of Racine, so original was the latter, so closely was his genius +associated with his mind), perpetrated numerous tragedies and operas +which enjoyed the success obtained by all imitative works: that is, a +success which arouses no discussion, and which today appears to be the +climax of tediousness. + +CRÉBILLON.--Crébillon followed, vigorous, energetic, violently shaking +the nerves, master of horror and of terrors, not lacking some analogy +with Shakespeare, but without delicacy or depth, never even giving a +thought to being psychological or a moralist, writing badly and to a +certain extent meriting the epithet of "the barbarian" bestowed on him +by Voltaire. + +The latter was infatuated with the drama, having the feeling for +beautiful themes and for new and original topics, adapting them to +the stage with sufficient aptitude, delighting, in addition, in pomp, +mimicry, and decorativeness, and causing tragedy to lean towards +opera, which in his day was no bad thing; but weak in execution, never +creating characters because he could not escape from himself, as moderate +in psychology and morality as Crébillon himself and replacing analysis of +passion by these and philosophical commonplaces. He left tragic dramas +which until about 1815 enjoyed success, but which then fell into a +disregard from which there is no probability they will ever emerge. + +COMIC POETS.--The comic poets of this period were highly agreeable. The +most notable were Destouches, Regnard, La Chaussée. Destouches was the +very type of the comic writers of the eighteenth century already alluded +to, who took a portrait by La Bruyère and turned it into a comedy, and +that is what was called a comedy of character. Thus he wrote _The +Braggart_, _The Irresolute_, _The Ungrateful_, _The Backbiter_, _The +Spendthrift_, etc. Sometimes he took pains to be a trifle more original, +as in _The False Agnes_, _The Married Philosopher_; sometimes he borrowed +a subject from a foreign literature and adapted it fairly dexterously for +the Gallic stage, as in _The Impertinent Inquisitive_, taken from _Don +Quixote_ and _The Night Drum_, borrowed from an English author. His +versification was dexterous and correct without possessing other merit. + +REGNARD.--Regnard, on the contrary, was an original genius, though +frequently imitative of Molière. He possessed the comic spirit, gaiety, +animation, the sense of drollery, and a prodigious capacity for humorous +verse of great flexibility and incredible ease, highly superior in point +of form to that of Boileau and even of Molière, for he suggests a Scarron +perfected by Molière himself and by the Italian poets. Still alive and +probably imperishable are such works as _The Gamester_, _The Universal +Legatee_, _The Unexpected Return_. + +THE DRAMA: LA CHAUSSÉE.--La Chaussée possessed a vein of the popular +novel, the serial, as we should say, and at the same time a taste for the +stage. The result was he created a new species, which in itself is no +small achievement. He created _the drama_: that is, the stage-play +wherein common people, and no longer kings and princes, affect us by +their misfortunes. This has been called by all possible names; when it +is a comedy it is described as a tearful comedy; when a tragedy, as a +dramatic tragedy. This is the drama we have known in France for a hundred +and fifty years; such as it already existed in the sixteenth century +under the title of the morality play, such as Corneille, who foresaw +everything, anticipated and predicted in his preface to _Don Sancho_: "I +would rather say, sir, that tragedy should excite pity and fear, and that +in its essentials, since there is necessity for definition. Now if it be +true that this latter feeling is only excited in us when we see those +like ourselves suffer, and that their misfortunes put us in fear of +similar calamities, is it not also true that we can be more strongly +moved by disasters arriving to people of our own rank, having resemblance +to ourselves, than by the picture of the overthrow from their thrones of +the greatest monarchs, who can have no relation to us except in so far as +we are susceptible to the passions that overwhelmed them, which is not +always the case?" This domestic tragedy La Chaussée wrote in verse, which +is not against French rules, and which has been done by dramatists a +hundred and twenty years later; but it is probably an error, being even +more unlikely that citizens would express themselves in metre than that +kings and heroes should give utterance with a certain solemnity which +entails rhythm. Thus he wrote _The Fashionable Prejudice_, _The School of +Friends_, _Melanide_, very pathetic, _The School of Mothers_, etc. It +must be stated that he wrote his plays in verse somewhat systematically; +he had made his first appearance in literature by a defence of +versification against the doctrines of La Motte. + +PIRON.--According to the old system, but in original verse, Piron, after +having met with scant success in tragedy, wrote the delicious +_Metromania_ which, with _The Turcaret_ of Le Sage, _The Bad Man_ of +Gresset, the masterpieces of Marivaux and the two great comedies +of Beaumarchais rank among the seven or eight superior comedies produced +in the eighteenth century. + +GREAT PROSE WRITERS: MONTESQUIEU.--In prose, writers, and even great +writers, were abundant at this period. Immediately after Fontenelle and +Bayle appeared Montesquieu, sharp, malicious, satirical, already +profound, in _The Persian Letters_, a great political philosopher and +master of jurisprudence in _The Spirit of Laws_, a great philosophical +historian in _The Grandeur and Decadence of the Romans_. The influence of +Montesquieu on Voltaire, no matter what the latter may have said; on +Rousseau, however silent the latter may have been about it; on Mably, on +Raynal, on the encyclopaedists, on a large portion of the men in the +French Revolution, on the greatest minds of the nineteenth century, has +been profound and difficult to measure. As writer he was concise, +collected, and striking, seeking the motive and often finding it, seeking +the formula and invariably finding it--Tacitus mingled with Sallust. + +LE SAGE; SAINT-SIMON.--In considering Le Sage and Saint-Simon, it is not, +perhaps, the one who is instinctively thought of as a novelist who really +was the greater romancer. They each wrote at the same time as +Montesquieu. Saint-Simon narrated the age of Louis XIV as an eyewitness, +both with spirit and with a feeling for the picturesque that were alike +inimitable, expressed in a highly characteristic fashion, which was often +incorrect, always incredibly vigorous, energetic, and masterful. Le Sage, +in the best of all French styles, that of the purest seventeenth century, +narrated Spanish stories in which he mingled many observations made in +Paris, and set the model for the realistic novel in his admirable _Gil +Blas_. As a dramatist he will be dealt with later. + +MARIVAUX; PRÉVOST.--Marivaux also essayed the realistic novel in his very +curious _Marianne_, full of types drawn from contemporary life and drawn +with an art which was less condensed but as exact as that of La Bruyère, +and in his _Perverted Peasant_ with an art which was more gross, but +still highly interesting. + +The Abbé Prévost, much inferior, much overpraised, generally insipid in +his novels of adventure, once found a good theme, _Manon Lescaut_, and, +though writing as badly as was his wont, evoked tears which, it may be +said, still flow. + +HISTORY: DRAMA.--In history Voltaire furnished a model of vivid, rapid, +truly epic narration in his _History of Charles XII_, and an example, at +least, of exact documentation and of contemporaneous history studied with +zeal and passion in his _Philosophical Letters on England_. On the stage, +in prose there were the pretty, witty, and biting light comedies of +Dancourt, De Brueys and Palaprat, and Dufresny, then the delicious drama, +at once fantastic and perceptive, romantic and psychological, of +Marivaux, who, in _The Legacy_, _The False Confidences_, _The Test_, +_The Game of Love and of Shame_, showed himself no less than the true +heir of Racine and the only one France has ever had. + +VOLTAIRE.--In the second portion of the eighteenth century, Voltaire +reigned. He multiplied historical studies (_Century of Louis XIV_), +philosophies (_Philosophical Dictionary_), dramas (_Zaïre_, _Mérope_, +_Alzire_ [before 1750], _Rome Saved_, _The Chinese Orphan_, _Tancred_, +_Guèbres_, _Scythia_, _Irene_), comedies (_Nanine_, _The Prude_), +romances(_Tales and Novels_), judicial exquisitions (the Calas, Labarre, +and Sirven cases), and articles, pamphlets, and fugitive papers on +all conceivable subjects. + +THE PHILOSOPHERS.--But the second generation of philosophers was now +reached. There was Diderot, philosophical romancer (_The Nun_, _James the +Fatalist_), art critic(_Salons_), polygraphist (collaboration in the +Encyclopaedia); there was Jean Jacques Rousseau, philosophic novelist in +_The New Héloise_, publicist in his discourse against _Literature and the +Arts and Origin of Inequality_, schoolmaster in his _Emilius_, severe +moralist in his _Letters to M. d'Alembert on the Spectacles_, +half-romancer, charming, impassioned, and passion-inspiring in the +autobiography which he called his Confessions; there was Duclos, +interesting though rather tame in his _Considerations on the Manners of +this Century_; there was Grimm, an acute and subtle critic of the highest +intelligence in his _Correspondence_; then Condillac, precise, +systematic, restrained, but infinitely clear in the best of diction in +his _Treatise on the Sensations_; finally Turgot, the philosophical +economist, in his _Treatise on the Formation and Distribution of +Wealth_. + +BUFFON; MARMONTEL; DELILLE.--Philosophy, meditation on great problems, +filled almost all the literary horizon, while scientific literature +embraced a score of illustrious representatives, of which the most +impressive was Buffon, with his _Natural History_. Nevertheless, in +absolute literature there were also names to cite: Marmontel gave his +_Moral Tales_, his _Belisarius_, his _Incas_, and his _Elements of +Literature_. + +Delille, with his translation in verse of the _Georgics_ of Virgil, +commenced a noble poetic career which he pursued until the nineteenth +century; Gilbert wrote some mordant satires which recalled Boileau, and +some farewells to life which are among the best lyrics; Saint +Lambert sang of _The Seasons_ with felicity, and Roucher treated the same +theme with more vivid sensibility. + +THE STAGE.--On the stage, a little before 1750. Gresset gave his +_Wicked Man_, which was witty and in such felicitous metre that it +carried the tradition of great comedy in verse; Diderot, theorist and +creator of the drama in prose, followed La Chaussée, and produced _The +Father of a Family_, _The Natural Son_, and _Is He Good, Is He Bad_? being +the portrait of himself. Innumerable dramas by the fertile Mercier and a +score of others followed, including Beaumarchais, himself a devotee of +the drama, but only able to succeed in comedy, wherein he gave his two +charming works, _The Barber of Seville_ and _The Marriage of Figaro_. + +ANDRÉ CHÉNIER.--Almost on the verge of the Revolution, quite unexpectedly +there emerged a really great poet, André Chénier, marvellously gifted in +every way. As the poet of love he recalled Catullus and Tibullus; in +political lyricism he suggested d'Aubigny, though with more fervour; as +elegiac poet he possessed a grace that was truly Grecian; as the poet of +nature he employed the large manner of Lucretius; in polemical prose he +was remarkably eloquent. Struck down whilst quite young amid the turmoil +of the Revolution, he bequeathed immortal fragments. No doubt he would +have been the greatest French poet between Racine and Lamartine. + +BERNARDIN DE SAINT-PIERRE.--In prose, his contemporary, Bernardin de +Saint-Pierre, primarily was a man of genius, since he wrote that immortal +idyllic romance, _Paul and Virginia_; subsequently he became a gracious +and amiable pupil of Jean Jacques Rousseau, being smitten with the +sentiment of nature in his _Harmonies of Nature_; finally he attained +a great importance in literary history as the creator of exotic +literature through the descriptions he wrote of many lands: Asia, +African isles traversed and studied by him, Russia, and Germany. + +THE REVOLUTIONARY ORATORS.--During the revolutionary period may be +pointed out the great orators of the Assembly: Mirabeau, Barnave, Danton, +Vergniaud, Robespierre; the ill-starred authors of national songs: +Marie Joseph Chénier; the author of the _Marseillaise_, Rouget de Lisle, +who only succeeded on the day that he wrote it. And so we reach the +nineteenth century. + +THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.--At the commencement of a century which was so +brilliant from the literary aspect, James Delille was despotic: his +earlier efforts have already been attended to. A skilled versifier, but +without fire or many ideas, he made cultured translations from Virgil and +Milton, wrote perennially descriptive poems, such as _The Man in the +Fields_, _The Gardens_, etc., and a witty satirical poem on +_Conversation_, which, in our opinion, was the best thing he wrote. + +GREAT POETS: LAMARTINE.--Great poets were to come. Aroused, without +doubt, by the poetic genius of the prose writer Chateaubriand, the first +generation of the romantics was formed by Lamartine, Victor Hugo, and +Alfred de Vigny. Romanticism was the preponderance of imagination and +sensibility over reason and observation. Lamartine rebathed poetry in its +ancient and eternal sources: love, religion, and the sentiment of nature. +In his _Meditations_, his _Harmonies_, and his _Contemplations_, he +reawoke feelings long slumbering, and profoundly moved the hearts of men. +In _Jocelyn_ he widened his scope, and, emerging from himself, narrated, +as he imagined it, the story of the soul of a priest during the +Revolution, and subsequently in the obscurity of a rural parish; in +_The Fall of an Angel_ he reverted to the life of primaeval man as he +conceived it to be when humanity was still barbarous. Apart from his +poetic works, he wrote _The History of the Girondins_, which is a +romanesque history of almost the whole of the Revolution, some novels, +some autobiographic episodes, and a few discourses on literature. + +VICTOR HUGO.--Victor Hugo, though less sensitive than Lamartine but more +imaginative, began with lyrical poems which were somewhat reminiscent of +the classical manner, then went on to pictures of the East, thence to +meditations on what happened to himself, and on all subjects (_Autumn +Leaves_, _Lights and Shades_); next, in full possession of his genius, he +dwelt on great philosophical meditations in his _Contemplations_, and in +_The Legend of the Centuries_ gave that epic fragment which is a picture +of history. His was one of the most powerful imaginations that the world +has ever seen, as well as a _creator of style_, who made a style for +himself all in vision and colour, and also in melody and orchestration. +Although in prose he lacked one part of his resources, he utilised +the rest magnificently, and _Notre Dame_ and _The Miserable_ are works +which excite admiration, at least in parts. Later, he will be dealt with +as a dramatist. + +ALFRED DE VIGNY.--Alfred de Vigny was the most philosophical of these +three great poets, though inferior to the other two in creative +imaginativeness. He meditated deeply on the existence of evil on earth, +on the misfortunes of man, and the sadness of life, and his most +despairing songs, which were also his most beautiful, left a profound +echo in the hearts of his contemporaries. Some of his poems, such as +_The Bottle in the Sea_, _The Shepherd's House_, _The Fury of Samson_, +are among the finest works of French literature. + +MUSSET; THÉOPHILE GAUTIER.--The second generation of romanticism, which +appeared about 1830, possessed Alfred de Musset and Théophile Gautier as +chief representatives. They bore little mutual resemblance, be it said, +the former only knowing how to sing about himself, his pleasures, his +illusions, his angers, and, above all, his sorrows, always with sincerity +and in accents that invariably charmed and sometimes lacerated; the +latter, supremely artist, always seeking the fair exterior and delighting +in reproducing it as though he were a painter, a sculptor, or a musician, +and excellent and dexterous in these "transpositions of art," whether +they were in verse or prose. + +THE PROSE WRITERS: CHATEAUBRIAND.--The French prose writers of this first +half of the nineteenth century were emphatically poets, as had also +already been Jean Jacques Rousseau and even Buffon. Imagination, +sensibility, and the sentiment for nature were the mistresses of their +faculties. Chateaubriand was the promoter of all the literary movement +of the nineteenth century, alike in prose and poetry. He was a literary +theorist, an epic poet in prose, traveller, polemist, orator. His great +literary theory was in _The Genius of Christianity_, and consisted in +supporting that all true poetic beauties lay in Christianity. His epic +poems in prose are _The Natchez_, a picture of the customs of American +Indians, _The Martyrs_, a panorama of the struggle of paganism at its +close and of Christianity at its beginning; his travels were _The Voyage +in America_ and _The Itinerary from Paris to Jerusalem_. Member of the +parliamentary assemblies, ambassador and minister, he wrote and spoke in +the most brilliant and impassioned manner on the subjects that he took +up. Finally, falling back on himself, as he had never ceased to do more +or less all through his career, he left, in his marvellous _Memoirs from +Beyond the Tomb_, a posthumous work which is, perhaps, his masterpiece. +His infinitely supple and variegated style formed a continuous artistic +miracle, so harmonious and musical was it more musical even than that of +Jean Jacques Rousseau. + +MME. DE STAËL.--At the same time, though she died long before him, Mme. +de Staël, by her curious and interesting, though never affecting, novels, +_Delphine_ and _Corinne_, by her dissertations on various serious +subjects, by her work on Germany, which initiated the French into the +habits and literature of neighbours they were ill acquainted with, also +directed the minds of men into new paths, and she was prodigal of ideas +which she had almost always borrowed, but which she thoroughly +understood, profoundly reconsidered, and to which she imparted an +appearance of originality even in the eyes of those who had given them to +her. + +THE HISTORIANS.--Even the historians of this first half of the century +were poets: Augustin Thierry, who reconstituted scientifically but +imaginatively _The Merovingian Era_; Michelet, pupil of Vico, who saw in +history the development of an immense poem and cast over his account of +the Middle Ages the fire and feverishness of his ardent imagination and +tremulous sensitiveness. Guizot and Thiers can be left apart, for they +were statesmen by education and, although capable of passion, sought the +one to rationally generalise and "discipline history," as was said, the +other solely to capture facts accurately and to set them out clearly in +orderly fashion. + +THE PHILOSOPHERS.--The philosophers were not sheltered from this +contagion, and if Cousin and his eclectic school loved to attach +themselves to the seventeenth century both in mind and style, Lamennais, +first in his _Essay on Indifference_, then in his _Study of a +Philosophy_ and in his _Words of a Believer_, impassioned, impetuous, and +febrile, underwent the influence of romanticism, but also gave to the +romantics the greater portion of the ideas they put in verse. + +THE NOVEL.--As for the novel, it was only natural that it should be +deeply affected by the spirit of the new school. George Sand wrote +lyrical novels, if the phrase may be used--and, as I think, it is here +the accurate expression--entitled _Indiana_, _Valentine_, _Mauprat_, and +especially _Lelia_. She was to impart wisdom later on. + +It even happened that a mind born to see reality in an admirably accurate +manner, saw it so only by reason of the times, or at least partly due to +the times, associated it with a magnifying but deforming imagination +converting it into a literary megalomania; and this was the case of +Honoré de Balzac. + +NON-ROMANTIC LITERATURE.--Nevertheless, as was only natural, throughout +the whole of the romantic epoch there was an entire literature which did +not submit to its influence, and simply carried on the tradition of +the eighteenth century. In poetry there was the witty, malicious, and +very often highly exalted Béranger, whose songs are almost always +excellent songs and sometimes are odes; and there was also the able and +dexterous but frigid Casimir Delavigne. In prose there was Benjamin +Constant, supremely oratorical and a very luminous orator, also +a religious philosopher in his work _On Religions_, and a novelist in his +admirable _Adolphus_, which was semi-autobiographical. + +Classical also were Joseph de Maistre, in his political considerations +(_Evenings in St. Petersburg_), and, in fiction, Mérimée, accurate, +precise, trenchant, and cultured; finally in criticism, Sainte-Beuve, who +began, it is true, by being the theorist and literary counsellor of +romanticism, but who was soon freed from the spell, almost from 1830, and +became author of _Port Royal_. Though possessing a wide and receptive +mind because he was personified intelligence, he was decisively classical +in his preferences, sentiments, ideas, and even in his style. + +Stendhal, pure product of the eighteenth century, and even exaggerating +the spirit of that century in the dryness of his soul and of his style, a +pure materialist writing with precision and with natural yet intentional +nakedness, possessed valuable gifts of observation, and in his famous +novel, _Red and Black_, in the first part of the _Chartreuse of Parma_, +and in his _Memoirs of a Tourist_, knew how to draw characters with +exactness, sobriety, and power, and to set them in reliefs that were +remarkably rare. + +THE STAGE.--The drama was very brilliant during this first half of the +nineteenth century. The struggle was lively for thirty or thirty-five +years between the classicists and the romanticists; the classics +defending their citadel, the French stage, much more by their polemics in +the newspapers than by the unimportant works which they brought to the +_Comédie française_, the romantics here producing nearly all the plays of +Hugo (_Hernani_, _Marion de Lorme_, _Ruy Blas_, _The Burghers_, etc.), +and the works of Vigny(_Othello_, _Marshal d'Ancre_), as well as the +dramas of Dumas (_Henry III and his Court_, etc.). Between the two +schools, both of which were on the stage nearer to the modern than to the +antique, the dexterous Casimir Delavigne, with almost invariable success, +gave _Marino Faliero_, _Louis XI_, _The Children of Edward_, _Don Juan of +Austria_, and _Princess Aurelia_, which was pretty, but without +impassioned interest. + +A veritable dramatic genius, although destitute of style, of elevation of +thought and of ideas, but a prodigious constructor of well-made plays, +was Eugène Scribe, who, by his dramas and comedies, as well as the +libretti of operas, was the chief purveyor to the French stage between +1830 and 1860. + +ROMANTICISM AND REALISM.--So far as pure literature was concerned, the +second half of the nineteenth century was divided between enfeebled but +persistent romanticism and realism. Théophile Gautier, in 1853, gave his +_Enamels and Cameos_, his best poetic work, and later (1862) his +_Captain Fracasse_. Hugo wrote his _Miserables_, the second and third +_Legends of the Centuries_, _Songs of the Streets and the Woods_, etc. + +A third romantic generation, of which Théodore de Banville was the most +brilliant representative, and which proceeded far more from Gautier than +from Hugo or De Musset, pushed verbal and rhythmic virtuosity to the +limit and perhaps beyond. Then great or highly distinguished poets +appeared. + +FAMOUS POETS.--Leconte de Lisle, philosophical poet, attracted by Indian +literature, by pessimism, by the taste for nothingness, and the thirst +for death, forcing admiration by his sculptural form and majestic rhythm; +Sully-Prudhomme, another philosopher, especially psychological, +manipulating the lyrical elegy with much art and, above all, infusing +into it a grave, sad, and profound sensibility which would have awakened +the affection and earned the respect of Catullus, Tibullus, and +Lucretius; Francis Coppée, the poet of the joys and sorrows of the lowly, +a dexterous versifier too, and possessed of a sincerity so candid as to +make the reader forget that there is art in it; Baudelaire, inquisitive +about rare and at times artificial sensations, possessing a laborious +style, but sometimes managing to produce a deep impression either morbid +or lugubrious, considered by an entire school which is still extant as +one of the greatest poets within the whole range of French literature; +Verlaine, extremely unequal, often detestable and contemptible, but +suddenly charming and touching or revealing a religious feeling that +suggests a clerk of the Middle Ages; Catulle Mendès, purely romantic, +wholly virtuoso, but an astonishingly dexterous versifier. To these poets +some highly curious literary dandies set themselves in opposition, being +desirous of renovating the poetic art by ascribing more value to the +sound of words than to their meaning, striving to make a music of poesy +and, in a general way--which is their chief characteristic--being +difficult to understand. They gave themselves the name of symbolists, and +accepted that of decadents; they regarded Stephen Mallarmé either as +their chief or as a friend who did them honour. This school has been +dignified by no masterpieces and will probably ere long be forgotten. + +REALISTIC LITERATURE.--Confronting all this literature, which had a +romantic origin even when it affected scorn of the men of 1830, was +developed an entire realistic literature composed almost exclusively of +writers in prose, but of prose imbued with poetry written by some who had +read the romantics and who would not have achieved what they did had +romanticism not already existed, a fact which they themselves have +not denied, and which is now almost universally accepted. Flaubert, whose +masterpiece, _Madame Bovary_, is dated 1857, was very precisely divided +between the two schools; he possessed the taste for breadth of eloquence, +for the adventurous, and for Oriental colouring, and also the taste for +the common, vulgar, well visualised, thoroughly assimilated truth, +tersely portrayed in all its significance. But as he has succeeded +better, at least in the eyes of his contemporaries, as a realist than as +a man with imagination, he passes into history as the founder of realism +always conditionally upon considering Balzac as possessing much of the +vigorous realism which provided the impulse and furnished models. + +NATURALISM.--From the realism of Flaubert was born the naturalism of +Zola, which is the same thing more grossly expressed. Also by his +energetic, violent, and tenacious talent, as well as by a weighty though +powerful imagination, he exercised over his contemporaries a kind of +fascination which it would be puerile to regard as an infatuation for +which there was no cause. + +More refined and even extremely delicate, though himself also fond of the +small characteristic fact; possessed, too, with a graceful and gracious +sensibility, Alphonse Daudet often charmed and always interested us in +his novels, which are the pictorial anecdotes of the Parisian world at +the close of the second Empire and the opening of the third Republic. + +The brothers De Goncourt also enjoyed notable success, being themselves +absorbed in the exceptional deed and the exceptional character whilst +possessing a laboured style which is sometimes seductive because of its +unlooked-for effects. + +THE POSITIVISTS.--Two great men filled with their renown an epoch already +so brilliant; namely, Renan and Taine, both equally historians and +philosophers. Renan composed _The History of the Children of Israel_ and +_The Origins of Christianity_, as well as various works of general +philosophy, of which the most celebrated is entitled _Philosophical +Dialogues_. Taine wrote the history of _The Origins of Contemporary +France_: that is, the history of the French Revolution, and sundry +philosophical works of which the principal are _On Intelligence_ and +_The French Philosophers of the Eighteenth Century_. Both were +"positivists," that is to say, elevating Auguste Comte, who has his place +in the history of philosophy, but not here, because he was not a good +writer; both were positivists, but Renan possessed a lively and profound +sense of the grandeur and the moral beauty of Christianity, Taine being +imbued with more philosophic strictness. Renan, with infinite flexibility +of intelligence, applied himself to understand thoroughly and always +(with some excess) to bring home to us the great figures of the Bible, +the Gospels, and the early Christians, as well as their foes down to the +time of Marcus Aurelius. Further, he affirmed science to possess +_unique_ value in his _Future of Science_; elsewhere, under the +similitude of "dreams," he indulged in conceptions, hypotheses, and +metaphysical imaginations which were voluntarily rash and infinitely +seductive. As always happens, he possessed the style of his mind, supple, +sinuous, undulating, astonishingly plastic, insatiable, and charming, +evoking the comment, "That is admirably done and it is impossible to know +with what it is done." + +TAINE.--Taine, more rigid, accumulating documents and methodically +arranging them in a method that refuses to be concealed, advances in a +rectilineal order, step by step, and with a measured gait, to a solid +truth which he did not wish to be either evasive or complex. Highly +pessimistic and a little affecting to be so, just as Renan was optimistic +and much affected being so, he believed in the evil origin of man and of +the necessity for him to be drastically curbed if he is to remain +inoffensive. He has written a history of the Revolution wherein he has +refused admiration and respect for the crimes then committed, which is +why posterity now begins to be very severe upon him. His learned style is +wholly artificial, coloured without his being a colourist, composed of +metaphors prolonged with difficulty, yet remaining singularly imposing +and powerful. He was a curious philosopher, an upright, severe, and +rather systematic historian, solid and laboriously original as a +writer. + +BRUNETIÈRE.--Brunetière, of the great French thinkers before our +contemporaneous epoch, was critic, literary historian, philosopher, +theologian, and orator. As critic, he defended classic tradition against +bold innovations, and, especially, moral literature against licentious or +gross literature; as a literary historian he renovated literary history +by the introduction of the curious, audacious, and fruitful theory of +evolution, and his _Manual of the History of French Literature_ was a +masterpiece; as philosopher he imparted clearness and precision into the +system of Auguste Comte, whose disciple he was; as theologian, exceeding +Comte and utilising him, he added weight to Catholicism in France by +finding new and decisive "reasons for belief"; as orator he raised his +marvellously eloquent tones in France, Switzerland, and America, making +more than a hundred "fighting speeches." Since the death of Renan and +Taine, he has been the sole director of French thought, which he +continues to guide by his books and by the diffusion of his thought among +the most vigorous, serious, and meditative minds of the day. + +THE CONTEMPORANEOUS DRAMA.--The drama, since 1850, has been almost +exclusively written in prose. Emil Augier, however, composed some +comedies and dramas in verse and in verse particularly suited to the +stage; but the major portion of his work is in prose, whilst Alexander +Dumas and Sardou have written exclusively in prose. Augier and Dumas came +from Balzac, and remained profoundly realistic, which was particularly +suitable to authors of comedy. They studied the manners of the second +Empire and depicted them wittily; they studied the social questions which +agitated educated minds at this time and drew useful inspiration. Augier +leant towards good middle-class common-sense, which did not prevent him +from having plenty of wit. Dumas was more addicted to paradox and +possessed as much ability as his rival. Victorien Sardou, as dexterous a +dramatic constructor as Scribe, and who sometimes rose above this, +dragged his easy tolerance from the grand historic drama to the comedy of +manners, to light comedy and to insignificant comedy with prodigious +facility and inexhaustible fertility. + +The most admired living authors, whom we shall be content only to name +because they are living, are poets: Edmond Rostand, author of +_Loiterings_; Edmond Haraucourt, author of _The Naked Soul_ and _The Hope +of the World_; Jean Aicard, author of _Miette el Noré_; Jean Richepin, +author of _Césarine_, _Caresses_, _Blasphemies_, etc.; in fiction, Paul +Bourget, Marcel Prévost, René Bazin, Bordeaux, Boylesve, Henri de +Régnier; in history, Ernest Lavisse, Aulard, Seignobos, D'Haussonville; +in philosophy, Boutroux, Bergson, Théodule Ribot, Fouillée, Izoulet; in +the drama, Paul Hervieu, Lavedan, Bataille, Brieux, Porto-Riche, +Bernstein, Wolff, Tristan Bernard, Edmond Rostand, author of _Cyrano de +Bergerac_ and of _The Aiglon_; as orators, Alexander Ribot, De Mun +Poincaré, Jaurès, etc. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES: ENGLAND + +Poets of the Eighteenth Century: Pope, Young, MacPherson, etc.: Prose +Writers of the Eighteenth Century: Daniel Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, +Swift, Sterne, David Hume. Poets of the Nineteenth Century: Byron, +Shelley, the Lake Poets: Prose Writers of the Nineteenth Century: Walter +Scott, Macaulay, Dickens, Carlyle. + + +THE REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE: POETS.--As in France, the eighteenth century +(the age of Queen Anne) was in England richer in prose than in poetry. As +poets, however, must be indicated Thomson, descriptive and dramatic, +whose profound feeling for nature was not without influence over French +writers of the same century; Pope, descriptive writer, translator, +moralist, elegiast, very intelligent and highly polished, whose _Essay on +Criticism_ and _Essay on Man_ were remarkably utilised by Voltaire; +Edward Young, whose _Night Thoughts_ enjoyed the same prodigious +success in France as in England, and who contributed in no small measure +to darken and render gloomy both literatures; MacPherson, who invented +_Ossian_, that is, pretended poems of the Middle Ages, a magnificent +genius, be it said, who exercised considerable influence over the +romanticism of both lands; Chatterton, who trod the same road, but with +less success, yet was valued almost equally by the French romantic poets, +and to them he has owed at least the consolidation of his immortality; +Cowper, elegiac and fantastic, with a highly humorous vein; Crabbe, a +very close observer of popular customs and an ingenious novelist in +verse, quite analogous to the Dutch painters; Burns, a peasant-poet, +sensitive and impassioned, yet at the same time a careful artist +moved by local customs, the manifestations of which he saw displayed +before his eyes. + +PROSE WRITERS.--The masters of prose (some being also true poets) were +innumerable. Daniel Defoe, journalist, satirist, pamphleteer, was the +author of the immortal _Robinson Crusoe_; Addison, justly adored by +Voltaire, author of a sound tragedy, _Cato_, is supremely a scholar, the +acute, sensible, and extremely thoughtful editor of _The Spectator_; +Richardson, the idol of Diderot and of Jean Jacques Rousseau, enjoyed a +European success with his sentimental and virtuous novels, _Pamela_, +_Clarissa Harlowe_, and _Sir Charles Grandison_. As a critic and as a +personality, Dr. Johnson has no parallel in any age or land. His +_Dictionary_ is famous despite its faults, and _Rasselas_, which he +wrote to pay for his mother's funeral, can still be read. + +Fielding, who began by being only the parodist of Richardson, in +_Joseph Andrews_, ended by becoming an astounding realistic novelist, the +worthy predecessor of Thackeray and Dickens in his extraordinary _Tom +Jones_. The amiable Goldsmith, more akin to Richardson, wrote that +idyllic novel _The Vicar of Wakefield_, the charm of which was still felt +throughout Europe only fifty years ago. Laurence Sterne, the most +accurate representative of English _humour_, capable of emotion more +especially ironical, jester, mystificator, has both amused and disquieted +several generations with his _Sentimental Journey_ and his fantastical, +disconcerting and enchanting _Tristram Shandy_. Swift, horribly bitter, a +corrosive and cruel satirist, sadly scoffed at all the society of his +time in _Gulliver's Travels_, in _Drapier's Letters_, in his _Proposal to +Prevent the Children of the Poor Being a Burden_, in a mass of other +small works wherein the most infuriated wrath is sustained under the form +of calm and glacial irony. + +HISTORY.--History was expressed in England in the eighteenth century by +David Hume, who chronicled the progress of the English race from the +Middle Ages until the eighteenth century; by Robertson, who similarly +handled the Scotch and who narrated the reign of Charles V; and by +Gibbon, so habitually familiar with the French society of his time, who +followed the Romans from the first Cæsars to Marcus Aurelius, then more +closely from Marcus Aurelius to the epoch of Constantine, and finally +the Byzantine Empire up to the period of the Renaissance. The imposing +erudition, the rather pompous but highly distinguished style of the +author, without counting his animosity to Christianity, caused him to +enjoy a great success, especially in France. The work of Gibbon is +regarded as the finest example of history written by an Englishman. + +THE STAGE.--The stage in England in the eighteenth century sank far below +its importance in the seventeenth century; yet who does not know _She +Stoops to Conquer_ of Goldsmith, and that sparkling and lively comedy, +_The School for Scandal_, by Sheridan? Note, as an incomparable +journalist, the famous and mysterious Junius, who, from 1769 to 1772, +waged such terrible war on the minister Grafton. + +THE LAKE POETS.--In the nineteenth century appeared those poets so +familiar to the French romanticists, or else the latter pretended +they were, who were termed the lake poets, because they were lovers of +the countryside; these were Southey, Coleridge, and Wordsworth. Southey +was an epic and elegiac poet, whilst he was also descriptive; Coleridge, +philosopher, metaphysician, a little nebulous and disordered, had very +fine outbursts and some lamentable falls. Wordsworth was a most +distinguished lyricist. Lord Byron did not acquire honour by so roughly +handling Southey and Wordsworth. + +THE ROMANTIC EPOCH.--The two greatest English poets of the romantic +period were Lord Byron and Shelley; the former the admirable poet of +disenchantment and of despair, gifted with a noble epic genius, creating +and vitalising characters which, it must be confessed, differed very +little from one another, but an exalted figure with a grand manner and, +except Shakespeare, the only English poet who exercised genuine influence +over French literature; the latter an idealistic poet of the most suave +delicacy, aërial and heavenly, despite a private life of the utmost +disorder and even guilt, he is one of the most perfect poets that ever +lived; a great tragedian, too, in his _Cenci_, quite unknown in France +until the middle of the nineteenth century, but since then the object of +a sort of adoration among the larger number of Gallic poets and lovers +of poetry. + +Keats was as romantic as Shelley and Byron, both in spite of and because +of his desperate efforts to assimilate the Grecian spirit. He dreamt of +its heroes and its ancient myths, but there is in him little that is +Grecian except the choice of subjects, and it is not in his grand poem, +_Endymion_, nor even in that fine fragment, _Hyperion_, that can be found +the real melancholy, sensitive, and modern poet, but in his last short +poems, _The Skylark_, _On a Greek Vase_, _Autumn_, which, by the +exquisite perfection of their form and the harmonious richness of the +style, take rank among the most beautiful songs of English lyrism. + +Nearer to us came Tennyson, possessing varied inspiration, epical, +lyrical, elegiac poet, always exalted and pure, approaching the +classical, and himself already a classic. + +Swinburne, almost exclusively lyrical, a dexterous and enchanting +versifier, inspired by the ancient Greeks, generally evinced a highly +original poetic temperament, and Dante Rossetti, imbued with mediaeval +inspiration, possessed a powerful and slightly giddy imagination. Far +less known on the Continent, where critics may feel surprise at her +necessary inclusion here, is his sister, Christina Rossetti. Her +qualities as a poet are a touching and individual grace, much delicate +spontaneity, a pure and often profound emotion, and an instinct as a +stylist which is almost infallible. The Brownings form a celebrated +couple, and about them Carlyle, on hearing of their marriage, observed +that he hoped they would understand each other. Elizabeth Barrett +Browning, translator of Aeschylus of Theocritus, gave proof in her +original poetry of a vigour, of a vividness, and of a vigorous exuberance +of similes that often recalled the Elizabethans, but marred her work by +declamatory rhetoric and by a tormented and often obscure style. Robert +Browning was yet more difficult, owing to his overpowering taste for +subtlety and the bizarre--nay, even the grotesque. Almost ignored, or at +least unappreciated by his contemporaries, he has since taken an exalted +place in English admiration, which he owes to the depth, originality, and +extreme richness of his ideas, all the more, perhaps, because they lend +themselves to a number of differing interpretations. + +THE NOVELISTS.--In prose the century began with the historical novelist, +Sir Walter Scott, full of lore and knowledge, reconstructor and +astonishing _reviver_ of past times, more especially the Middle Ages, +imbuing all his characters with life, and even in some measure vitalising +the objects he evoked. None more than he, not even Byron, has enjoyed +such continuous appreciation with both French romantic poets and also the +French reading public. The English novel, recreated by this great master, +was worthily continued by Dickens, both sentimentalist and humourist, a +jesting, though genial, delineator of the English middle class, and an +accurate and sympathetic portrayer of the poor; by Thackeray, supreme +railer and satirist, terrible to egoists, hypocrites, and snobs; by the +prolific and entertaining Bulwer-Lytton, by the grave, philosophical, +and sensible George Eliot, by Charlotte Brontë, author of the affecting +_Jane Eyre_, etc., and her sister Emily, whose _Wuthering Heights_ has +been almost extravagantly admired. + +Four other great prose writers presenting startling divergences from one +another cannot be omitted. Belonging to the first half of the nineteenth +century, Charles Lamb earned wide popularity by his _Tales from +Shakespeare_ and _Poetry for Children_, written in collaboration with his +sister Mary; but he was specially remarkable for his famed _Essays of +Elia_, wherein he affords evidence of possessing an almost paradoxical +mixture of delicate sensibility and humour, as well as of accurate and +also fantastic observation. Newman, at first an English clergyman but +subsequently a cardinal, after conversion to the Catholic Church, appears +to me hardly eligible in a history of literature in which Lamennais has +no place. As a literary man, his famous sermons at Oxford and the Tracts +exercised much influence, and provoked such impassioned and prodigious +revival of old doctrines and of an antiquated spirit in religion; then +the _Apologia Pro Vita Sua_, _Callista_, and the _History of Arianism_, +revealed him as a master of eloquence. + +Ruskin, as art critic, in his bold volumes illumined with remarkable +beauty of styles, _Modern Painters_, _The Seven Lamps of +Architecture_, and _The Stones of Venice_, formulated the creed and the +school of pre-Raphaelitism. At the time of the religious revival at +Oxford, he preached a servile imitation of antiquity by the path of the +Renaissance, appealing to national and mediæval inspiration, not without +_naïveté_ and archaism, none the less evident because he was sincere and +mordant. George Meredith, who died only in 1910, was a prolific and often +involved novelist (the Browning of prose), with a passion for metaphors +and a too freely expressed eclectic scorn for the multitude. Withal, he +had a profound knowledge of life and of the human soul; impregnated with +humour, he was creator of unforgettable types of character, and no +pre-occupation of his epoch was foreign to his mind, whilst his vigorous +realism always obstinately refused to turn from contemporaneous themes, +or to gratify the needs and aspirations which it was possible to satisfy. +His epitaph might well be that he understood the women of his time, a +rare phenomenon. + +HISTORY.--History could show two writers of absolute +superiority--Macaulay (_History of England since James II_), an +omnivorous reader and very brilliant writer, and Carlyle, the English +Michelet, feverish, passionate, incongruous, and disconcerting, who dealt +with history as might a very powerful lyrical poet. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES: GERMANY + +Poets of the Eighteenth Century: Klopstock, Lessing, Wieland; Prose +Writers of the Eighteenth Century: Herder, Kant. Poets of the Nineteenth +Century: Goethe, Schiller, Körner. + + +THE AGE OF FREDERICK THE GREAT.--In the literature of Germany the +eighteenth century, sometimes designated under the title of the age of +Frederick the Great, forms a Renaissance or, if preferred, an awakening +after a fairly prolonged slumber. This awakening was assisted by a +quarrel, sufficiently unimportant in itself, but which proved fertile, +between Gottsched, the German Boileau, and Bodmer, the energetic +vindicator of the rights of the imagination. In the train of Bodmer came +Haller, like him a Swiss; then suddenly Klopstock appeared. _The +Messiah_ of Klopstock is an epic poem; it is the history of Jesus Christ +from Cana to the Resurrection, with a crowd of episodes dexterously +attached to the action. The profound religious sentiment, the grandeur of +the setting, the beauty of the scenes, the purity and nobility of the +sermon, the Biblical colour so skilfully spread over the whole +composition, cause this vast poem, which was perhaps unduly praised on +its first appearance, to be one of the finest products of the human mind, +even when all reservations are made. German literature revived. As for +Gottsched, he was vanquished. + +THE POETS.--Then came Lavater, Bürger, Lessing, Wieland. Lavater, a Swiss +like Haller, is remembered for his scientific labours, but was also a +meritorious poet, and his naive and moving _Swiss Hymns_ have remained +national songs; Bürger was a great poet, lyrical, impassioned, personal, +original, vibrating; Wieland, the Voltaire of Germany, although he began +by being the friend of Klopstock, witty, facile, light, and graceful, +whose _Oberon_ and _Agathon_ preserve the gift of growing old +felicitously, is one of the most delightful minds that Germany produced. +Napoleon did him the honour of desiring to converse with him as with +Goethe. + +LESSING.--Lessing, personally, was a great author, and owing to the +influence he exercised over his fellow-countrymen, he holds one of the +noblest positions in the history of German literature. He was a critic, +and in his _Dramaturgie of Hamburg_ and elsewhere, with all his strength, +and often unjustly, he combated French literature to arrest the +ascendency which, according to his indolent opinion, it exercised over +the Germans; and in his _Laocoön_, with admirable lucidity, he made a +kind of classification of the arts. As author, properly speaking, he +wrote _Fables_ which to our taste are dry and cold; he made several +dramatic efforts none of which were masterpieces, the best being _Minna +von Barnhelm_ and _Emilia Galotti_, and a philosophical poem in dialogue +(for it could hardly be termed drama), _Nathan the Sage_, which +possessed great moral and literary beauties. + +HERDER.--Herder was the Vico of Germany. Here was the historical +philosopher, or rather the thoughtful philosopher on history. He did +everything: literary criticism, works of erudition, translations, even +personal poems, but his great work was _Ideas on the Philosophy of the +History of Mankind_. This was the theory of progress in all its breadth +and majesty, supported by arguments that are at least spacious and +imposing. From Michelet to Quinet, on to Renan, every French author who +has at all regarded the unity of the destinies of the human race has +drawn inspiration from him. His broad, measured, and highly coloured +style is on the level of the subject and conforms to it. Even in an +exclusively literary history Kant must not be forgotten, because when he +set himself to compose a moral dissertation, as, for example, the one +upon lying, he took high rank as a writer. + +THE GLORIOUS EPOCH.--Thus is reached the end of the eighteenth close on +the beginning of the nineteenth century. In this intermediary epoch shone +the most glorious hour of Teutonic literature. Simultaneously Iffland, +Kotzebue, Körner, Schiller, and Goethe were to the fore. This formed a +great constellation. Iffland, actor, manager, and author, friend and +protector of Schiller, wrote numerous dramas, the principal of which were +_The Criminal through Ambition_, _The Pupil_, _The Hunters_, _The +Lawyers_, _The Friends of the House_. He was realistic without being +gloomy. He resembled the French Sédaine. Kotzebue, who was the friend of +Catherine of Russia, subsequently disgraced by her, possessed a highly +irritable and quarrelsome disposition, and was finally killed in 1819 +as a reactionary by a Liberal student, did not fall far short of genius. +He wrote a number of dramas and comedies. Those still read with pleasure +are _Misanthropy and Repentance_, _Hugo Grotius_, _The Calumniator_, and +_The Small German Town_, which has remained a classic. + +KÖRNER.--Körner, the "Tyrtaeus of Germany," was simultaneously a brave +soldier and a great lyrical poet who was killed on the battlefield of +Gadebusch, wrote lyrical poems, dramas, comedies, farces, and, above all, +_The Lyre and Sword_, war-songs imbued with splendid spirit. + +SCHILLER.--Schiller is a vast genius, historian, lyrical poet, dramatic +poet, critic, and in all these different fields he showed himself to be +profoundly original. He wrote _The Thirty Years' War_; odes, ballads, +dithyrambic poems, such as _The Clock_, so universally celebrated; +dissertations of philosophic criticism, such as _The God of Greece_ and +_The Artists_; finally, a whole repertory of drama (the only point on +which it is possible to show that he surpasses Goethe), in which may be +remarked his first audacious and anarchical work, _The Brigands_, then +the _Conjuration of Fieso_, _Intrigue and Love_, _Don Carlos_, +_Wallenstein_ (a trilogy composed of _The Camp of Wallenstein_, _The +Piccolomini_, _The Death of Wallenstein_), _Mary Stuart_, _The Betrothed +of Messina_, _The Maid of Orleans_, _William Tell_. By his example +primarily, and by his instruction subsequently (_Twelve Letters on Don +Carlos_, _Letters on Aesthetic Education_, _The Sublime_, etc.), he +exercised over literature and over German thought an influence at least +equal, and I believe superior, to that of Goethe. He was united to Goethe +by the ties of a profound and undeviating friendship. He died whilst +still young, in 1805, twenty-seven years before his illustrious friend. + +GOETHE.--Goethe, whom posterity can only put in the same rank as Homer, +is even more universal genius, and has approached yet closer to absolute +beauty. Of Franco-German education, he subsequently studied at Strasburg, +commencing, whilst still almost a student, with the imperishable +_Werther_, to which it may be said that a whole literature is devoted +and, parenthetically, a literature diametrically opposed to what Goethe +subsequently became. Then a journey through Italy, which revealed Goethe +to himself, made him a man who never ceased to desire to combine classic +beauty and Teutonic ways of thinking, and who was often magnificently +successful. To put it in another way, Goethe in his own land is a +Renaissance in himself, and the Renaissance which Germany had not known +in either the sixteenth or seventeenth century came as the gift of +Goethe. Immediately after his return from Italy he wrote _Tasso_ (of +classic inspiration), _Wilhelm Meister_ (of Teutonic inspiration), +_Iphigenia_ (classical), _Egmont_ (Teutonic), etc. Then came _Hermann and +Dorothea_, which was absolutely classic in the simplicity of its plan and +purity of lyric verse, but essentially modern in its picture of German +customs; _The Roman Elegies_, _The Elective Affinities_, _Poetry and +Truth_ (autobiography mingled with romance), _The Western Eastern Divan_, +lyrical poems, and finally, the two parts of _Faust_. In the first part +of _Faust_, Goethe was, and desired to be, entirely German; in the +second, through many reveries more or less relative to the theme, he more +particularly desires to depict the union of the German spirit with that +of classical genius, which formed his own life, and led to _intelligent +action_, which also was a portion of his existence. And for beauty, +drama, pathos, ease, phantasy, and fertility in varied invention, nothing +has ever surpassed if anything has even equalled the two parts of _Faust_ +regarded as a single poem. + +Apart from his literary labours, Goethe occupied himself with the +administration of the little duchy of Weimar, and in scientific research, +notably on plants, animals, and the lines in which he displayed marked +originality. He died in 1832, having been born in 1749. His literary +career extends over, approximately, sixty years, equal to that of Victor +Hugo, and almost equal to that of Voltaire. + +THE CONTEMPORANEOUS PERIOD.--After the death of Goethe, Germany could not +maintain the same height. Once more was she glorified in poetry by Henry +Heine, an extremely original witty traveller, in his _Pictures of +Travel_, elegiac and deeply lyrical, affecting and delightful at the same +time in _The Intermezzo_; by the Austrian school, Zedlitz, Grün, and the +melancholy and deep-thinking Lenau; in prose, above all, by the +philosophers, Fichte, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Hartmann, and lastly +Nietzsche--at once philosopher, moralist (after his own manner), and +poet, with an astonishing imagination; by the historians Niebuhr (before +1830), Treitschke, Mommsen, etc. Germany seems to have drooped, so far as +literature is concerned, despite some happy exceptions (especially in the +drama: Hauptmann, Sudermann), since her military triumphs of 1870 and the +consequent industrial activity. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES: ITALY + +Poets: Metastasio, Goldoni, Alfieri, Monti, Leopardi. Prose Writers: +Silvio Pellico, Fogazzaro, etc. + + +LITERARY AWAKENING.--After a long decadence, Italy, less overwhelmed +politically than previously, reawoke about 1750. Once more poets came +forward: Metastasio, author of tragedies and operas; Goldoni, a very +witty and gay comic poet; Alfieri who revived Italian tragedy, which had +been languishing and silent since Maffei, and who, like Voltaire in +France, and with greater success, established a philosophical and +political tribune; Foscolo, sufficiently feeble in tragedy but very +touching and eloquent in _The Tombs_, inspired by Young's _Night +Thoughts_ and _The Letters of Jacob Ortis_, an interesting novelist and +eloquently impassioned patriot; Monti, versatile and master of all +recantations according to his own interests, but a very pure writer and +not without brilliance in his highly diversified poems. + +EMINENT PROSE WRITERS.--Italy could show eminent prose writers, such as +those jurisprudent philanthropists Filangieri and Beccaria; critics and +literary historians like Tiraboschi. + +NINETEENTH CENTURY.--In the nineteenth century may first be found among +poets that great poet, the unhappy Leopardi, the bard of suffering, of +sorrow, and of despair; Carducci, a brilliant orator, imbued with +vigorous passions; Manzoni, lyricist, dramatist, vibrating with patriotic +enthusiasm, affecting in his novel _The Betrothal_, which became popular +in every country in Europe. In prose, Silvio Pellico equally moved Europe +to tears by his book _My Prisons_, wherein he narrated the experiences of +his nine years of captivity at the hands of Austria, and found his +agreeable tragedy of _Francesca da Rimini_ welcomed with flattering +appreciation. Philosophy was specially represented by Gioberti, author of +_The Treatise on the Supernatural_, and journalism by Giordani, eloquent, +at times with grace and ease, and at others with harshness and violence. + +THE MODERNS.--As these words were written came the news of the death of +the illustrious novelist Fogazzaro. Gabriel d'Annunzio, poet and +ultra-romantic novelist, and Mathilde Serao, an original novelist, pursue +their illustrious careers. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES: SPAIN + +The Drama still Brilliant: Moratin. Historians and Philosophers, +Novelists, Orators. + + +THE DRAMA. Since the middle of the seventeenth century, approximately, +Spain has exercised less literary influence than in the preceding +centuries. Nevertheless Spanish literature was not extinct; it was in the +drama more especially that it was manifest. Candamo, Cañizares, and +Zamora all illumined the stage. Candamo devoted himself to the historical +drama; his masterpiece in this type was _The Slave in Golden Chains_; +Cañizares, powerful satirist, displayed the comic spirit in his comedies +of character; Zamora manipulated the comedy of intrigue with remarkable +dexterity. Then came Vincente de la Huerta, skilful in combining the type +of French tragedy with something of the ancient dramatic national genius; +then Leandro Moratin (called Moratin the Younger to distinguish him from +his father Nicholas), very imitative, no doubt, of Molière, but in +himself highly gifted, and of whose works can still be read with pleasure +_The Old Man and the Young Girl_, _The New Comedy on the Coffee_, _The +Female Hypocrite_, etc. He also wrote lyrical poems and sonnets. He lived +long in France, where he became impregnated with Gallic classical +literature. + +PROSE.--Stronger and more brilliant at that period than the poetry, the +prose was represented by Father Florez, author of _Ecclesiastical Spain_; +by the Marquis de San Phillipo, author of the _War of Succession in +Spain_; by Antonio de Solis, author of _The Conquest of Mexico_. In +fiction there was the interesting Father Isla, a Jesuit, who gave a +clever imitation of the _Don Quixote_ of Cervantes in his _History of the +Preacher Friar Gerund_. He was well read and patriotic. He was convinced +that Le Sage had taken all his _Gil Blas_ from various Spanish authors, +and he published a translation of his novel under the title: _The +Adventures of Gil Blas of Santiago, stolen from Spain and adopted in +France by M. Le Sage, restored to their country and native tongue by +a jealous Spaniard who will not endure being laughed at_. Another Jesuit +(and it may be noticed that Spanish Jesuits of the seventeenth century +often displayed a very liberal and modern mind), Father Feijoo, wrote a +kind of philosophical dictionary entitled _Universal Dramatic Criticism_, +a review of human opinions which was satirical, humorous, and often +extremely able. The historian Antonio de Solis, who was also a reasonably +capable dramatist, produced a _History of the Conquest of South America +Known under the name of New Spain_, in a chartered style that was very +elegant and even too elegant. Jovellanos wrote much in various styles. +Among others he wrote one fine tragedy, _Pelagia_; a comedy presenting +clever contrasts, entitled _The Honorable Criminal_; a mass of studies on +the past of Spain, economic treatises, satires, and pamphlets. Engaged in +all the historical and political vicissitudes of his country, he expired +miserably in 1811, after having been alternately in exile and at the head +of affairs. + +ROMANTICISM.--In the nineteenth century Spanish romanticism was brought +back in dignified poetic style by Angel Saavedra, José Zorilla, Ventura +de la Vega, Ramon Campoamor, Espronceda. The latter especially counts +among the great literary Spaniards, for he was poet and novelist, who +wrote _The Student of Salamanca_ (Don Juan), _The Devil World_ (a kind of +Faust), lyrical poems, and an historical novel, _Sancho Saldano_. + +THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.--In drama, _Quintana_ also produced a _Pelagia_; +the Duke of Rivas a _Don Alvaro_, which enjoyed an immediate success; +Zorilla a _Don Juan_ entirely novel in conception; Martinez de la Rose +tragedies, some in the classic vein, others with modern intrigue and +comedies; Gutierrez, by his _Foundling_, attracted the attention of +librettists of French operas; Breton de los Herreros wrote sparkling +comedies, the multiplicity of which suggest Scribe. In prose, Fernan +Caballero was a fertile novelist and an attentive and accurate painter of +manner. Trueba (who was also an elegant poet) was an affecting idyllic +novelist. Emilio Castelar, the Lamartine of Spain as he was called by +Edmond About, was a splendid orator, thrown by the chances of political +life for one hour at the head of national affairs, who raised himself to +the highest rank in the admiration of his contemporaries by his novels: +for instance, _The Sister of Charity_ and his works on philosophical +history and the history of art, _Civilisation in the First Centuries of +Christianity_, _The Life of Byron_, _Souvenirs of Italy_, etc. In our +day, there have been numerous distinguished authors (and for us, at +least, out of the crowd stands forth the dramatist José Echegaray), who +carry on the glorious tradition of Spanish literature. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +RUSSIAN LITERATURE + +Middle Ages. Some Epic Narratives. Renaissance in the Seventeenth +Century. Literature Imitative of the West in the Eighteenth Century. +Original Literature in the Nineteenth Century. + + +THE MIDDLE AGES.--Russia possessed a literature even in the Middle Ages. +In the eleventh century the metropolitan Hilarion wrote a discourse on +the Old and the New Testament. In the twelfth century, the _Chronicle_ +that is said to be by _Nestor_ is the first historical monument of +Russia. At the same period Vladimir Monomaque, Prince of Kief, who +devoted his life to fighting with all his neighbours, left his son an +autobiographic _instruction_, which is very interesting for the light it +throws on the events and, especially, on the customs of his day. At the +same time the hegumen (abbot) Daniel left an account of his pilgrimage to +the Holy Land. In the thirteenth century (probably) another Daniel, +Daniel the prisoner, wrote from his distant place of exile to his prince +a supplicatory letter, which is astonishing because in it is found a +remarkable and wholly unexpected degree of literary talent. In the +thirteenth or fourteenth century two epic pieces, _The Lay of the Battle +of Igor_ and _The Zadonstchina_, of which it is uncertain which imitated +the other, alike present vigorous and vivid accounts of battles. In the +fifteenth or sixteenth century there is a didactic work, _The Domostroi_, +which is a moral treatise, a handbook of domestic economy, a manual of +gardening, and a cookery book, etc. The Tzar Ivan the Terrible (sixteenth +century) was a dexterous diplomatist and a precise, nervous, and ironical +writer. He left highly curious letters. + +RENAISSANCE.--Kutochikine (seventeenth century), who was minister in his +own land, then disgraced and exiled in Sweden, wrote an extremely +interesting book on the habits of his contemporaries. The "Renaissance," +if it may be so termed, that is, the contact between the Russian spirit +and Western genius, occurred in the eighteenth century. Prince Kantemir, +Russian ambassador in London, who knew Montesquieu, Maupertuis, the Abbé +Guasco, etc., wrote satires in the manner of Horace and of Boileau. +Trediakowski took on himself to compose a very tedious _Telemachidus_, +but he knew how to unravel the laws of Russian metre and to write odes +which at least were indicative of the right direction. + +LOMONOSOV.--Lomonosov is regarded as the real father of Russian +literature, as the Peter the Great of literature--a great man withal, +engineer, chemist, professor, grammarian. Regarding him solely as a +literary man, he made felicitous essays in tragedy, lyrical poetry, epic +poetry, polished the Russian versification, established its grammar, and +imparted a powerful impulse in a multitude of directions. + +CREATION OF THE DRAMA.--Soumarokoff founded the Russian drama. He was +manager of the first theatre opened in St. Petersburg (1756). In the +French vein he wrote tragedies, comedies, fables, satires, and epigrams. +He corresponded with Voltaire. The latter wrote to him in 1769: "Sir, +your letter and your works are a great proof that genius and taste +pertain to all lands. Those who said that poetry and music belonged only +to temperate climates were deeply in error. If climate were so potent, +Greece would still produce Platos and Anacreons, just as she produces the +same fruits and flowers; Italy would have Horaces, Virgils, Ariostos, and +Tassos.... The sovereigns who love the arts change the climates; they +cause roses to bud in the midst of snows. That is what your incomparable +monarch has done. I could believe that the letters with which she has +honoured me came from Versailles and yours from one of my colleagues in +the Academy.... Over me you possess one prodigious advantage: I do not +know a word of your language and you are completely master of +mine.... Yes, I regard Racine as the best of our tragic poets.... He is +the only one who has treated love tragically; for before him Corneille +had only expressed that passion well in _The Cid_, and _The Cid_ is not +his. Love is ridiculous or insipid in nearly all his other works. I think +as you do about Quinault; he is a great man in his own way. He would not +have written the _Art of Poetry_, but Boileau would not have written +_Armida_. I entirely agree with what you write about Molière and of the +tearful comedy which, to the national disgrace, has succeeded to the only +real comic type brought to perfection by the inimitable Molière. Since +Regnard, who was endowed with a truly comic genius and who alone came +near Molière, we have only had monstrosities.... That, sir, is the +profession of faith you have asked of me." This letter is quoted, despite +its errors, because it forms, as it were, _a preface to Russian +literature_, and also a patent of nobility granted to this literature. + +CATHERINE II.--The Empress wrote _in Russian_ advice as to the education +of her grandson, very piquant comedies, and review articles. Von Vizin, a +comic author, was the first to look around and to depict the custom of +his country, which means that he was the earliest humorous national +writer. The classic works of Von Vizin were _The Brigadier_ and _The +Minor_. Whilst pictures of contemporaneous manners, they were also +pleadings in favour of a reformed Russia against the Russia that existed +before Peter the Great, which still in part subsisted, as was only +natural. He made a journey to France and it will be seen from his +correspondence that he brought back a highly flattering impression. + +RADISTCHEF.--Radistchef was the first Russian political writer. Under +the pretext of a _Voyage from Petersburg to Moscow_, he attacked serfdom, +absolute government, even religion, for which he was condemned to death +and exiled to Siberia. He was pardoned later on by Paul I, but soon after +committed suicide. He was verbose, but often really eloquent. + +ORATORS AND POETS.--The preacher Platon, whose real name was Levchine, +was an orator full of sincerity, unction, and sometimes of real power. He +was religious tutor to the hereditary Grand Duke, son of Catherine II. +Another preacher, and his successor at the siege of Moscow, Vinogradsky, +was likewise a really great orator. It was he who, after the French +retreat from Russia, delivered the funeral oration on the soldiers killed +at Borodino. Ozerov was a classical tragedy writer after the manner of +Voltaire, and somewhat hampered thereby. Batiouchkov, although he lived +right into the middle of the nineteenth century, is already a classic. He +venerated and imitated the writers of antiquity; he was a devout admirer +of Tibullus, and wrote elegies which are quite exquisite. Krylov was a +fabulist: a dexterous delineator of animals and a delicate humourist. +Frenchmen and Italians have been alike fascinated by him, and his works +have often been translated; until the middle of the nineteenth century he +enjoyed European popularity. + +THE GOLDEN AGE: PUSHKIN.--The true Russian nineteenth century and its +golden age must be dated from Pushkin. He wrote from his earliest youth. +He was an epic poet, novelist, and historian. His principal poems were +_Ruslan and Liudmila_, _Eugene Onegin_, _Poltava_; his most remarkable +historical essay was _The Revolt of Pugachev_. He possessed a fertile and +vigorous imagination, which he developed by continual and enthusiastic +study of Byron. He did not live long enough either for his own fame or +for the welfare of Russian literature, being killed in a duel at the age +of thirty-eight. Mérimée translated much by Pushkin. The French lyric +stage has mounted one of his most delicate inspirations, _La Rousalka_ +(the water nymph). He was quite conscious of his own genius and, freely +imitating the _Exegi monumentum_ of Horace, as will be seen, he wrote: "I +have raised to myself a monument which no human hand has constructed.... +I shall not entirely perish ... the sound of my name shall permeate +through vast Russia.... For long I shall be dear to my race because my +lyre has uttered good sentiments, because, in a brutal age, I have +vaunted liberty and preached love for the down-trodden. Oh, my Muse, heed +the commands of God, fear not offence, claim no crown; receive with equal +indifference eulogy and calumny, but never dispute with fools." + +LERMONTOV.--Lermontov was not inferior to his friend Pushkin, whom he +closely resembled. Like him he drew inspiration from the romantic poets +of the West. He loved the East, and his short, glorious suggestions came +to him from the Caucasus. Among his finest poetic works may be cited _The +Novice Ismael Bey_, _The Demon_, _The Song of the Tzar Ivan_. He wrote a +novel, perhaps autobiographical, entitled _A Hero of Our Own Time_, the +hero of which is painted in highly Byronic colours. + +GOGOL.--Russian taste was already veering to the epic novel or epopee in +prose, of which Gogol was the most illustrious representative until +Tolstoy. He was highly gifted. In him the feeling for Nature was acutely +active, and recalling his descriptions of the plains of the Crimea, its +rivers and steppes, he must be regarded as the Rousseau and Chateaubriand +of Russia. Further, he was a close student of village habits, and a +painter in astonishing hues. He eminently possessed the sense of epic +grandeur, and added a sarcastic vein of delightful irony. His _Taras +Bulba_, _King of the Dwarfs_, _History of a Fool_, and _Dead Souls_, have +the force of arresting realism, his _Revisor_ (inspector of finances) is +a caustic comedy which has been a classic not only in Russia but in +France, where it was introduced in translation by Mérimée. + +TURGENEV.--Turgenev, less epical than Gogol, was also studious of local +habits and dexterous in describing them. He began with exquisite +_Huntsman's Tales_ impregnated with truth and precision, as well as +intimate and picturesque details; then he extended his scope and wrote +novels, but never at great length, and therefore suited to the exigencies +or habits of Western Europe (such as _Smoke_). He had selected Paris as +his abode, and he mixed with the greatest thinkers of the day: Taine, +Flaubert, Edmond About. In the eyes of his fellow-countrymen he became +ultimately too Western and too Parisian. His was a delicate, sensitive +soul, prone to melancholy and perpetually dreaming. He had a cult of form +in which he went so far as to make it a sort of scruple and superstition. + +TOLSTOY.--Tolstoy, so recently dead, was a great epic poet in prose, a +very powerful and affecting novelist, and in some measure an apostle. He +began with _Boyhood Adolescence and Youth_, in itself very curious and +particularly valuable because of the idea it conveys of the life of the +lords of the Russian soil, and for its explanation of the formation of +the soul and genius of Tolstoy; then came _The Cossacks_, full of +magnificent descriptions of the Caucasus and of interesting scenes of +military and rural life; subsequently that masterpiece of Tolstoy's, _War +and Peace_, narratives dealing with the war of Napoleon with Russia and +of the subsequent period of peaceful and healthy rural life. It is +impossible to adequately admire the power of narration and descriptive +force, the fertility of incidents, characterisations, and dramatic +moments, the art or rather the gift of portraiture, and finally, the +grandeur and moral elevation, in fact, all the qualities, not one of +which he appeared to lack, of which Tolstoy gave proof and which he +displayed in this immense history of the Russian soul at the commencement +of the nineteenth century; for it is thus that it is meet to qualify this +noble creation. The only analogy is with _Les Misérables_ of Victor Hugo, +and it must be admitted that despite its incomparable merits, the French +work is the more unequal. _Anna Karenina_ is only a novel in the vein of +French novels, but very profound and remarkable for its analysis of +character and also impassioned and affecting, besides having considerable +moral range. _The Kreutzer Sonata_ is a romance rather than a novel, but +cruelly beautiful because it exposes with singular clairvoyance the +misery of a soul impotent for happiness. _Resurrection_ shows that +mournful and impassioned pity felt by Tolstoy for the humble and the +"fallen," to use the phrase of Pushkin; it realises a lofty dramatic +beauty. Tolstoy, in a thousand pamphlets or brief works, preached to his +own people and to mankind the strict morality of Christ, charity, +renunciation, peace at all price, without taking into account the +necessities of social life; and he denounced, as had Jean Jacques +Rousseau, the culpability of art and literature, being resigned to +recognising his own works as condemnable. His was the soul of an exalted +poet and a lofty poetical mind; from a poet must not be demanded +practical common sense or that feeling for reality which is demanded, +often unavailingly, from a statesman. + +DOSTOEVSKY.--Dostoevsky, with a tragic genius as great as that of +Tolstoy, may be said to have been more restricted because he exclusively +delineated the unhappy, the miserable, and those defeated in life. He +knew them personally because, after being arrested in 1849 at the age of +fifty for the crime of belonging to a secret society, he spent years in +the convict prisons of Siberia. Those miseries he describes in the most +exact terms and with heart-rending eloquence in _Buried Alive: Ten Years +in Siberia_, and in the remarkable novel entitled _Crime and Punishment_. +He has lent invaluable aid in the propagation of two sentiments which +have created some stir in the West and which, assuredly, we desire to +foster: namely, "the religion of human suffering" and the cult of +"expiation." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +POLISH LITERATURE + +At an Early Date Western Influence sufficiently Potent. Sixteenth Century +Brilliant; Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries highly Cultured; +Nineteenth Century Notably Original. + + +WESTERN INFLUENCE--Widely different from Russian literature, much more +Western, based more on Greek and Latin culture, Polish literature holds +high rank in the histories of European literature. Christians from the +tenth century, the Poles knew from this epoch religious songs written by +monks, in the vulgar tongue. To this is due the possession of the +_Bogarodzica_, a religious and bellicose song dedicated to the Virgin +mother of God, which is even now comprehensible, so little has the Polish +language changed. All through the Middle Ages, literary historians can +only find chronicles written sometimes in Latin, sometimes in the native +language. Under the influence of the universities, and also of the +parliamentary rule, the language acquired alike more consistency and more +authority in the fifteenth century, whilst the sixteenth was the golden +literary epoch of the Poles. There were poets, and even great poets, as +well as orators and historians. Such was Kochanowski, very much a +Western, who lived some time in Italy, also seven years in France, and +was a friend of Ronsard. His writings were epical, lyrical, tragical, +satirical, and especially elegiacal. He is a classic in Poland. +Grochowski left a volume of diversified poems, hymns on various texts of +Thomas à Kempis, _The Nights_ of Thorn, etc. Martin Bielski, who was an +historian too, but in Latin, left two political satires on the condition +of Poland, and his son Joachim wrote a history of his native land in +Polish. + +SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES.--Though somewhat less brilliant +than the preceding, the period of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries +is not unfavourable to Poland. Then may be enumerated the satirical +Opalinski, the lyrical Kochanowski, the dramatist Bogulawski, manager of +the theatre at Warsaw, who not only translated plays from the French, +English, and Spanish, but himself wrote several comedies, of which _The +Lover, Author, and Servant_ has remained the most celebrated. Rzewuski +was a dramatic author with such national plays as _Wladislas at Varna_ +and _Zolkewishi_, and comedies as _The Vexations_ and _The Capricious_, +and he also was historian, orator, literary critic, and theorist. + +Potocki was a literary and theoretical critic and founder of a sort of +Polish academy (society for the perfection of the tongue and of style). +Prince Czartoryski showed himself an excellent moralist in his _Letters +to Doswiadryski_. Niemcewicz extended his great literary talent into a +mass of diversified efforts. He wrote odes held in esteem, tragedies, +comedies, fables, and tales, historical novels, and he translated the +poems of Pope and the _Athalie_ of Racine. + +LITERARY RENAISSANCE.--Losing her national independence, Poland +experienced a veritable literary renaissance, which offered but slender +compensation. She applied herself to explore her origins, to regain the +ancient spirit, and to live nationally in her literature. Hence her great +works of patriotic erudition. Czacki with his _Laws of Poland and of +Lithuania_, Kollontay with his _Essay on the Heredity of the Throne of +Poland_, and his _Letters of an Anonymous to Stanislas Malachowski_, +etc., Bentkowski with his _History of Polish Literature_ and his +_Introduction to General Literature_, etc. Thence came the revival of +imaginative literature, Felinski, on the one hand translator of +Crébillon, Delille and Alfieri on the other, he was the personally +distinguished author of the drama _Barbe Radzivill_; Bernatowicz, author +of highly remarkable historical novels, among which _Poïata_ gives a +picture of the triumph of Christianity in Lithuania in the fourteenth +century; Karpinski, dramatist, author of _Judith_, a tragedy; +_Alcestis_, an opera; _Cens_, a comedy, etc.; Mickiewicz, scholar, poet, +and novelist, who, exiled from his own land, was professor of literature +at Lausanne, then in Paris, at the College of France, extremely popular +in France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, the friend of Goethe, +Lamennais, Cousin, Michelet, and of all the French youth. He was the +author of fine poems, of a great historical novel, _Conrade +Vattenrod_, of _The People and the Polish Pilgrims_, of a _Lesson on the +Slav States_. + +MODERN EPOCH.--At the time of writing, Poland continues to be a literary +nation well worthy of attention. She presents an example to the races +which incur the risk of perishing as nations because of their political +incapacity; by preserving their tongue and by sanctifying it with a +worthy literature they guard their country and, like the Greeks and +Italians, hope to reconquer it some day through the sudden turns of +fortune shown in history. + + + + +INDEX OF NAMES CITED + + + A + + About + Addison + Aeschines + Aeschylus + Aesop + Aicard + Alarcon + Alcasus + Alcamo, Ciullo of + Aleman + Alexander + Alfieri + Alphonso X + Alphonso XI + Alvarez + Ambrose, St. + Amyot + Anacreon + Anaxagoras + Andocides + Anne, Queen + Annunzio, Gabriel d' + Antiphon + Antonina + Antonius Diogenes + Apollonius + Appian + Apuleius + Aratus + Arcadius + Archilochus + Aretino + Ariosto + Aristophanes + Aristotle + Arnauld + Arrian + Asclepiades + Athanasius, St. + Attius + Aubigné, Agrippa d' + Augier + Augustine, St. + Augustus + Aulard + Aurispa + Ausonius + Avienus + + B + + Babrius + Bacon, Francis + Baldi + Balzac, G. de + Balzac, H. de + Bandello + Banville, T. de + Barnave + Barthari + Basil, S. + Bataille + Batiouchkov + Baudelaire + Bayle + Bazin + Beaumarchais + Beaumont + Beccaria + Belisarius + Bellay, Joachim du + Belleau + Bembo + Benserade + Bentkowski + Béranger + Bergerac, Cyrano de + Bergson + Bernard, Tristan + Bernardes + Bernatowicz + Berni + Bernstein + Bertaut + Bielski, Joachim + Bielski, Martin + Bion + Boccaccio + Bodmer + Boëtie, La + Bogulawski + Boileau + Bojardo + Bordeaux + Bordello + Bossuet + Bourdaloue + Bourget + Boutroux + Boylesve + Brantôme + Brieux + Brontë, C. + Brontë, E. + Browning, E. B. + Browning, Robert + Brueys, de + Brunetière + Brunetto + Buddha + Buffon + Bulwer-Lytton + Bunyan + Bürger + Burgundy, Duke of + Burns + Burton, Robert + Byron + + C + + Caballero + Caesar, Julius + Calderon + Callimachus + Callinos + Calvin + Caminha + Camoëns + Campistron + Campoamor + Candamo + Cañizares + Carducci + Carlyle + Caro + Cassini + Cassius + Castelar + Castro + Catherine of Russia + Cato + Catullus + Cellini, Benvenuto + Cephalon + Cervantes + Charles of Orleans + Charles II + Charles V + Chateaubriand + Chatterton + Chaucer + Chénier, André + Chénier, Marie-Joseph + Chrysippus + Chrysostom + Cicero + Claudian + Cleanthes + Coleridge + Comines + Commodian + Comnenus + Comte + Condillac + Congreve + Constant + Copernicus + Coppée + Corneille + Corte-Real + Cousin + Cowper + Crabbe + Cratinos + Crébillon + Cromwell + Cyprian, St. + Czacki + Czartoryski + + D + + Dancourt + Daniel (the abbot) + Daniel (the prisoner) + Dante + Danton + Daudet + Davenant + Davila + Defoe + Delavigne + Delille + Demosthenes + Descartes + Desportes + Destouches + Diamante + Dickens + Diderot + Dietmar + Diogenes + Dolce + Dostoevsky + Dryden + Duclos + Dufresny + Dumas, (_père_) + Dumas, (_fils_) + Dürer + + E + + Eberling + Echegaray + Eliot, George + Elisabeth + Ennius + Epictetus + Epicurus + Erasmus + Ercilla + Espinel + Espronceda + Eudoxia + Eupolis + Euripides + Eusebius + Eustathius + Evemerus + + F + + Falcam + Fayette, Mme. de la + Feijoo + Felinski + Fénelon + Ferreira + Fichte + Ficino + Fielding + Filangieri + Flaubert + Fletcher + Florez + Fogazzaro + Folengo + Fontenelle + Foscolo + Fouillée + Fox + Frederick II + Froissart + + G + + Galen + Galileo + Garnier + Gautier + Gellius Aulus + Gerson + Gibbon + Gilbert + Gil Vicente + Gioberti + Giordani + Goethe + Gogol + Goldoni + Goldsmith + Goncourt, de + Gongora + Gorgias + Gottsched + Gower + Gregory, St. + Gresset + Grimm + Grochowski + Grün + Guarini + Guasco + Guevara + Guicciardini + Guittone + Guizot + Gutierrez + Guyot + + H + + Habington + Haller + Haraucourt + Hartmann + Hauptmann + Haussonville, d' + Hecataeus of Abdera + Hegel + Heine + Heliodorus + Henry VI + Heraclitus + Herbert + Herder + Herodian + Herodotus + Herreros + Hervieu + Hesiod + Hilarion + Hilarius, St. + Hildebrand + Hippocrates + Homer + Horace + Huerta + Hugo, Victor + Hugo of Berzi + Hume + Hutten + Hyperides + + I + + Iffland + Isla + Isocrates + Ivan + Izoulet + + J + + Jacopone + James I + Jaurès + Jerome, St. + Jodelle + Johnson, Dr + Joinville + Jonson, Ben + Joseph of Byzantium + Jovellanos + Julian the Apostate + Junius + Justinian + Juvenal + Juvencus + + K + + Kalidas + Kant + Kantemir + Karpinski + Keats + Kempis, T. à + Klopstock + Kochanowski + Kollontay + Körner + Kotzebue + Krylov + Kürenberg + Kutochikine + + L + + Laberius + La Bruyère + Lacerda + La Chaussée + Lactantius + La Fontaine + Lamartine + Lamb, C + Lamennais + La Motte + Lanfranc + La Rochefoucauld + Lascaris + Lavater + Lavedan + Lavisse + Leconte de Lisle + Leibnitz + Lenau + Leonardo da Vinci + Leonidas + Leopardi + Lermontov + Le Sage + Lessing + Libanius + Livius + Livy + Lobo + Locke + Lomonosov + Longus + Lope de Vega + Lorris, William of + Louis, St + Louis XI + Lucena + Lucian + Lucilius + Lucretius + Luther + Lycophron + Lyly + Lysias + + M + + Mably + Macaulay + Machiavelli + MacPherson + Maffei + Mairet + Maistre, Joseph de + Malaspina + Malebranche + Malherbe + Mallarmé + Manuel, John + Manzinho + Manzoni + Marcus Aurelius + Marini + Marivaux + Marlowe + Marmontel + Marot + Martial + Martinez, Rose de la + Mary, Princess + Maynard + Medici, Catherine de' + Medici, Marie de' + Melanchthon + Meleager + Menander + Mendès + Mendoza + Mercier + Meredith + Mérimée + Metastasio + Meung, John de + Mezeray + Michelet + Mickiewicz + Milton + Mirabeau + Molière + Mommsen + Monomaque + Montaigne + Montalvo + Montchrestien + Montemayor + Montesquieu + Monti + Montluc + Moratin, Leandro + Moratin, Nicholas + Moschus + Mun, de + Musseus + Musset, A. de + + N + + Naevius + Napoleon + Nepos + Nerva + Newman + Newton + Nicole + Niebuhr + Niemcewicz + Nietzsche + Nonnus + + O + + Olivares + Opalinski + Oppian + Otway + Ovid + Ozerov + + P + + Pacuvius + Palaprat + Pandolfini + Pascal + Paulinus, St. + Paul I + Pellico + Pereira + Pericles + Perron + Perseus + Peter the Great + Petrarch + Petronius + Philetas + Philip III + Philostrates + Pico della Mirandola + Pindar + Piron + Pisistratus + Planudes + Plato + Platon + Plautus + Pliny the Elder + Pliny the Younger + Plutarch + Politien + Polybius + Pompignan + Pomponius + Pontus + Pope + Porto-Riche + Potocki + Prévost, Abbé + Prévost, Marcel. + Procopius + Propertius + Protagoras + Prudentius + Ptolemy + Publius Syrus + Pulci + Pushkin + + Q + + Quevedo + Quinet + Quintana + Quintilian + Quintus + Quintus Curtius + + R + + Rabelais + Racan + Racine + Radistchef + Raynal + Regnard + Régnier, H. de + Régnier, M. + Renan + Retz, Cardinal de + Ribeiro + Ribot, A. + Ribot, T. + Richardson + Richepin + Rivas + Robert + Robertson + Robespierre + Rojas + Ronsard + Rosa + Rosa, Salvator + Rossetti, Christina + Rossetti, Dante + Rostand + Roucher + Rouget de Lisle + Rousseau, J. B. + Rousseau, J. J. + Ruskin + Rutilius + Rzewuski + + S + + Saa de Miranda + Saa e Menezès + Saavedra + Saint-Amant + Saint-Évremond + Saint-Gelais + Saint-Lambert + Saint-Pierre, Bernardin de + Saint-Simon + Sainte-Beuve + Sakyamuni + Sallust + Sand, George + San Phillipo + Sannazaro + Sappho + Sardou + Savonarola + Scarron + Scève, Maurice + Schiller + Schopenhauer + Scipio + Scott + Scribe + Scudéry + Sédaine + Segrais + Seignobos + Sénancour + Seneca the Philosopher + Seneca the Tragic + Serao + Sévigné + Sextus Empiricus + Shakespeare + Shelley + Sheridan + Sidney + Silius Italicus + Simonides + Socrates + Solis + Sophocles + Soumarokoff + Southey + Spenser + Staël, Mme. de + Statius + Stendhal + Sterne + Sudermann + Sully-Prudhomme + Swift + Swinburne + + T + + Tacitus + Taine + Tannhäuser + Tansillo + Tasso + Tassoni + Tennyson + Terence + Tertullian + Thackeray + Thales + Theocritus + Theodora + Theophrastus + Thespis + Thibaut + Thierry + Thiers + Thomson + Thorn + Thucydides + Tibullus + Tiraboschi + Tirso de Molina + Tolstoy + Torricelli + Trajan + Trediakowski + Treitschke + Trueba + Turgenev + Turgot + Tyrtaeus + + U + + Urfé, Honoré d' + + V + + Vair, du + Valerius Flaccus + Valmiki + Varro + Vaugelas + Ventura de la Vega + Vergniaud + Verlaine + Vian, Theophilus de + Vico + Vignes, Peter of + Vigny, Alfred de + Villehardouin + Villon + Vinogradsky + Virgil + Vizin, von + Voiture + Voltaire + + W + + Waller + Wieland + Wolff + Wordsworth + Wycherley + + X + + Xenophon + + Y + + Young + + Z + + Zamora + Zedlitz + Zeno + Ziorgi + Zola + Zorilla + Zwingli + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Initiation into Literature, by Emile Faguet + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INITIATION INTO LITERATURE *** + +***** This file should be named 8555-8.txt or 8555-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/5/5/8555/ + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Marlo Dianne, Charles Franks and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Initiation into Literature + +Author: Emile Faguet + +Translator: Home Gordon + + +Release Date: July, 2005 [EBook #8555] +This file was first posted on July 22, 2003 +Last Updated: May 22, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INITIATION INTO LITERATURE *** + + + + +Text file produced by Ted Garvin, Marlo Dianne, Charles Franks and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + +HTML file produced by David Widger + + + + +</pre> + + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + INITIATION INTO LITERATURE + </h1> + <h2> + By Émile Faguet<br /> + </h2> +<div class="middle"> + <h4> + Translated From The French By Sir Home Gordon, Bart. + </h4> + <p> + The Translator begs to acknowledge with appreciation the courtesy of the + Author in graciously consenting to make some valuable additions, at his + request, specially for the English version. + </p> +</div> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + <b>CONTENTS</b> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_PREF"> PREFACE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> EXPANDED CONTENTS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> INITIATION INTO LITERATURE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I. — ANCIENT INDIA </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II. — HEBRAIC LITERATURE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III. — THE GREEKS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV. — THE LATINS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V. — THE MIDDLE AGES: FRANCE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI. — THE MIDDLE AGES: ENGLAND </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII. — THE MIDDLE AGES: GERMANY + </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII. — THE MIDDLE AGES: ITALY </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX. — THE MIDDLE AGES: SPAIN AND + PORTUGAL </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X. — THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH + CENTURIES: FRANCE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI. — THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH + CENTURIES: ENGLAND </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII. — THE SIXTEENTH AND + SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES: GERMANY </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII. — THE SIXTEENTH AND + SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES: ITALY </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV. — THE SIXTEENTH AND + SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES: SPAIN AND PORTUGAL </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV. — THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH + CENTURIES: FRANCE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI. — THE EIGHTEENTH AND + NINETEENTH CENTURIES: ENGLAND </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII. — THE EIGHTEENTH AND + NINETEENTH CENTURIES: GERMANY </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII. — THE EIGHTEENTH AND + NINETEENTH CENTURIES: ITALY </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX. — THE EIGHTEENTH AND + NINETEENTH CENTURIES: SPAIN </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX. — RUSSIAN LITERATURE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI. — POLISH LITERATURE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0026"> INDEX OF NAMES CITED </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_PREF" id="link2H_PREF"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + PREFACE + </h2> + <p> + This volume, as indicated by the title, is designed to show the way to the + beginner, to satisfy and more especially to excite his initial curiosity. + It affords an adequate idea of the march of facts and of ideas. The reader + is led, somewhat rapidly, from the remote origins to the most recent + efforts of the human mind. + </p> + <p> + It should be a convenient repertory to which the mind may revert in order + to see broadly the general opinion of an epoch—and what connected it + with those that followed or preceded it. It aims above all at being <i>a + frame</i> in which can conveniently be inscribed, in the course of further + studies, new conceptions more detailed and more thoroughly examined. + </p> + <p> + It will have fulfilled its design should it incite to research and + meditation, and if it prepares for them correctly. + </p> + <h3> + E. FAGUET. + </h3> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> +<div class="middle"> + <h2> + EXPANDED CONTENTS + </h2> + <h3> + CHAP. I + </h3> + <h3> + ANCIENT INDIA + </h3> + <p> + The Vedas. Buddhist Literature. Great Epic Poems, then very Diverse, much + Shorter Poems. Dramatic Literature. Moral Literature. + </p> + <h3> + CHAP. II + </h3> + <h3> + HEBRAIC LITERATURE + </h3> + <p> + The Bible, a Collection of Epic, Lyric, Elegiac, and Sententious Writings. + The Talmud, Book of Ordinances. The Gospels. + </p> + <h3> + CHAP. III + </h3> + <h3> + THE GREEKS + </h3> + <p> + Homer. Hesiod. Elegiac and Lyric Poets. Prose Writers. Philosophers and + Historians. Lyric Poets, Dramatic Poets. Comic Poets. Orators. Romancers. + </p> + <h3> + CHAP. IV + </h3> + <h3> + THE LATINS + </h3> + <p> + The Latins, Imitators of the Greeks. Epic Poets. Dramatic Poets. Golden + Age: Virgil, Horace, Ovid. Silver Age: Prose Writers, Historians, and + Philosophers: Titus-Livy, Tacitus, Seneca. Decadence Still Brilliant. + </p> + <h3> + CHAP. V + </h3> + <h3> + THE MIDDLE AGES: FRANCE + </h3> + <p> + <i>Chansons de Geste: Song of Roland</i> and Lyric Poetry. Popular Epopee: + <i>Romances of Renard</i>. Popular Short Stories: Fables. Historians. The + Allegorical Poem: <i>Romance of the Rose</i>. Drama. + </p> + <h3> + CHAP. VI + </h3> + <h3> + THE MIDDLE AGES: ENGLAND + </h3> + <p> + Literature in Latin, in Anglo-Saxon, and in French. The Ancestor of + English Literature: Chaucer. + </p> + <h3> + CHAP. VII + </h3> + <h3> + THE MIDDLE AGES: GERMANY + </h3> + <p> + Epic Poems: <i>Nibelungen</i>. Popular Poems. Very Numerous Lyric Poems. + Drama. + </p> + <h3> + CHAP. VIII + </h3> + <h3> + THE MIDDLE AGES: ITALY + </h3> + <p> + Troubadours of Southern Italy. Neapolitan and Sicilian Poets: Dante, + Petrarch, Boccaccio. + </p> + <h3> + CHAP. IX + </h3> + <h3> + THE MIDDLE AGES: SPAIN AND PORTUGAL + </h3> + <p> + Epic Poems: <i>Romanceros</i>. Didactic Books. Romances of Chivalry. + </p> + <h3> + CHAP. X + </h3> + <h3> + THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES: FRANCE + </h3> + <p> + First Portion of Sixteenth Century: Poets: Marot, Saint-Gelais; Prose + Writers: Rabelais, Comines. Second Portion of Sixteenth Century: Poets: + "The Pleiade"; Prose Writers: Amyot, Montaigne. First Portion of + Seventeenth Century: Intellectual and Brilliant Poets: Malherbe, + Corneille; Great Prose Writers: Balzac, Descartes. Second Portion of + Seventeenth Century: Poets: Racine, Molière, Boileau, La Fontaine; Prose + Writers: Bossuet, Pascal, La Bruyère, Fénelon, etc. + </p> + <h3> + CHAP. XI + </h3> + <h3> + THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES: ENGLAND + </h3> + <p> + Dramatists: Marlowe, Shakespeare. Prose Writers: Sidney, Francis Bacon, + etc. Epic Poet: Milton. Comic Poets. + </p> + <h3> + CHAP. XII + </h3> + <h3> + THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES: GERMANY + </h3> + <p> + Luther, Zwingli, Albert Dürer, Leibnitz, Gottsched. + </p> + <h3> + CHAP. XIII + </h3> + <h3> + THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES: ITALY + </h3> + <p> + Poets: Ariosto, Tasso, Guarini, Folengo, Marini, etc. Prose Writers: + Machiavelli, Guicciardini, Davila. + </p> + <h3> + CHAP. XIV + </h3> + <h3> + THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES: SPAIN AND PORTUGAL + </h3> + <p> + Poets: Quevedo, Gongora, Lope de Vega, Ercilla, Calderon, Rojas, etc. + Prose Writers: Montemayor, Cervantes, etc. Portugal: De Camoèns, etc. The + Stage. + </p> + <h3> + CHAP. XV + </h3> + <h3> + THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES: FRANCE + </h3> + <p> + Of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: Fontenelle, Bayle. Of the + Eighteenth: Poets: La Motte, Jean Baptiste Rousseau, Voltaire, etc.; Prose + Writers: Montesquieu, Voltaire, Buffon, Jean Jacques Rousseau, etc. Of the + Nineteenth Century: Poets: Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Musset, Vigny, etc.; + Prose Writers: Chateaubriand, Michelet, George Sand, Mérimée, Renan, etc. + </p> + <h3> + CHAP. XVI + </h3> + <h3> + THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES: ENGLAND + </h3> + <p> + Poets of the Eighteenth Century: Pope, Young, MacPherson, etc. Prose + Writers of the Eighteenth Century: Daniel Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, + Swift, Sterne, David Hume. Poets of the Nineteenth Century: Byron, + Shelley, the Lake Poets. Prose Writers of the Nineteenth Century: Walter + Scott, Macaulay, Dickens, Carlyle. + </p> + <h3> + CHAP. XVII + </h3> + <h3> + THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES: GERMANY + </h3> + <p> + Poets of the Eighteenth Century: Klopstock, Lessing, Wieland. Prose + Writers of the Eighteenth Century: Herder, Kant. Poets of the Nineteenth + Century: Goethe, Schiller, Körner. + </p> + <h3> + CHAP. XVIII + </h3> + <h3> + THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES: ITALY + </h3> + <p> + Poets: Metastasio, Goldoni, Alfieri, Monti, Leopardi. Prose Writers: + Silvio Pellico, Fogazzaro, etc. + </p> + <h3> + CHAP. XIX + </h3> + <h3> + THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES: SPAIN + </h3> + <p> + The Drama still Brilliant: Moratin. Historians and Philosophers, + Novelists, Orators. + </p> + <h3> + CHAP. XX + </h3> + <h3> + RUSSIAN LITERATURE + </h3> + <p> + Middle Ages. Some Epic Narratives. Renaissance in the Seventeenth Century. + Literature Imitative of the West in the Eighteenth Century. Original + Literature in the Nineteenth Century. + </p> + <h3> + CHAP. XXI + </h3> + <h3> + POLISH LITERATURE + </h3> + <p> + At an Early Date Western Influence Sufficiently Potent. Sixteenth Century + Brilliant; Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries highly Cultured; + Nineteenth Century Notably Original. + </p> + <h3> + INDEX + </h3> +</div> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + INITIATION INTO LITERATURE + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER I. — ANCIENT INDIA + </h2> + <p> + The <i>Vedas</i>. Buddhist Literature. Great Epic Poems, then very + Diverse, much Shorter Poems. Dramatic Literature. Moral Literature. + </p> + <p> + THE <i>VEDAS</i>.—The ancient Indians, who spoke Sanscrit, possess a + literature which goes back, perhaps, to the fifteenth century before + Christ. At first, like all other races, they possessed a sacred literature + intimately bound up with their religion. The earliest volumes of sacred + literature are the <i>Vedas</i>. They describe and glorify the gods then + worshipped, to wit, Agni, god of fire, of the domestic hearth, of the + celestial fire (the sun), of the atmospheric fire (lightning); Indra, god + of atmosphere, analogous to Zeus of the Greeks; Soma, the moon; Varuna, + the nocturnal vault, the god who rewards the good and punishes the evil; + Rudra, the irascible god, more evil than well disposed, though sometimes + helpful; others too, very numerous. + </p> + <p> + The style of the <i>Vedas</i> is continually poetic and metaphorical. They + contain a sort of metaphysics as well as continual allegories. + </p> + <p> + BUDDHA.—Buddhism, a philosophical religion, sufficiently analogous + to Christianity, which Sakyamuni, surnamed Buddha (the wise), spread + through India towards 550 B.C., created a new literature. It taught, as + will be remembered, the equality of all castes in the sight of religion, + metempsychosis, charity, and detachment from all passions and desires in + order to arrive at absolute calm (<i>nirvana</i>). The literature it + inspired was primarily <i>gnomic</i>, that is, sententious, analogous to + that of Pythagoras, with a tendency towards little moral tales and + parables, as in the Gospel. + </p> + <p> + This literature subsequently expanded into large and even immense epic + poems, of which the principal are the <i>Mahabharata</i> and the <i>Ramayana</i>. + </p> + <p> + THE <i>MAHABHARATA</i>; THE <i>RAMAYANA</i>.—The <i>Mahabharata</i> + (that is, the <i>great history of the Bharatas</i>) is a legend or a novel + in verse intersected with moral digressions, with episodes vaguely related + to the subject, with discourses and prayers. There are charming episodes + full of delicate sensibility, of moving tenderness—that is to say, + of human beauty, comparable to the farewells of Hector and Andromache in + Homer; and everywhere, amid tediousness and monotony, is found a powerful + and superabundant imagination. + </p> + <p> + The <i>Ramayana</i>, the name of the author of which, Valmiki, has come + down to us, is a poem yet more vast and unequal. There are portions which + to us are quite unreadable, and there are others comparable to the most + imposing and most touching in all epic poetry. Reduced to its theme, the + subject of <i>Mahabharata</i> is extremely simple; it is the history of + Prince Rama, dispossessed of his throne, who saw his beloved wife, Sita, + ravished by the monstrous demon Ravana, who made alliance with the good + monkeys and with them constructed a bridge over the sea to reach the + island on which Sita was detained, who vanquished and slew Ravana, who + re-found Sita, and finally went back happily to his kingdom, which had + also been re-conquered. + </p> + <p> + The most noticeable exterior characteristic of the <i>Mahabharata</i> is + the almost constant mingling of men and animals, a mingling which one + feels is in conformity with the dogma of the transmigration of souls. Not + only monkeys but vultures, eagles, gazelles, etc., are brought into the + work and form important personages. We are in the epoch when the animals + spoke. Battles are numerous and described in great detail; the <i>Ramayana</i> + is the <i>Iliad</i> of the Indians; pathetic scenes, as well as those of + love, of friendship, of gratitude are not rare, and are sometimes + exquisite. The whole poem is imbued with a great feeling of humanity, + heroism, and justice. Victory is to the good and right is triumphant; the + gods permit that the just should suffer and be compelled to struggle; but + invariably it is only for a time and the merited happiness is at the end + of all. + </p> + <p> + After these two vast giant epics there were written among the Indians a + number of shorter narrative poems, very varied both in tone and manner, + which suggest an uninterrupted succession of highly important and animated + schools of literature. Nearer to our own time—that is, towards the + fifth or sixth century of our era, lyric poetry and the drama were, as it + were, detached from the epopee and existed on their own merits. Songs of + love, of hate, of sadness, or of triumph took ample scope; they were more + often melancholy than sad, for India is the land of optimism, or at least + of resignation. + </p> + <p> + DRAMATIC POETRY.—As for the dramatic poetry, that is very curious; + it is not mixed with epopee in the precise sense of the word; but it is + continually mingled with descriptions of nature, with word-paintings of + nature and invocations to nature. The Indian dramatic poet did not + separate man from the air he breathed nor from the world around him; in + recalling the moment of the day or night in which the scene takes place, + <i>the actual hour</i>, the poet, no doubt in obedience to a law dictated + to him by his public, kept his characters in communication with earth and + heaven, with the dawn he described, the moon he painted, the evening he + caused to be seen, the plants he portrayed as withering or reviving, the + birds which he showed everywhere in the country or returning to their + habitation, etc. + </p> + <p> + From the purely dramatic aspect, these plays are often affecting or + curious, possessing penetrating and thoughtful psychology. The most + celebrated dramas still left to us of the Indian stage are <i>The Chariot + of Baked Clay</i> and the affecting and delicate <i>Sakuntala</i> the gem + of Indian literature, the work of the poet Kalidas, who was also a + remarkable lyric poet. + </p> + <p> + GNOMIC POETRY.—Gnomic, that is sententious, poetry, which, it has + been indicated, very early enjoyed high appreciation among the Indians, + long continued to obtain their approval. It was always wise and often + intellectual. The collection of Barthari, who belonged to the sixth or + seventh century A.D., contains thoughts which would do honour to the + highest moralists of the most enlightened epochs. "The fortune, ample or + restricted, which the Creator hath inscribed on thy forehead thou wilt + assuredly attain; wert thou in the desert or in the gold-mines of Meru, + more couldst thou not acquire. Therefore, of what avail to torment thyself + and to humiliate thyself before the powerful. A pot does not draw more + water from the sea than from a well." + </p> + <p> + And this might be by a modern man opposing La Rochefoucauld: "The modest + man is one poor in spirit, the devout a hypocrite, the honest man is + artful, the hero is a barbarian, the ascetic is a fool, the unreserved a + chatterbox, the prudent a waverer. Tell me, which is the virtue among all + the virtues that human malice cannot vilify?" + </p> + <p> + Here, finally, is a truth for all time: "It is easy to persuade the + ignorant, still easier to persuade the very wise; but he who hath a + commencement of wisdom Brahma himself could not cajole." + </p> + <p> + Indian literature continued to be productive, though losing much of its + fecundity, until the fifteenth or sixteenth century of our era. Without + exaggeration, it is permissible to conject that its scope extended over + twenty-five centuries. It possesses the uniquely honourable trait that it + is, assuredly, the only one which owes nothing to any other and is + literally indigenous. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER II. — HEBRAIC LITERATURE + </h2> + <p> + The Bible, a Collection of Epic, Lyric, Elegiac, and Sententious Writings. + The Talmud, Book of Ordinances. The Gospels. + </p> + <p> + THE BIBLE.—The Hebrew race possessed a literature from about 1050 + B.C. It embodied in poems the legends which had circulated among the + people since the most remote epoch of their existence. It was those poems, + gathered later into one collection, which formed what, since approximately + the year 400, we call the Bible—that is, the Book of books. + </p> + <p> + In the Bible there are histories (<i>Genesis</i>, <i>History of the Jews + up to Joshua</i>, the <i>Book of Joshua</i>, <i>Judges</i>, <i>Kings</i>, + etc.), then anecdotal episodes (<i>Ruth</i>, <i>Esdras</i>, <i>Tobit</i>, + <i>Judith</i>, <i>Esther</i>), then books of moral philosophy(<i>Proverbs + of Solomon</i>, <i>Ecclesiastes</i>, <i>Wisdom</i>, <i>Ecclesiasticus</i>), + then books of an oratorical and lyrical character (<i>Psalms of David</i> + and all the <i>Prophets</i>). Finally, a single work, still lyrical but in + which there are marked traces of the dramatic type (the <i>Song of Songs</i>). + </p> + <p> + THE TALMUD.—To the works which have been gathered into the Bible, it + is necessary to add the Talmud, a collection of commentaries on the civil + and religious laws of the Jews, which forms an indispensable supplement to + the Bible, to anyone desiring to understand the Hebraic civilisation. + </p> + <p> + THE GOSPELS.—The Gospels, published in the Greek tongue, have + nothing Hebraic except that they were compiled by Jews or by their + immediate disciples and that they have preserved something of the manner + of writing of the Jews. + </p> + <p> + BIBLICAL WRITINGS.—The Biblical writings, regarded solely from the + literary point of view, form one of the finest monuments of human thought. + The sentiment of grandeur and even of infinity in <i>Genesis</i>; the + profound and simple sensibility as in the <i>History of Joseph</i>, <i>Tobit</i>, + and <i>Esther</i>; eloquence and exquisite religious sentiment as in the + <i>Book of Job</i> and the <i>Psalms of David</i>; ecstatic lyricism, + vehement and fiery, accompanied with incredible satiric force as in the <i>Prophets</i>; + wisdom alike equal to that of the Stoics and of the serious Epicureans as + in <i>Ecclesiastes</i> and the <i>Proverbs</i>; everywhere marvellous + imagination, always concise at least, if not restrained; lyrical + sensuality which recalls the most perturbed creations of erotic Greeks and + Latins, whilst surpassing them in beauty as in the <i>Song of Songs</i>; + and throughout there is this grandeur, this simple majesty, this easy and + natural sublimity which in the same degree is to be found only + occasionally in Homer and which appears to be the privilege of the people + who were the first to believe in a single God. That is what makes, almost + in a continuous way, the astonishing beauty of the Bible, and which + explains how whole nations, of other origin, have made down to our own + day, and still continue to make, the Bible their uninterrupted study, and + draw from it courage, serenity, exaltation of soul, and a singular ferment + of their poetic and literary genius. + </p> + <p> + As has been the case with many other literary monuments, it is possible, + without owning that it is desirable, that the Bible may even survive the + numerous and important religions which have been born from it. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER III. — THE GREEKS + </h2> + <p> + Homer. Hesiod. Elegiac and Lyric Poets. Prose Writers. Philosophers and + Historians. Lyric Poets. Dramatic Poets. Comic Poets. Orators. Romancers. + </p> + <p> + HOMER.—The most ancient Greek writer known is Homer, and it cannot + be absolutely stated in what epoch he lived. + </p> + <p> + Since the seventeenth century it has even been asked if he ever existed + and if his poems are not collections of epic songs which had circulated in + ancient Greece and which at a very recent epoch, that of Pisistratus, had + been gathered into two grand consecutive poems, thanks to some + rearrangement and editing. At the commencement of the nineteenth century + the erudite were generally agreed that Homer had never existed. Now they + are reverting to the belief that there were only two Homers, one the + author of the <i>Iliad</i> and the other of the <i>Odyssey</i>. + </p> + <p> + THE <i>ILIAD</i>.—The <i>Iliad</i> is the story of the wrath of + Achilles, of his retreat far from his friends who were endeavouring to + capture Troy and of his return to them. + </p> + <p> + It is the poem of patriotism. It is filled with the spirit that when a + people is divided against itself, all misfortunes fall on and overwhelm + it. Achilles, unjustly offended, deprived his fellow-countrymen of his + support; they are all on the point of perishing; he returns to them in + order to avenge the death of his dearest friend and they are saved. + </p> + <p> + The <i>Iliad</i> is almost entirely filled with battles, which are very + skillfully diversified. Some episodes, such as the farewell of Hector to + his wife Andromache when he quits her for the fight, or King Priam coming, + in tears, to ask Achilles for the corpse of his son Hector that he may + piously inter it, are among the most beautiful passages that ever came + from a human inspiration. + </p> + <p> + THE <i>ODYSSEY</i>.—The <i>Odyssey</i> is also the poem of + patriotism, of the <i>little homeland</i>, of the native land. It is the + story of Ulysses, after the siege of Troy, reconquering Ithaca, the small + island of which he is king, and taking ten years to acquire it. What makes + the unity of the poem, what forms the backbone of the poem, is the smoke + which rises above the house of Ulysses, which he always perceives in the + dream of his hopes and desires, which invincibly attracts him, which he + desires to see again before he dies, and the thought of which sustains him + in his trials and causes him to scorn all joys on his road thither. The + thousand adventures of Ulysses, his sojourn with the nymph Calypso, his + terrible perils in the cave of the giant Polyphemus and near the isle of + the Sirens, the tempests which he survives, the hospitality he receives + from King Alcinoüs, the visit he pays to the dead—among whom is + Achilles regretting the earth and preferring to be a ploughman among the + living rather than king among the dead; these are vigorous, curious, + interesting, touching, picturesque scenes from which all subsequent + literatures have drawn inspiration and which still delight all races. + </p> + <p> + HESIOD.—Posterior, very probably, to Homer, Hesiod has left two + great poems, one on the families of the gods (<i>Theogenia</i>) and the + other on the works of man (<i>Works and Days</i>). The <i>Theogenia</i> is + very valuable to us because we learn from it and it makes us understand + how the Greeks understood the divinity, its different manifestations, and, + so to say, its evolution through the world. <i>Works and Days</i> is a + poem filled with both sadness and courage, the author finding the world + wicked and men unjust; but always concluding that with energy, + perseverance, and obstinacy it is possible to save oneself from anything, + and that there is only one real misfortune, which is to know despair. + </p> + <p> + ELEGIACAL AND LYRICAL POETS.—Almost from the most remote antiquity, + from the seventh century, perhaps the eighth century before the Christian + era, the Greeks possessed elegiacal and lyrical poets—that is to + say, poets who put into verse their personal sentiments, the joys and + sorrows which they felt as men. Such were Callinos, the satiric + Archilochus, the satiric Simonides of Amorgos, the martial Tyrtaeus. Then + there were the poets who made verses to be set to music: Alcaeus, Sappho, + Anacreon, Alcman. Alcaeus appears to have been the greatest lyrical Greek + poet judging by the fragments we possess by him and by the lyrical poems + of Horace, which there are reasons for believing were imitated from + Alcaeus. + </p> + <p> + Of the poetess Sappho we have too little to enable us to judge her very + exactly; but throughout antiquity she enjoyed a glory equal to that of the + greatest. She specially sang of love and in such a manner as to lead to + the belief that she herself had not escaped the passion. + </p> + <p> + Anacreon sang after the same fashion and with a charm, a grace, a witty + ingenuity which are fascinating. He was the epicurean of poetry (before + the birth of Epicurus) and from him was born a type of literature known as + anacreonotic, which extended right through ancient times and has been + prolonged to modern times. + </p> + <p> + PROSE WRITERS.—Finally prose was born, in the sixth century before + Christ, with the philosophers Thales, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, and with the + historians, of whom only one of that epoch has remained famous, namely + Herodotus. + </p> + <p> + HERODOTUS.—Herodotus, in a general history of his own time and of + that immediately preceding it, is often not far from epic poetry. His + style is at once limpid and warm, he possesses a pleasing power of + distinction, the taste for and curiosity about the manners of foreign + peoples, a laughing and easy imagination without any pretence at the + philosophy of history or of moralising through history. He was, above all, + a delightful writer. + </p> + <p> + AESOP.—To this period (albeit somewhat at hazard) it is possible to + ascribe Aesop, about whom nothing is known except that he wrote the fables + which have been imitated from generation to generation. The collection + that we possess under his name is one of these imitations, perpetrated + long after his death, but as to which it is impossible to assign a date. + </p> + <p> + PINDAR.—Pindar, the Theban, broadened and extended the lyrical type. + Under him it preserved its power, its high spirits, its verse and, so to + say, its fine fury; but he introduced into the epic the narration of + ancient legends, the acts and gestures of the ancient heroes, and effected + this so admirably that the most lyrical of Grecian lyricists is an + historian. Capable of sustained elevation, of sublime thoughts and + expressions, of a fine disorder which has been overpraised, and which on + close expression is found to be very careful, he has been regarded as the + very type of dignified and poetic style, and more or less to be imitated + by all ambitious poets commencing with Ronsard. The wise, like Horace, + have contented themselves with praising him. From fragments left to us he + is infinitely impassioned to read. + </p> + <p> + GREEK TRAGEDY.—Greek tragedy, which is one of the miracles of the + human brain, began in the sixth century B.C. It was born of the dithyramb. + The dithyramb is a chant in chorus in honour of a god or a hero. From this + chorus emerged a single actor who sang the praises of the god, and to + which the choir replied. When, instead of one actor, there were two who + addressed one another in dialogue and were answered by the choir, the + dramatic poem was founded. When there were three—and there were + hardly ever any more—tragedy, as the Greeks understood it, existed. + </p> + <p> + THESPIS; AESCHYLUS; SOPHOCLES.—Thespis was the earliest known to us + who took rudimentary tragedies from town to town in Attica. Then came + Aeschylus, whose tragedy, already rigid and hieratical, was very powerful, + imbued with terrible majesty; then came Sophocles, a religious + philosopher, having a feeling for the old religion and the art of giving + it a moral character, great lyrical poet, master of dialogue, eloquent, + moving, knowing how to construct and carry on a dramatic poem with + infinite skill, to whom, in fact, can be denied no quality of dramatic + poetry and who attains a conception of perfection. + </p> + <p> + EURIPIDES.—Euripides, less religious as a philosopher, sometimes + suggesting the sophist and a little the rhetorician, but full of ideas, + eloquent, affecting, "the most tragic" (that is, the most pathetic) of all + the acting dramatists, as Aristotle observed, the most modern, too, and + the one we best understand, has been the true source whence have been + freely drawn the tragedies of modern times, more particularly of our own. + </p> + <p> + The greatest works of Aeschylus are <i>Seven Against Thebes</i> and <i>Prometheus + Bound</i>; the greatest of Sophocles: <i>Antigone</i>, <i>Oedipus the + Tyrant</i> and <i>Oedipus at Colonos</i>; the greatest of Euripides: <i>Hippolytus</i> + and <i>Iphigenia</i>. + </p> + <p> + After Euripides tragedy was exhausted and only produced very second-rate + works. + </p> + <p> + COMEDY.—Comedy enjoyed a longer existence. Very obscure in origin, + no doubt proceeding from the opprobrious jests exchanged by the lower + classes in mirthful hours, it was at first freely fantastical, composed in + dialogue, oratorical, lyrical, satirical, even epical at times. Like + tragedy, it possessed a chorus for which the lyrical part was specially + reserved. It was personal—that is, it directly attacked known + contemporaries, often by name and often by bringing them on the stage. The + celebrated authors of this "ancient comedy" were Eupolis, Cratinos, of + whom we have only fragments, and Aristophanes, whose work has come down to + us. + </p> + <p> + ARISTOPHANES.—Aristophanes was a great poet, with incisive humour + and also incomparable lyrical power, with voluntary vulgarity which is + often shocking and an elevation of ideas and language which frequently + raise him to the heights of Aeschylus and Sophocles. Here was one of the + grandest poetic minds that the world has produced. His most considerable + achievements are <i>The Frogs</i>, the earliest known work of literary + criticism, in dramatic form too, wherein he sets up a parallel between + Aeschylus and Euripides and cruelly jeers at the latter; <i>The Clouds</i>, + in which he mocks the sophists; <i>The Wasps</i>, wherein he ridicules the + Athenian mania for judging, and magnificently praises the old Athenians of + the time of Marathon. + </p> + <p> + MENANDER.—To this "ancient comedy," immediately succeeded the + "middle comedy," in which it was forbidden to introduce personalities and + of which Aristophanes gave an example and a model in his <i>Plutus</i>. + Later, in the fourth century before Christ, with the refined, witty, and + discreet Menander, the "new comedy" was analogous to that of Plautus, of + Terence, and that of our own of the seventeenth century. + </p> + <p> + THUCYDIDES.—To return to the time of Pericles; Attic prose developed + in the hands of historians, sages, and philosophers. Thucydides founded + true history, scientific, drawn from the sources, supported and + strengthened by all the information and corroboration that the skilled + historian can gather, examine, and control. As a writer, Thucydides was + terse, bare, limpid, and possessed an agreeable sober elegance. He + introduced into his history imaginary discourses between great historical + personages which allowed him to show the general state of Greece or of + particular portions of Greece at certain important times. It is not known + why these discourses were written in a style differing from that of the + rest of the work, wise, even beautiful, but so extremely concise and + elliptic as, in consequence, to be extremely difficult to understand. + </p> + <p> + HIPPOCRATES.—Hippocrates created scientific medicine, the medicine + of observation, denying prodigies, seeking natural causes for diseases, + and already setting up rational therapeutics. There are seventy-two works + called "Hippocratical," which belong to his school; some may be by + himself. + </p> + <p> + SOPHISTS AND ORATORS.—The language grew flexible in the hands of the + learned, subtle, and ingenious sophists (Gorgias, Protagoras) who attacked + Socrates by borrowing his weapons, as it were, and making them perfect. + </p> + <p> + A new type of literature was created: the oratorical. Antiphon was the + earliest in date alike of the Athenian orators and of the professors of + eloquence. In a crowd after him came Isocrates, Andocides, Lysias, + Aeschines, Hyperides, and the master of them all, that astonishing + logician, that impassioned and terrible orator, Demosthenes. + </p> + <p> + THE PHILOSOPHERS: PLATO.—Contemporaneously the philosophers, quite + as much as the sophists, even confining the matter to the literary aspect, + cast immortal glory on Attica. Imbued with the spirit of Socrates, even + when more or less unfaithful to him, Plato, psychologist, moralist, + metaphysician, sociologist, marvellous poet in prose, seductive and + fascinating mythologist, really created philosophy in such fashion that + even the most modern systems, if not judged by how much they agree or + differ from him, at least invariably recall him, whether they seem a + distant echo of him or whether they challenge and combat him. + </p> + <p> + ARISTOTLE; XENOPHON; THEOPHRASTUS.—Aristotle, pre-eminently learned, + admirably cultivated naturalist, acquainted also with everything known in + his day, more prudent metaphysician than Plato but without his depth, a + precise and sure logician and the founder of scientific logic, a clear and + dexterous moralist, an ingenious and pure literary theorist; Xenophon, who + commanded the retreat of the ten thousand, moralist and Intelligent + pedagogue displaying much attractiveness in his <i>Cyropoedia</i>, the + sensible, refined, and delightful master of familiar and practical life in + his <i>Economics</i>; Theophrastus, botanist, very witty satirical + moralist, highly caustic and realistic—these three established Greek + wisdom for centuries, and probably for ever, erecting a solid and elegant + temple wherein humanity has almost continuously sought salutary truths, + and where some at least of our descendants, and those not the least + illustrious, will always perform their devotions. + </p> + <p> + The chief works of Plato are the <i>Socratic Dialogues</i>, the <i>Gorgias</i>, + the <i>Timoeus</i>, the <i>Phaedo</i> (immortality of the soul), the <i>Republic</i>, + and the <i>Laws</i>. The principal books of Aristotle are his <i>Natural + History</i>, <i>Metaphysics</i>, <i>Logic</i>, <i>Rhetoric</i>, <i>Poetica</i>. + The most notable volumes of Xenophon are the <i>Cyropoedia</i>, the <i>Economics</i> + and the <i>Memorabilia of Plato</i>. The only work of Theophrastus we + possess is his <i>Characters</i>, which was translated and <i>continued</i> + by La Bruyère. + </p> + <p> + STOICS AND EPICUREANS.—In the fourth and even the third century, + philosophy spoke to mankind through two principal schools: those of the + Stoics and of the Epicureans. The chief representatives of the Stoics were + Zeno and Cleanthes. Chrysippus taught an austere morality which may be + summed up in these words: "Abstain and endure." The Epicureans, whose + chief representatives were Epicurus and Aristippus, taught, when all was + taken into account, the same morality but starting from a different + principle, which was that happiness must be sought, and in pursuance of + this principle they advised less austerity, even in their precepts. + Although these are schools of philosophy, yet they must be taken into + account here because each of them has exercised much influence over + writers, the first on Seneca and much later on Corneille; the second on + Lucretius and Horace; both sometimes on the same man, one example being + Montaigne. + </p> + <p> + After Alexander, intellectual Greece extended and enlarged itself so that + Instead of having one centre, Athens, it possessed five or six: Athens, + Alexandria, Antioch, Pergamos, Syracuse. This was an admirable literary + efflorescence; the geniuses were less stupendous but the talents were + innumerable. + </p> + <p> + In the cities named, and in others, history, rhetoric, geography, + philosophy, history of philosophy, philology, were taught with ardour and + learnt with enthusiasm; the literary soil was rich and it was assiduously + cultivated. + </p> + <p> + ALEXANDRINE LITERATURE.—From this soil rose a fresh literature—more + erudite, less spontaneous, less rich in popular vigour, yet very + interesting. This is the literature known as <i>Alexandrine</i>. With this + literature first appeared the <i>romance</i>, unknown to the ancients. The + historical romance began with Hecataeus of Abdera, the philosophical + romance with Evemerus of Messenia, who pretended to have found an ancient + inscription proving that the gods of ancient Greece were old-time kings of + the land deified after death, an ingenious invention from which was to + come a whole school of criticism of ancient mythology. + </p> + <p> + THE ELEGY AND IDYLL: THEOCRITUS.—True and, at the same time, great + poets belonged to this period. One was Philetas of Cos, founder of the + Grecian elegy, celebrated and affectionately saluted centuries later by + André Chénier. Of his works only a few terse fragments remain. Another was + Asclepiades of Samos, both elegiac and lyric, of whose <i>epigrams</i>, + (short elegies) those preserved to us are charming. Yet another was the + sad and charming Leonidas of Tarentum. The two leaders of this choir were + Theocritus and Callimachus. Theocritus, a Sicilian, passes as the founder + of the idyll which he did not invent, but to which he gave the importance + of a type by marking it with his imprint. The idyll of Theocritus was + always a picture of popular customs and even a little drama of popular + morals; but at times it had its scene set in the country, at others in a + town, or again by the sea, and consequently there are rustic idylls + (properly <i>bucolics</i>), maritime idylls, popular urban idylls. An + astonishing sense of reality united to a personal poetic gift and a highly + alert sensitiveness made his little poems alike beautiful for their truth + and also for a certain ideal of ardent and profound passion. It is curious + without being astonishing that the idyll of Theocritus often suggests the + poetry of the Bible. + </p> + <p> + PUPILS OF THEOCRITUS.—Moschus and Bion were the immediate pupils of + Theocritus. He had more illustrious ones, commencing with Virgil in his <i>Eclogues</i>, + continuing with the numerous idylls of the Renaissance in France and + Italy, as well as with Segrais in the seventeenth century, and ending, if + it be desired, with André Chénier, though others more modern can be + traced. + </p> + <p> + CALLIMACHUS.—Callimachus, more erudite, more scholastic, was what is + termed a neoclassic, which is that he desired to treat in a new way the + same subjects that had been dealt with by the great men of ancient Greece, + and so far as possible to conceive them in the same spirit. Therefore he + wrote tragedies, comedies, "satiric dramas" (a kind of farce in which + secondary deities were characterised), lyric and elegiac poems after the + manner of Alcaeus or Sappho, a familiar epopee, a romance in verse, which + was perhaps a novel type, but more probably imitated from certain poems of + ancient Greece which we no longer possess. To us his poetry seems cold and + calculated, although clever and dexterous. It was held in high esteem not + only in his own day but to the close of antiquity. + </p> + <p> + DIDACTIC POETRY: ARATUS; APOLLONIUS.—Didactic poetry, of the + cultivation of which there had been no trace since Hesiod, was destined to + be revived in this clever period; and, in fact, at this time Aratus wrote + his <i>Phoenomena</i>, which is a course of astronomy and meteorology in + conformity with the science of his era. More ambitious, and desirous not + only of writing an epic fragment like Callimachus, but also of restoring + the old-time grand epic poem after the manner of Homer (Callimachus and he + had a violent quarrel on the subject), Apollonius of Rhodes in his <i>Argonautics</i> + narrated the expedition of Jason. It was a fine epic poem and especially + an astonishing psychological poem. The study of passion and of the + progress and catastrophe of the infatuation of Medea form a masterpiece. + Assuredly Virgil in his <i>Dido</i>, and perhaps Racine in his <i>Phèdre</i> + remembered Apollonius. + </p> + <p> + LYCOPHRON.—Lycophron also belongs to this period. He left such an + admirable poem (<i>Alexandra</i>, that is Cassandra) that his + contemporaries themselves failed to understand it in spite of all their + efforts. He is the head and ancestor of that great school of inaccessible + or impenetrable poets who are most ardently admired. Maurice Scève in the + sixteenth century is the illustrious example. + </p> + <p> + THE EPIGRAMMATISTS: MELEAGER.—To these numerous men of great talent + must be added the epigrammatists—that is, those who wrote very + short, very concise, very limpid poems wherein they sought absolute + perfection. They were almost innumerable. The most illustrious was + Meleager, in whom we can yet appreciate delicate genius and exquisite + sensibility. + </p> + <p> + POLYBIUS.—Reduced to Roman provinces (successively greater Greece, + Greece proper, Egypt, Syria), the Grecian world none the less continued to + be an admirable intellectual haven. As early as the Punic wars, the Greek + Polybius revealed he was an excellent historian, military, political, and + philosophical, inquisitive about facts, inquisitive, too, about probable + causes, constitutions, and social institutions, the morals, character, and + the underlying temperament of races. His principal work is the <i>Histories</i>—that + is, the history of the Graeco-Roman world from the second Punic war until + the capture of Corinth by the Romans. He was an intellectual master; + unfortunately he wrote very badly. + </p> + <p> + EPICTETUS; MARCUS AURELIUS.—It must, however, be recognised that in + the first century before Christ and in the first after, Greece—even + intellectually—was in a state of depression. But dating from the + Emperor Nerva—that is, from the commencement of the second century—there + was a remarkable Hellenic revival. Primarily, it was the most brilliant + moment since Plato in Grecian philosophy. Stoicism exerted complete sway + over the cultivated classes; Epictetus gave his <i>Enchiridion</i> and <i>Manual</i>, + wherein are condensed the elevated and profound thoughts most deeply + realised of the doctrine of Zeno; later, the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, in + his solitary meditations entitled <i>For Myself</i>, depicts his own soul, + admirable, chaste, pure, severe to himself, indulgent to others, + pathetically resigned to the universal order of things and adhering to + them with a renunciation and a faith that are truly religious. Less + severe, even playful and smiling, Dion Chrysostom (that is, mouth of gold, + nickname given to him because of his eloquence) is penetrated with the + same spirit a little mingled with Platonism, which makes him, therefore, + perhaps, penetrate more easily than the over-austere pure Stoics. + </p> + <p> + PLUTARCH.—Plutarch, as historian discreetly romantic, as + philosophical moralist decidedly dexterous, gently obstinate in + conciliation and concord, in a large portion of his <i>Parallel Lives</i> + narrated those of illustrious Romans and Greeks to show how excellent they + were and how highly they ought to esteem one another; elsewhere, in his + moral works, he sought to conciliate philosophy and paganism, no doubt + believing in a single God, as did Plato, but also believing in a crowd of + intermediary spirits between God and man, which allowed him to regard the + deities of paganism as misunderstood beings and even in a certain sense to + admit their authority. Emphatically a man who observed the golden mean, he + opposed the Stoics for being too severe on human nature and the Epicureans + for being too easy or for too lightly risking the future. He was an + elegant writer—gracious, self-restraining; nearer, all said and + done, to eclecticism than to simplicity, and he must not be judged by the + geniality which was virtually imparted to him by Amyot in translating him. + Throughout Europe, since the Renaissance, of all the Grecian authors he + has perhaps been the most read, the most quoted, the best loved, and the + most carefully edited. + </p> + <p> + THE GREEK HISTORIANS.—Greek historians multiplied about this period. + To mention only the most notable: Arrian, philosopher, disciple of + Epictetus, and historian of the expedition of Alexander; Appian, who wrote + the history of the Roman people from their origin until the time of + Trajan; Dion Cassius, who also compiled Roman history in a sustained + manner full of elegance and nobility; Herodian, historian of the + successors of Marcus Aurelius, who would only narrate what he had himself + witnessed, a showy writer who seems over-polished and a little artificial. + </p> + <p> + A historian of a highly individualistic character was Diogenes of + Laertius, who wrote the <i>Lives of Philosophers</i>, being very little of + a philosopher himself and too prone to drop into anecdotage, but + interesting and invaluable to us because of the scanty information we + possess about ancient philosophy. + </p> + <p> + LUCIAN.—Immeasurably superior to those just cited since Plutarch, + Lucian of Samosata (Syria) may be regarded as the Voltaire of antiquity—witty, + sceptical, amusing, even comic. He was primarily a lecturer, wandering + like a sophist from town to town, in order to talk in vivacious, animated, + nimble, and paradoxical fashion. Then he was a polygraphic writer, + producing treatises, satires, and pamphlets on the most diverse subjects. + He wrote against the Christians, the pagans, the philosophers, the + prejudiced, sometimes against common sense. Amongst his works were <i>The + Way to Write History</i>, partly serious, partly sarcastic; <i>The + Dialogues of the Dead</i>, moralising and satirical, imitated much later + in very superior fashion by Fontenelle; <i>The Dialogues of the Gods</i>, + against mythology; <i>True History</i>, a parody of the false or romantic + histories then so fashionable, more especially about Alexander. He + certainly possessed little depth, but his talent was incredible: + alertness, causticity, amusing logic, burlesque dialectics, an astonishing + instinct for caricature, the art of natural dialogue, gay insolence, light + but vivid psychological penetration, an almost profound sense of the + ridiculous, joyous fooling; above all, that first essential of satire, to + be himself amused by what he wrote to amuse others; all these he possessed + in a high degree. Rabelais has been called the Homeric buffoon, Lucian is + certainly the Socratic. + </p> + <p> + POETRY AND ROMANCE.—Greek poetry no longer existed at this period. + Hardly is it permissible to cite the didactic Oppian, with his poem on + sin, and the fabulist Babrius, imitator of Aesop in his fables. In + reparation, the romance was born and the scientific literature was + important. The romance claimed among its representatives Antonius + Diogenes, with his <i>Marvels Beyond Thule</i>; Heliodorus, with his <i>Aethiopica</i> + or <i>Theagenes and Chariclea</i>, the love-story so much admired by + Racine in his youth; Longus, with his <i>Daphnis and Chloe</i>, which + still retains general approval and which possesses real, though somewhat + studied grace, and of which the ability of the style is quite above the + normal. + </p> + <p> + SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE.—Scientific literature includes the highly + illustrious mathematician and astronomer Ptolemy, whose system obtained + respect and belief until the advent of Copernicus; the physician Galen; + the philosopher-physician Sextus Empiricus, who was a good historian, + highly sceptical, but well informed and intelligent about philosophical + ideas. + </p> + <p> + DECADENCE OF THE GREEK SPIRIT.—Vitality was slowly withdrawn from + the Grecian world, although not without revivals and highly interesting + semi-renaissances. In the fourth century, the sophist—that is, the + professor of philosophy and of rhetoric—Libanius left a vast number + of official or academic discourses and letters which were dissertations. + Like his friend the Emperor Julian, he was a convinced pagan, and with + kindly but firm spirit combated the Christian bishops, priests, and + particularly the monks, who were objects of veritable repulsion to him. He + possessed talent of a secondary but honourable rank. + </p> + <p> + THE EMPEROR JULIAN.—The Emperor Julian, a Christian in childhood, + but who on attaining manhood reverted to paganism, which earned him the + title of "the Apostate," was highly intelligent, pure in heart, and filled + with a spirit of tolerance; but he was a heathen and he wrote against + Christianity. He possessed satiric force and wit, even a measure of + eloquence. A pamphlet by him, the <i>Misopogon</i>, directed against the + inhabitants of Antioch, who had chaffed him about his beard, makes amusing + reading. He died quite young; he would, in all probability, have become a + very great man. + </p> + <p> + PROCOPIUS.—It is necessary to advance to the sixth century to + mention the historian Procopius, that double-visaged annalist who, in his + official histories, was lost in admiration of Justinian, and who, in his + <i>Secret History</i>, only published long after his death, related to us + the turpitude, real or imagined, of Theodora, wife of the Emperor + Justinian, and of Antonina, wife of Belisarius. + </p> + <p> + POETRY.—Greek poetry was not dead. Quintus of Smyrna, who was of the + fourth century, perhaps later, wrote a <i>Sequel to Homer</i>, without + much imagination, but with skill and dexterity; Nonnus wrote the <i>Dionysiaca</i>, + a poetic history of the expedition of Bacchus to India, declamatory, + copious, and powerful, full alike of faults and talent; Musaeus (date + absolutely unknown) has remained justly celebrated for his delicious + little poem <i>Hero and Leander</i>, countless times translated both in + prose and verse. + </p> + <p> + GRECIAN CHRISTIAN WRITERS.—It is necessary to revert to the fourth + century in order to enumerate Grecian Christian writers. As might be + expected these were almost all controversial orators. Saint Athanasius of + Alexandria was an admirable man of action, a fiery and impassioned orator, + the highly polemical historian of the Church, after the manner of Bossuet + in his <i>History of Variations</i>. Saint Basil, termed by his admirers + "the Great," without there being much hyperbole in the qualification, was + an incomparable orator. He, as it were, reigned over Eastern Christianity, + thanks to his word, his skill, and his courage. Even to us his works + possess charm. He intermingled the finest ideas of Plato and of + Christianity in the happiest and most orthodox manner. The humanists held + him in esteem for having rendered justice to antiquity in his <i>Lecture + on Profane Authors</i> and having advised Christians to study it with + prudence but with esteem. Saint Gregory of Nazianzen, the intimate friend + of Saint Basil, was also a great orator, exalted, ardent, and lyrical, + whilst he was also as a poet, refined, gracious, and full of charm. Saint + Gregory of Nyssa, brother of Saint Basil, was essentially a theologian and + in his day a theological authority. + </p> + <p> + SAINT JOHN CHRYSOSTOM.—The most splendid figure of the Greek Church + was Saint John Chrysostom, celebrated in political history for his + struggle with the Emperor Arcadius and the Empress Eudoxia, and for the + persecutions he had in consequence to suffer. His heated, fiery, and + violent eloquence, which was altogether that of a tribune of the people, + can still profoundly affect us because therein can be felt a deeply + sincere ardour, a passion for justice, charity, and love. A bellicose + moralist, he was, like Bourdaloue, a realist and therefore an exact and + cruel delineator of the customs of his time, which were not good; and he + teaches us better than anyone else what was the sad state of Eastern + morality in his day. His widely varied genius, passing from the most + spiritually familiar of tones to the height of moving and imposing + eloquence, was one of the grandest of all antiquity. + </p> + <p> + EUSEBIUS.—Allusion should be made to that good historian Eusebius, + who narrated Christian history from its origins until the year 323. + </p> + <p> + THE BYZANTINE PERIOD.—What is termed the Byzantine period extended + from the close of the reign of Justinian to the definite fall of the + Eastern Empire (565-1453). This long epoch, practically corresponding to + the Middle Ages of the West, is very weak from the literary point of view, + but yet possessed a number of interesting and valuable historians (Joseph + of Byzantium, Comnenus, etc.) and skilled and learned grammarians, that is + professors of language and literature (Eustathius, Cephalon, Planudes, + Lascaris). It was the later of these grammarians, among them Lascaris, who + after the fall of Constantinople being welcomed in France and Italy, + brought the Greek writers to the West, commentated on them, made them + known, and thence came the Renaissance of Literature. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IV. — THE LATINS + </h2> + <p> + The Latins, Imitators of the Greeks. Epic Poets, Dramatic Poets. Golden + Age: Virgil, Horace, Ovid. Silver Age: Prose Writers, Historians and + Philosophers:—Titus-Livy, Tacitus, Seneca. Decadence Still + Brilliant. + </p> + <p> + LATIN LITERATURE.—Latin literature is little more than a branch of + Greek literature. It commenced much later, finished earlier, and has + always poured into the others at least a portion of its living force. + Roman literature really begins only at the moment when the Romans came + into contact with the Greeks, read their works, and were tempted to + imitate them; that is to say, it commences in the third century before + Christ. The first manifestation of this literature was epic. Naevius and + Livius Andronicus made epopees. They are destitute of talent. Ennius made + one: it possessed merit; what the Latin critics have quoted of his <i>Annals</i> + is marked, first by an energetic patriotic sentiment which affords + pleasure; then it possesses energy and sometimes even a certain + brilliance. In addition, Ennius wrote several didactic and satiric poems. + Among the Romans, Ennius was the great ancestor and father of Latin + literature. + </p> + <p> + LUCILIUS.—Lucilius was a satirist. Judging by the fragments of his + work which have come down to us, he was a very acute and penetrating + political satirist. Horace, despite his sovereign disdain for all that + preceded his own century, did not fail to value him and agreed that there + was something to be drawn and appreciated from this "muddy torrent." + </p> + <p> + COMEDY: PLAUTUS; TERENCE.—Comedy and tragedy existed at this period. + It may be apposite here to point out that it was later and in the finest + period of Latin literature that they ceased to exist. Plautus conceived + the plan of transporting to Rome Grecian comedies of the time of the new + comedy and of adapting them more or less to Latin morals. He possessed a + strong and brutal verve which did not lack power, and more than once + Molière did him the honour of taking inspiration from him. Terence, after + him, the friend of Scipio the second Africanus, and perhaps in + collaboration with him, in a way widely different from that of Plautus so + far as type of talent, tender, gentle, romantic, sentimental, smiling + rather than witty, so far as can be judged directly inspired by Menander, + wrote comedies which are highly agreeable to read, but it is doubtful if + they could ever have been widely appreciated on the stage. However, the + Roman writers held him in great esteem, and at one epoch of our own + history, in the seventeenth century, he enjoyed remarkable and unanimous + appreciation. + </p> + <p> + L'ATELLANE.—To comedy strictly defined, whether it dealt with Romans + or Greeks, the Romans also added the atellane, which came to them from the + Etruscans (Atella, a city of Etruria) and which was a sort of farce with + stereotyped characters (the fat glutton, the lean glutton, the old miser + always baffled, etc.). Pomponius and Naevius endeavoured to raise this + popular recreation to a literary standard and succeeded. It then became a + thoroughly national characteristic. There was considerable analogy between + it and the modern popular Italian comedy, showing its Cassandras, its + Pantaloon, and its Harlequin, without it being possible to assert that the + Italian comedy proceeded from the atellane. The atellane enjoyed much + success in the second century before Christ. It was, however, ousted by + the mime, which was the kind of comic literature thoroughly national at + Rome. The mime was a farce of popular morals, particularly of the lower + classes; it was a portrayal of the dregs of society in their comic + aspects. It maintained its sway until the close of the Roman Empire + without becoming more dignified; rather the reverse. The names of some + authors of mimes have survived: Publius Syrus and Laberius, in the time of + Caesar. What is curious is that these mimes, licentious and even obscene + though they were, throughout gave occasional utterance to highly moral + observations which Latin grammarians have preserved for us. This curious + mixture may be explained or contrasted at pleasure; perhaps it was only a + conventional habit. + </p> + <p> + TRAGEDY.—As for what there was of tragedy, it was destined to be yet + shorter-lived than comedy, but it was evidently very brilliant and it is + regrettable that it has not been preserved. Livius Andronicus and Nasvius + wrote tragedies, but the three greatest tragedians were Ennius, his nephew + Pacuvius, and Attius. Ennius imitated Euripides, Pacuvius Sophocles, and + Attius Aeschylus. All three soared to the grand, the majestic, and the + sublime; all seem to have been very sententious and replete with maxims; + but it is needful to be cautious: these authors are known to us only by + the citations made by grammarians, and grammarians who, having naturally + cited phrases rather than fragments of dialogue, make it possible that + these authors appear to us sententious when they were in reality not + abnormally so. + </p> + <p> + PROSE LITERATURE.—Prose literature at Rome appeared almost at the + same time as the poetic. Cicero has given us the names of great orators, + contemporaries of Ennius, and there were historians and didacticians in + prose of the same period. The elder Cato, the great censor, was an + historian; he wrote a work, <i>The Origins</i>, which seems to have been + the history not only of Rome but of all Italy since the foundation of + Rome; he was didactic; he wrote a <i>De Re Rustica</i> (On Rural Life) + which has come down to us and is infinitely valuable as showing the + simplicity, the hardness, and the avarice of the old Roman proprietors, + all qualities which Cato thoroughly well knew they possessed. + </p> + <p> + THE AGE OF CAESAR.—The age of Caesar was a great literary epoch. + Before all and almost over all was Caesar himself: great orator, + letter-writer, grammarian, and historian. His <i>Commentaries</i>, that + is, his memoirs, history of his campaigns, are admirable in their + conciseness and precision of rapid and running narrative. Apart from him, + Cornelius Nepos made a very clear abridgment, characterised by marked + sobriety, of universal history under the title of <i>Chronica</i>. Varro, + a kind of encyclopaedist, wrote a <i>De Re Rustica</i>, also a work on the + Latin language, <i>Menippic Satires</i>—satires it is true, but + mixtures of prose and verse—and a work on <i>Roman Life</i>, as well + as a crowd of small books dealing with every possible subject. Cicero told + him, "You have taught us all things human and divine." He possessed + immense erudition and a violent mind not without charm. He can be imagined + as a sage of our own sixteenth century. + </p> + <p> + CICERO.—Cicero was perhaps the greatest <i>littérateur</i> that has + ever lived. It is obvious that all tastes were in his soul at the same + time, as Voltaire said of himself, and he gratified them all. He was + politician, lawyer, orator, poet, philosopher, professor of rhetoric, + moralist, grammarian, political writer, correspondent; he encompassed all + human knowledge, involved himself in all human matters and was a very + great writer. What to-day interests us most in his immense output are his + political discourses, his letters and his moral treatises. His political + discourses are those of an honest man who always held upright views and + the sentiment of the great interests of his country; his letters are those + of a witty man and of an excellent friend; his moral treatises, more + particularly his <i>De Officiis</i> (On Duties), are in a very elevated + spirit which subordinates all other human duties beneath obligations + towards one's country. He did not always rise to circumstances; he was + well content, on the contrary, that they should serve him. + </p> + <p> + SALLUST.—Sallust, who as an individual seems to have been + contemptible, was a highly sagacious and excellent historian. He has left + a history of Catiline and another of Jugurtha. They are masterpieces of + lucidity and of dramatic vivacity. Admirable especially are his maxims, + which seem as well thought out as those of La Rochefoucauld: "Friendship + is to desire the same things and to hate the same things"; "the spirit of + faction is the friendship of scoundrels." + </p> + <p> + POETRY: CATULLUS.—Poetry was not less brilliant than prose in the + time of Caesar. It was the era of Lucretius and of Catullus. Catullus, a + delightful man of the world, a charming voluptuary, passionate and + eloquent lover, formidable epigrammatist, a little coloured by + Alexandrianism (but barely, for this trait has been much exaggerated), + comes very close to being a great poet. In many respects he closely + recalls André Chénier, who, it may be added, was thoroughly conversant + with his writing. + </p> + <p> + LUCRETIUS.—Lucretius is a very noble poet. If we knew Epicurus + otherwise than by fragments, it is highly probable we should be tempted to + assert that Lucretius was only a translator; but on that we cannot + pronounce, and of the didactic part of the poem of Lucretius (<i>On Nature</i>), + even if it were a simple translation, all the oratorical and the + descriptive portions would remain, and they are the most beautiful of the + work. In his invocations to Epicurus, in his prosopopoeia of nature to man + inviting resignation to death, in his descriptions of the immolation of + Iphigenia and of the cow wandering in the fields in search of her lost + heifer, there are a breadth, a grasp, and an epic grandeur, which recall + Homer, arouse thoughts of Dante, and which Virgil himself, whilst much + less unequal though never greater, has not attained. + </p> + <p> + THE AUGUSTAN AGE.—The Augustan Age, which was only really very great + if under this title is also included the epoch of Caesar and also that of + Octavius, and thus it was understood by our ancestors, does not fail to + offer writers of fine genius. These are Virgil, Horace, and Titus-Livy. + </p> + <p> + TITUS-LIVY.—Titus-Livy, who is one of the purest and most beautiful + writers and an orator of seductive talent in his own chamber, wrote a + Roman history composed, as to the first portion, of the legends + transmitted at Rome from generation to generation, and in which it is + impossible for us to distinguish the false from the true; for two-thirds + of the work made very accurate investigations of all that previous + historians and the annals of the pontiffs could give the author. As has + been observed, Titus-Livy, being a Cisalpine, was a Gaul who already + possessed the French qualities: order, clearness, regulated development, + sustained and careful style, oratorical tastes. An ardent patriot, + republican at his soul, yet treated in friendly fashion by Augustus, he + wrote Roman history at first, no doubt, to make it known, but above all to + inspire the Romans of his own time with admiration, respect, and love for + the austere morals and exalted virtues of their ancestors. He erected a + monument, one portion of which is unhappily destroyed, but into which + modern tragedians have often quarried and which orators have not scorned + when desiring to instruct themselves in their art. + </p> + <p> + VIRGIL.—Virgil came from almost the same country. His was a charming + soul, tender and gentle, infinitely capable of friendship, very pure and + white, as Horace said, with a tendency to melancholy. The two sources of + his inspiration were Homer and love of Rome; add, for a time, Theocritus. + Lover of the country and of moral life, he first wrote those delicious <i>Bucolics</i> + wherein he did not venture to be as realistic as the Sicilian poet, but in + which there is not only infinite grace and delicate sensibility, but also, + in certain verses, admirable descriptions that arouse memories of those of + La Fontaine. Lover of the soil and desirous, in harmony with Augustus, to + attract the Italians back to a taste for agriculture, he wrote the <i>Georgics</i>: + that is, the toils of the field, describing these labours with singular + exactitude and precision; then, to give the reader variety, he introduced + from time to time an episode which is a fragment of history or of + mythological legend. At length, desirous of attributing to Rome the most + glorious past possible, he revived the old legend which claimed that the + ancient kings of Rome descended from the famous kings of Troy in her + zenith, and he composed the <i>Aeneid</i>. The <i>Aeneid</i> is at once + both an <i>Odyssey</i> and an <i>Iliad</i>. The first five books + containing the adventures of Aeneas after the fall of Troy until his + arrival in Italy form an <i>Odyssey</i>; the last six books, containing + the combats of Aeneas in Italy in order to conquer a place for himself, + form an <i>Iliad</i>. In the middle, the sixth book is a descent into + hell, again an imitation of Homer, yet altogether new, enriched as it is + with very fine philosophical ideas which Homer could never have known. The + main theme of the poem and what gives it unity is Rome, which does not yet + exist, but which is always to be seen looming in the future. All the poem + leans in that direction, and alike by ingenious artifices, by prophecies + more and more exact, by the description of the shield of Aeneas, Roman + history itself, in its broad lines, is traced. + </p> + <p> + The sovereign merit of Virgil is his artistic sense. Others are more + powerful or more profound. No man has written better verse than he on any + subject on which he wrote. + </p> + <p> + HORACE.—Horace was a man of infinite wit, profoundly conversant with + the Grecian poets. With that knowledge of the poets he filled his odes + with recollections of Alcasus and Stesichorus; they were minutely and + finely polished, accustoming the Romans to find in Latin words the musical + phrases of the Greeks, but withal remaining very cold. With his wit, his + verve, his very lively sense of humour, his pretty moral philosophy + borrowed a little from the Stoics but mainly from the Epicureans, he + created his <i>Satires</i> and his <i>Epistles</i>, which form the most + delicate feast and which have no more lost their interest for us than + Montaigne has. Here was a charming man. He was not a great poet. He was + the most witty of poets, the poet of the men of wit. + </p> + <p> + TIBULLUS; PROPERTIUS; OVID.—Tibullus, Propertius, and Ovid + immediately followed him. Tibullus was a tender and sad elegiast, less + passionate and less powerful than Catullus, but gracious and touching. All + the elegiacal poets, and André Chénier in particular, have evinced + recollections of him. Propertius possessed great talent for versification, + but was more erudite than inspired; being almost pure Alexandrine, he is + more interesting to the humourist than to the ordinary man. Ovid, gifted + with facility and the skill of a prodigious versifier, dexterous + descriptist in his <i>Metamorphoses</i>, ingenious and cold in his <i>Art + of Love</i>, has found some pathetic notes in his elegies wherein as an + exile he weeps over his own misfortunes. + </p> + <p> + DECADENCE.—With the second century arrived the commencement of + decadence. The rhetoricians, who in Rome were what the sophists were in + Athens, only far less intelligent, directed the public mind. They did not + spoil it completely, but they did not give it strength, and the Latins, + believing they had reached the zenith of the Greeks, seemed to draw less + inspiration from the eternal models. + </p> + <p> + QUINTUS CURTIUS.—However, the Latin sap is still strong. Quintus + Curtius, romantic historian, who wrote a history of Alexandria which is + too generous towards the legendary, narrates brilliantly and strews his + pages with vigorously phrased maxims and apothegms. He is a remarkable + author. The elder Pliny, a very erudite sage and a somewhat precious + writer, is a worthy successor of Varro. + </p> + <p> + SENECA.—Seneca, who certainly was well nurtured in Greek philosophy, + preached stoicism in concise, antithetic, and epigrammatic styles, all in + highly thoughtful points which sometimes attain power. + </p> + <p> + PETRONIUS; LUCIAN; MARTIAL.—Petronius was a man possessing highly + refined taste who painted extremely ugly morals. Tragedy endeavoured to + obtain renaissance with Seneca the tragic, who is perhaps the same as the + moralist Seneca, alluded to above, and the effort was sufficiently + brilliant for our tragedians of the sixteenth century, and even Racine in + his <i>Phèdre</i>, frequently to follow it. Perseus, pupil of Horace so + far as his satires are concerned, was concise to the point of obscurity, + but often displayed such vigour and ruggedness as to be powerfully moving. + Lucian, spoilt by a certain taste for declamation, is really a sound poet, + more especially as a poetic orator, and in this respect he is often + admirable. Silius Italicus, Valerius Flaccus, Statius, revert to the + school of Virgil and display talent for versification. Martial, almost + exclusively epigrammatic, was extremely witty. + </p> + <p> + JUVENAL.—Juvenal, arising sardonically from the crowd, is the prince + of satirists for all time. He possessed a passion for honesty, spirit, and + oratorical breadth, and incredible vigour as colourist, the gift of verse + cast in medallions and also the gift of energetic metallic sonorousness. + Victor Hugo, in the satiric portion of his work, not merely drew + inspiration from but seemed saturated with him. + </p> + <p> + THE TRAJAN EPOCH.—now came the Trajan epoch. Quintilian, in elegant + fashion, with point and rather affected graces, taught us excellent + rhetoric full of sense and taste. Pliny the Younger, gentle and gay, + honest and amusing, pleaded as an insinuating orator, and, under the + pretext of <i>Letters</i> to his friends, wrote essays of amiable morality + which evoke recollections of Montaigne. + </p> + <p> + TACITUS.—Tacitus is a great psychological historian and moralist. He + is, as Racine observed, "the greatest painter of antiquity," and Racine + meant the greatest painter of portraits. He possessed an entirely fresh + style of his own creation: nervous, articulate, coloured, concise, with + brief metaphors which reveal not only a poet, but a fine poet, in the vein + of Michelet, but with the difference of febrility to the potent discharge + of power. + </p> + <p> + AULUS GELLIUS; APULEIUS.—Under Marcus Aurelius Latin literature fell + into decay. Aulus Gellius was only a rather untidy or at least not very + methodical scholar who wrote feebly; Apuleius with his <i>Golden Ass</i> + was merely a fantastic romancist, very complex, curious about everything, + more especially with regard to singularities, lively, amusing, mystical at + times; in short, distinctly disconcerting. + </p> + <p> + WRITERS ON CHRISTIANITY.—Christianity was at an adult age. There + were writers of importance and some who were really great; the energetic + and violent Tertullian, beloved by Bossuet; Saint Cyprian, full of + unction, gentleness, and charity; Lactantius, skilful Christian + philosopher, ingenious and possessing insinuating subtlety; Saint + Hilarius, an ardent polemist, impetuous and torrential; Saint Ambrose, + exalted, wise, serene, very well read, very "Roman," who may be styled the + Cicero of Christianity; Saint Jerome, ardent, impassioned, possessing + lively sensibility, an animated and seductive imagination, who—excluding + all idea of scandal—suggests what is purest and most beautiful in + Jean Jacques Rousseau; finally, that great doctor and noble philosopher of + the Church, Saint Augustine. + </p> + <p> + SAINT AUGUSTINE.—Saint Augustine is pre-eminently a philosopher, a + man who analysed ideas and saw all that they contained, their first + principle and their trend as well as their ultimate consequences. He was + in addition a great orator; he was also a historian, or at least a + philosopher of history, in his <i>City of God</i>; finally, he was a poet + at heart and imbued with the most exquisite sensibility in his immortal <i>Confessions</i>. + Probably he was the most extraordinary man of the world of antiquity. + </p> + <p> + CHRISTIAN POETS.—Christianity even had its poets: Commodian, + Juvencus, the impassioned and skilful Prudentius, St. Paulinus of Nola. + None were very prominent, all possessed lively sentiment, such as + Chateaubriand evinced, for what is profoundly poetic in Christianity. + </p> + <p> + SECULAR POETS.—The last mundane poets were more brilliant than those + of Christianity. Avienus possessed charming elegance and rather effeminate + grace. It should be noted that he (with Prudentius) was the sole lyric + poet after Horace. Ausonius had sensibility and remarkable descriptive + talent; Claudian, rhetorician in verse, rose sometimes to veritable + eloquence and maintained a continual brilliance which is fatiguing because + it is continual, but does not fail to be a marvellous fault. Finally must + be cited Rutilius, first because he had talent, then because even amid the + invasions of the barbarians he made an impassioned eulogy of Rome which + is, involuntarily, a funeral oration; finally, because, despite being a + bitter foe to Christianity, he once more involuntarily defined the great + and noble change from paganism to Christianity: <i>Tunc mutabantur + corpora, nunc animi</i> ("Formerly bodies were metamorphosed, now souls"). + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER V. — THE MIDDLE AGES: FRANCE + </h2> + <p> + <i>Chansons de Geste: Song of Roland</i> and Lyric Poetry. Popular Epopee: + <i>Romances of Renard</i>. Popular Short Stories: Fables. Historians. The + Allegorical Poem: <i>Romance of the Rose</i>. Drama. + </p> + <p> + <i>CHANSONS DE GESTE</i>.—The literature of the Middle Ages freed + itself from Latin about the tenth century. This was the moment when the + great epopees which are called <i>chansons de geste</i> began to be heard. + The most celebrated is the one entitled <i>The Song of Roland</i>. It is + the story of the last struggle in which Roland engaged on returning from + Spain at the pass of Roncevaux and of his death. The form of this poem is + rather dry and a little monotonous; but there are admirable passages such + as the benediction of the dying by the Bishop Turpin, the farewell of + Roland to Oliver, Roland holding out his glove to his Lord God at the + moment of death, etc. The <i>chansons de geste</i> were numerous. Some + commemorated Charlemagne and his comrades, others Arthur, King of Britain, + and his knights, others, as a rule less interesting, were about the heroes + of antiquity, Troy, Alexander, not well known but not forgotten. The <i>chansons + de geste</i> permeated the whole of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. + </p> + <p> + JOINVILLE; VILLEHARDOUIN.—In the thirteenth century appeared an + historian, Joinville, friend of St. Louis, who described the crusade in + which he took part with his master. He possessed <i>naïvéte</i>, grace, + naturalness, and picturesqueness. Villehardouin, who described the fourth + crusade, in which he played his part, was a realist—exact, precise, + luminous—in whom the strangeness and grandeur of the things he had + witnessed sometimes inspired a true nobility, simple enough but singularly + impressive. + </p> + <p> + THE TROUBADOURS.—Lyric poetry barely existed during these centuries + except south of the Loire, in the Latin country, among the poets called + troubadours; nevertheless, in the north, the noble Count Thibaut of + Champagne, to cite only one, wrote songs possessing amiable inspiration + and happily turned. Beside him must be instanced the highly remarkable + Ruteboeuf, narrator, elegiast, lyric orator, admirably gifted, who, to be + a great poet, only needed to live in a more favourable period and to have + at his disposition a more flexible language, one more abundant and more + widely elaborated. + </p> + <p> + <i>THE ROMANCES OF RENARD</i>.—In the fourteenth century, the <i>Romances + of Renard</i> enjoyed remarkably wide popularity and multiplied in + abundance. Each was like a fable by La Fontaine expanded to the + proportions of an epic poem. Under the names of animals they were human + types in action and concerned in multifarious adventures: the lion was the + king; the bear, called Bruin, was the seigneurial lord of the soil; the + fox was the artful, circumspect citizen; the cock, called Chanticleer, was + the hero of warfare, and so on. Some of the <i>Romances of Renard</i> are + insipid; others possess a satiric and parodying spirit that is extremely + diverting. + </p> + <p> + THE FABLES.—Contemporaneously the <i>Fables</i> amused our + ancestors. They were anecdotes, tales in verse for the most part dealing + with adventures of citizens, analogous to the tales of La Fontaine. The + majority were jeering, bantering, and satirical; some few were affecting + and refined. They were certainly the most living and characteristic + portion of old French literature. + </p> + <p> + THE BIBLES.—The Middle Ages, after the manner of the ancients, + delighted in gathering into one volume all the knowledge current. These + didactic books were called bibles. Some were celebrated: the <i>Bible</i> + of Guyot of Provence, the <i>Bible</i> of Hugo of Berzi. As a rule, whilst + learned as far as the resources of the times permitted, they were also + satiric, precisely as almost the whole of the literature of the Middle + Ages is satiric. + </p> + <p> + <i>THE ROMANCE OF THE ROSE</i>.—The <i>Romance of the Rose</i>, + which was by two authors writing with almost half a century of interval + between them, was in the first portion, of which the author is William of + Lorris, an art of love in the form of a romance in verse; and the second + part, written by John de Meung, formed in some measure a continuation of + the first, but above all was a work of erudition and instruction, in which + the poet put all that he knew as well as his philosophical conceptions, + often of a remarkable and highly unexpected boldness. Aptly John de Meung + has been compared with Rabelais, and it is not astonishing that the + popularity of this poem should have lasted more than two centuries nor + that it should have charmed or irritated our ancestors according to the + tendency of their minds. + </p> + <p> + FROISSART.—The representative of history in the fourteenth century + was Froissart, a picturesque chronicler, very vital, always full of + interest, although it is indisputable that he was lacking in historical + criticism; and among the orators, polemists, and controversialists of the + times must at least be cited the impassioned and virtuous Gerson, who + expended his life in incessant struggles on behalf of his Christian faith. + </p> + <p> + To him, without decisive proof, has often been attributed the <i>Imitation + of Jesus Christ</i>, which, in any case, whoever wrote it, must be + emphasised as one of the purest products of the religious spirit of the + Middle Ages. + </p> + <p> + CHARLES OF ORLEANS; VILLON.—The fifteenth century, otherwise + somewhat sterile, introduced one distinguished poet, Charles of Orleans, + graceful and pleasing; and one who at moments rose to the height of being + almost a great poet: this was Francis Villon, the celebrated author of <i>The + Ballade of Dames of Ancient Times</i>, of which the yet more famous + refrain was, "Where are the snows of last year?" + </p> + <p> + MYSTERIES AND MIRACLES.—To deal with the theatre of the Middle Ages + it is necessary to go further back. Without considering as drama those + pious performances which the clergy organised or tolerated even in the + churches from the tenth century and probably earlier, there was already a + popular drama in the twelfth century outside the church whereat were + performed veritable dramas drawn from holy writ or legends of saints. This + developed in the thirteenth century, and in the fourteenth and fifteenth + it was prolific in immense dramatic poems which needed several days for + their performance. These were <i>Mysteries</i>, as they were termed, or <i>Miracles</i>, + wherein comedy and tragedy were interwoven and a great deed in religious + history or sometimes in national history commemorated, such as the <i>Mystery + of the Siege of Orleans</i>, by Greban. + </p> + <p> + FARCES; FOLLIES; MORALITIES.—The comic theatre also existed. It + provided <i>farces</i>, which were really little comedies (the most famous + was the <i>Farce of the Lawyer Patelin</i>); <i>follies</i>, which are + farcical but good-humoured caricatures of students and clerks; and <i>moralities</i>, + which are small serious dramas, interspersed with comedy, having real + personages mingled with allegorical ones. The drama of the Middle Ages was + very living and highly original, coming from the soil and exactly adapted + to the sentiments, passions, and ideas of the people for whom and, a + little later, by whom it was written. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VI. — THE MIDDLE AGES: ENGLAND + </h2> + <p> + Literature in Latin, in Anglo-Saxon, and in French. The Ancestor of + English Literature: Chaucer. + </p> + <p> + THE THREE LITERATURES.—In England, prior to the Norman invasion, + that is before 1066, England possessed Saxon bards who sang of the prowess + of forbears or contemporaries, and monks who wrote in Latin the lives of + saints or even lay histories. + </p> + <p> + From 1066 must be distinguished in England three parallel literatures: the + Latin literature of the cloister, the Anglo-Saxon literature, and the + French literature of the conquerors. + </p> + <p> + Latin literature, so far as prose is regarded, was devoted exclusively to + philosophy and history; in verse the subjects are more diversified, satire + more especially flourished. + </p> + <p> + The poets of the French tongue wrote more particularly <i>chansons de + geste</i>, and those of such songs which form what is termed the <i>Cycle + of Artus</i> are for the most part the work of poets born in England. + </p> + <p> + Finally, in the different popular dialects, Saxon, Western English, etc., + epic poems were written in verse, or romances, discourses, homilies, + different religious work in prose. The Normans, ardent, energetic, and + practical, had founded universities whence issued, endowed and equipped, + those who by patriotic sentiment or taste were destined to write in + Anglo-Saxon or in English. + </p> + <p> + CHAUCER; GOWER.—The greatest name of the period and the one which + radiates most brilliantly is that of Chaucer in the fourteenth century, + author of <i>The Canterbury Tales</i> and a crowd of other works. He + possessed very varied imagination, sometimes vigorous, sometimes humorous, + an extraordinary sense of reality, much spirit, and a fertility of mind + which made him the ancestor and precursor of Shakespeare. To his + illustrious name must be added that of his friend and pupil Gower, who is + curious because he is representative of the three literatures still in use + in his day, having written his <i>Speculum Meditatus</i> in French, his <i>Vox + Clamantis</i> in Latin, and his <i>Confessio Amantis</i> in English. So + far as I am aware this phenomenon was never repeated. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VII. — THE MIDDLE AGES: GERMANY + </h2> + <p> + Epic Poems: <i>Nibelungen</i>. Popular Poems. Very numerous Lyric Poems. + Drama. + </p> + <p> + FIRST LITERARY WORK.—The most ancient monument of German literature + is the <i>Song of Hildebrand</i>, which goes back to an unknown antiquity, + perhaps to the ninth century, and a very beautiful fragment of which has + been preserved by a happy chance. We are entirely ignorant of works + written in German between the <i>Song of Hildebrand</i> and the <i>Nibelungen</i>, + except for some religious poems such as the <i>Heliand</i> in low German + and the <i>Book of the Gospels</i> in high German. + </p> + <p> + THE NIBELUNGEN,—The <i>Nibelungen</i> form a vast poem, written + probably in the thirteenth century (or, at that epoch, formed by + juxtaposition of more ancient popular songs). It is a great national + monument wherein are collected the legendary exploits of all the ancestors + of the Germans, Huns, Goths, Burgundians and Franks especially. Portions + possess admirable dramatic qualities. The analogy with the <i>Iliad</i> is + remarkable, and the comparison may be made even from the literary point of + view. + </p> + <p> + VARIOUS PRODUCTIONS.—Then come productions less national in type, + imitations of French poems. <i>Song of Roland</i>, <i>Alexander</i>, songs + of the <i>Cycle of Arthur</i> or of the <i>Round Table</i>, imitations of + Latin poems: for instance, the <i>Aeneid</i>, etc. Here, too, was spread + the <i>Story of Renard</i>, as in France, and even now the question is + unsettled whether the first poem of <i>Renard</i> is French or German. + Religious and satiric poems were abundant in the thirteenth and fourteenth + centuries, but what is highly characteristic is the large number of + lyrical poets (Dietmar of Ast, Kürenberg, Frederic of Hausen, the Emperor + Henry VI, etc.) produced by the Middle Ages in Germany. This poetry was + generally amorous and melancholy, sometimes full of the warlike ardour + which is found among our own troubadours. The poets who, as in France, + wandered through Germany, from court to court and from castle to castle, + called themselves minnesingers (singers of love). The one who has remained + most famous is Tannhäuser. A fantastic and touching legend has formed + about his name. + </p> + <p> + Germany, like France, possessed a popular drama, less prolific possibly, + but very similar. Among the most ancient popular tragedies now known may + be cited <i>The Prophets of Christ</i> and the <i>Game of Antichrist</i>, + which are curious because of the juxtaposition of biblical acts and + contemporaneous events. Later came <i>The Miracles of the Virgin</i>, <i>The + Wise and Foolish Virgins</i>, dramas more varied, with more numerous + characters, more elaborate mounting, and with the interest relatively more + concentrated. + </p> + <p> + COMEDY.—Comedy, as a rule very gross in character, enjoyed wide + esteem, especially in the fourteenth century. What were performed under + the title of <i>Carnival Games</i> were generally nothing but <i>fables</i> + in dialogue, domestic scenes, incidents in the market, interludes at the + cross-roads. Here was the vulgar plebeian joy allowing itself full + licence. The literary activity of Germany in the Middle Ages was at least + equal to that of the three literary western nations. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VIII. — THE MIDDLE AGES: ITALY + </h2> + <p> + Troubadours of Southern Italy. Neapolitan and Sicilian Poets. Dante, + Petrarch, Boccaccio. + </p> + <p> + THE TROUBADOURS.—The Italian literature of the Middle Ages is + intimately associated with the literature of the Troubadours in the south + of France. To express the case more definitely, the literature styled + "Provençal," apart from mere differences of dialect, extended from the + Limousine to the Roman campagna, and French literature existed only in the + northern and central provinces of France, the rest being Provençal-Italian + literature. The Italian Troubadours, by which I mean those born in Italy, + who must at least be cited, are Malaspina, Lanfranc Cicala, Bartolomeo + Ziorgi (of Venice), Bordello (of Mantua), etc. + </p> + <p> + NAPLES AND SICILY.—Naples and Sicily, where were founded large + universities, were the seat of a purely Italian literature in the + thirteenth century, thanks to the impetus of the Emperor Frederick II. At + this seat were Peter of Vignes (<i>Petrus de Vineis</i>), who passes as + inventor of the sonnet; Ciullo of Alcamo, author of the first known + Italian <i>canzone</i>, etc. The influence of Sicily on all Italy was such + that for long in Italy all writing in verse was termed Sicilian. + </p> + <p> + BOLOGNA; FLORENCE.—The literary centre then passed, that is in the + thirteenth century, to Bologna and Florence. Among the celebrated Tuscans + of this epoch was Guittone of Arezzo, mentioned by Dante and Petrarch with + more or less consideration; Jacopone of Todi, at once both mystic and + buffoon, in whom it has been sought, in a manner somewhat flattering to + him, to trace a predecessor of Dante; Brunetto Latini, the authentic + master of Dante, who was encyclopaedic, after a fashion, and who + published, first in French, whilst he was in Paris, <i>The Treasure</i>, a + compilation of the knowledge of his time, then, in Italian, <i>Tesoretto</i>, + a collection of maxims drawn from his previous work, besides some poetry + and translations from Latin. + </p> + <p> + The fourteenth century, which for the French, Germans, and English was the + last or even the last century but one of the Middle Ages, was for the + Italians the first of the Renaissance. Two great names dominate this + century: Dante and Petrarch. + </p> + <p> + DANTE: <i>THE DIVINE COMEDY</i>.—Dante, highly erudite, theologian, + philosopher, profound Latin scholar, not ignorant of Greek, much involved + in the agitations of his age, exiled from his home, Florence, in the + tumult of political discords, proscribed and a wanderer, coming as far as + France, studied at the University of Paris, wrote "songs," that is to say, + lyrical poetry gathered into the volume entitled <i>The Canzoniere</i>, + the <i>Vita Nuova</i>, which is also a collection of lyric efforts, though + more philosophical, and finally <i>The Divine Comedy</i>, which is a + theological epic poem. <i>The Divine Comedy</i> is composed of three + parts: hell, purgatory, and heaven. Hell is composed of nine circles which + contract as they approach the centre of the earth. There Dante placed the + famous culprits of history and his own particular enemies. The most + popular episodes of hell are Ugolino in the tower of hunger devouring his + dead children, Francesca of Rimini relating her guilty passions and their + disastrous consequence, the meeting with Sordello, the great Lord of + Mantua, ever invincibly proud, looking "like the lion when he reposes." + Purgatory is a cone of nine circles which contract as they rise to heaven. + Heaven, finally, is composed of nine globes superimposed on one another; + over each of the first seven presides a planet, the eighth is the home of + the fixed stars, and the last is pure infinity, home of the Trinity and of + the elect. The power of general imagination and of varied invention always + renewed in style, and the warmth of passion which throws life and heat + into each part, have assured Dante universal admiration. The community of + literature pre-eminently admires the hell; the eclectic have been + compelled to assert and therefore to believe that the paradise is + infinitely superior. + </p> + <p> + PETRARCH.—Petrarch, a Florentine born in exile, brought up at + Avignon, Carpentras, and Montpellier, during four fifths of his life + thought only of being a great scholar, of writing in Latin, and of + obtaining the repute of an excellent humanist. Hence his innumerable works + in Latin. But when twenty-three he was deeply affected by love for a + maiden of Avignon, and he sang of her living and dead and still triumphant + in glory and eternity, and hence his poems in Italian, the <i>Rhymes</i> + and <i>Triumphs</i>. The sensitiveness of Petrarch was admirable; never + did pure love, growing mystical and mingling with divine love, find + accents alike more profound and noble than came from this Platonist + refined with Italian subtlety. Petrarchism became a fashion among the + mediocre and a school among these above the common. In the fifteenth and + sixteenth centuries there were innumerable imitators of Petrarch in Italy, + and later still in France. It is impossible not to instance Lamartine as + the last in date. + </p> + <p> + BOCCACCIO: <i>THE DECAMERON</i>.—Immediately after these two great + men came Boccaccio, born in Paris but of Italian parentage, who resided at + Naples at the court of King Robert. He was a great admirer of Dante and + Petrarch, and himself wrote several estimable poems, but, in despair no + doubt of attaining the height of his models and also to please the taste + of Mary, daughter of King Robert, he wrote the libertine tales which are + gathered in the collection entitled <i>The Decameron</i> and which + established his fame. He is one of the purest authors, as stylist, of all + Italian literature, and may be regarded as the principle creator of prose + in his own land. + </p> + <p> + THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY IN ITALY.—The fifteenth century, less great + among the Italians than the fourteenth, yielded many wise men: Marsiglio + Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, Aurispa, etc. But omission must not be made + of poets such as Ange Politien, refined humanist, graceful lyrist; and the + earliest of dramatic poets of any rank, such as Pulci and Bojardo. In + prose note Pandolfini, master and delineator of domestic life, as was + Xenophon in Greece, and Leonardo da Vinci, the great painter who left a + treatise on his art; nor must it be forgotten that Savonarola was a + remarkably fine orator. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IX. — THE MIDDLE AGES: SPAIN AND PORTUGAL + </h2> + <h3> + Epic Poems: <i>Romanceros</i>. Didactic Books, Romances of Chivalry + </h3> + <p> + COMMENCEMENTS OF SPANISH LITERATURE.—Known Spanish literature does + not go back beyond the twelfth century. Like that of the French it began + with a <i>chanson de geste</i>, and if France has Roland, Spain has the + Cid. The <i>Poem of the Cid</i>, or <i>The Song of the Cid</i>, dates from + the commencement of the thirteenth century; in rude but expressive + language it narrates the ripe years and old age of the famous captain. + </p> + <p> + ALPHONSO X; JOHN MANUEL.—At the close of this century, Alphonso X, + King of Castile, surnamed the Sage or the Wise, versed in all the + knowledge of his time, produced, no doubt with collaborators, the + universal chronicle, history mingled with legends, of all peoples on the + earth, and the <i>Seven Parts</i>, a philosophical, moral, and legal + encyclopaedia. His nephew, Don John Manuel, regent of Castile during the + minority of Alphonso XI, a very pure and erudite writer, collated the code + of the kingdom in his <i>Book of the Child</i>, and the code of chivalry + in his <i>Book of the Knight and Squire</i>, with a series of apologues in + the volume known under the title of <i>The Count Lucanor</i>. + </p> + <p> + <i>THE ROMANCERO</i>.—Of the same period and going back to the + commencement of the thirteenth century, if not earlier, is what is called + the <i>Romancero</i>. The <i>Romancero</i> is the collection of all the + national romances, which are more or less short but are never long epic + poems. All the romances relating to a hero form the <i>Romancero</i> of + that personage, and all the <i>Romanceros</i> are called the Spanish <i>Romancero</i>. + It is in the <i>Romancero</i> of Rodriguez that we find the youth of Cid + as known to us, or approximately, for it is purified and spiritualised by + ageing and, for example, Chimanes curses Rodriguez but also asks for him + in marriage: "Oh, king ... each day that shines, I see him that slew my + father parading on horseback and loosing his falcon to my dovecot and with + the blood of my doves has he stained my skirts and he has sent me word he + will cut the hem of my robe.... He who slew my father, give him to me for + equal; for he who did me so much harm I am convinced will do me some + good." And the king said: "I have always heard said and now see that the + feminine sex is most extraordinary. Until now hath she asked of me justice + against him and now she doth ask him of me in marriage. I will do it with + a good will. I shall send him a letter, etc...." + </p> + <p> + THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.—The fifteenth century in Spain, as everywhere + else, was destitute of great works. In poetry it was the era of lovesongs + and of the influence of Italian literature, which only later was decidedly + happy. In prose may be found many chronicles extremely valuable to the + historian, and some moral works such as the <i>Dialogue of the Happy Life</i> + of Lucena and, finally, the famous <i>Amadis des Gaules</i>, an ancient + chivalric romance of unknown origin, brought to publicity in that century + by Montalvo. + </p> + <p> + PORTUGUESE LITERATURE.—Portuguese literature, which is highly + interesting though evolved in too restricted a circle, is, above all, epic + and lyrical. The Portuguese lyrics almost exclusively dealt with love; the + epic poets celebrated a certain number of salient achievements in national + history. It is only in the sixteenth century that a genuine expansion of + Portuguese literature can be noted. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER X. — THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES: FRANCE + </h2> + <p> + First Portion of Sixteenth Century: Poets: Marot, Saint-Gelais; Prose + Writers: Rabelais, Comines. Second Portion of Sixteenth Century: Poets: + "The Pleiade"; Prose Writers: Amyot, Montaigne. First Portion of + Seventeenth Century: Intellectual and Brilliant Poets: Malherbe, + Corneille. Great Prose Writers: Balzac, Descartes. Second Portion of + Seventeenth Century: Poets: Racine, Molière, Boileau, La Fontaine; Prose + Writers: Bossuet, Pascal, La Bruyère, Fénelon, etc. + </p> + <p> + THE RENAISSANCE OF LETTERS.—The sixteenth century was for France the + epoch of the Renaissance of letters. What is called the Renaissance of + letters is the result, to each race, of the closest contact of the + educated people with ancient literature, contact which sometimes + strengthened the national vein, sometimes weakened it, according to the + divergent temperaments of these races. + </p> + <p> + MAROT; SAINT-GELAIS.—The sixteenth century in France was ushered in + by Marot and Saint-Gelais. Marot was a gracious, fluent, and satiric + singer. He was infinitely witty without venom, or mannerism, or + affectation; at times he attained to a somewhat serious philosophic poesy + and also to eloquence. Saint-Gelais, because he was most emphatically + court-poet of all those who have ever been court-poets, was placed by his + contemporaries above Marot, and literary historians have left him for the + most part in that position. The truth is that his work is worthless. It + would be impossible, however, to rob him of the glory of having brought + the sonnet from Italy, where he long abode in youth. + </p> + <p> + COMINES.—In this first half of the sixteenth century must be noted + Comines, the historian of Louis XI, a political historian and a historical + statesman, remarkably subtle in perceiving the characters and temperaments + of prominent individuals, as well as a writer possessing exactitude and + limpidity rare in his generation. + </p> + <p> + RABELAIS.—Francis Rabelais, in his two epic romances, <i>Gargantua</i> + and <i>Pantagruel</i>, was erudite, capable of a certain philosophic + wisdom which has been greatly exaggerated, but above all was picturesque + to one's heart's content, and possessed the art of telling a tale as well + as any one in the wide world. He has been called "the buffoon Homer," and + the nickname may be legitimately granted to him. + </p> + <p> + THE PLEIADE.—The second half of the sixteenth century was in all + respects the more remarkable. In poetry there was the Pleiade: that is, + the true and complete "Renaissance," although Marot had already been a + good workman at its dawn. The Pleiade consisted of Ronsard, Du Bellay, + Pontus of Tyard, Remy Belleau, and others; that is, folk who wished to + give to France in French the equivalent of what the classics had produced + in nobility and beauty. They did not succeed, but they had the honour of + having undertaken the task, and they also, all said and done, produced + some fine things. + </p> + <p> + RONSARD; DU BELLAY.—If the truth must be written, Ronsard created an + epic poem which it is impossible to read, and some rather overpowering + odes after the Pindaric manner; but he wrote detached epic pieces which, + though always a trifle artificial, possess real beauty, and some <i>odelettes</i> + which are enchanting in their grace and genuineness of feeling, as well as + sonnets that are in all respects marvellous. Joachim du Bellay, on his + part, wrote sonnets which must be numbered among the most beautiful in the + French tongue—the rest often had agreeable inspirations. + </p> + <p> + DRAMATIC POETS.—Add to their group some dramatic poets who did not + yet grasp what constituted a living tragedy and who, even when they + imitated Euripides, belonged to the school of Seneca, but who knew how to + write in verse, to make a discourse, and, occasionally, a gentle elegy. To + mention only the chief, these were Jodelle, Robert Garnier, and + Montchrestien. + </p> + <p> + PROSE WRITERS: AMYOT; CALVIN.—In prose, in this second half of the + sixteenth century, there were translators like Amyot, who set forth + Plutarch in a limpid French full of ease and geniality, as well as + somewhat careless. Religious writings such as those of Calvin, in a hard + style and "dreary," as Bossuet expressed it, exhibited vigour, power, and + sobriety. Among political writers was the eloquent La Boëtie, the friend + of Montaigne, who in his <i>Discourse on Voluntary Servitude</i> + vindicated the rights of the people against <i>One</i>, that is the + monarch. Among authors of <i>Memoirs</i> were Montluc and Brantôme, + picturesque in divergent manners, but both inquisitive, well-informed, + very alert and furnishing important contributions to history. + </p> + <p> + MORALISTS: DU VAIR.—Finally, there were moralists such as Du Vair, + too long forgotten, and Montaigne. Du Vair was an eloquent orator who + exhibited plenty of courage during the troubles of the League; he left + some fine philosophical treatises: <i>The Moral Philosophy of the Stoics</i>, + <i>On Constancy and Consolation in Public Calamities</i>, etc. + </p> + <p> + MONTAIGNE.—Montaigne, less grave and stoical, a far better writer, + and one of the two or three greatest masters of prose France ever + produced, possessed excellent sense sharpened with wit and enriched with a + charming imagination. According to his humour—now stoic, next + epicurean, then sceptic—always wise and refined and also always the + sincere admirer of greatness of soul and of courage, he is the best of + advisers and of companions through life, and of him more than of anyone + else it ought to be said: "To have found pleasure in him is to have + profited by him." The sole reproach could be that he wrote a little too + much of himself, that is, in entering into personal details that could + well have been spared. + </p> + <p> + COMMENCEMENT OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.—The first half of the + seventeenth century in France was only the corollary of the sixteenth, + though naturally with some distinctive personalities and with one, + practically isolated, effort of reaction against that sixteenth century. + At that period could be found writing men, like Agrippa d'Aubigné, who + were absolutely in the spirit of the previous century; d'Aubigné, amiable, + gracious, and also fairly often witty, which is too frequently forgotten, + was ardent, passionate, a rough and violent fighter more particularly in + his <i>tragedies</i>, which are baldly crude satires, illumined with + astonishingly beautiful passages fairly frequent in recurrence, against + the Catholics and their leaders. Others of very different temperament + displayed yet more than the poets of the sixteenth century that liberty, + that fantasy, that disorder which were characteristic of the times of + Ronsard. So far as poets were concerned, that generation must be regarded + as entering on a first romanticism. Theophilus de Vian, a fine but + over-prodigal poet, without ballast, did not live long enough to grow wise + and acquire self-mastery: Cyrano de Bergerac was a brilliant madman, + sometimes sparkling with wit and imagination, but often dirty and + ridiculous. Saint-Amant possessed plenty of imagination and capacity for + exquisite poetical feeling, but he lacked taste and too often was puerile. + Wiser than they, yet themselves verbose, long-winded, slow, and spun out, + Desportes translated into French verse Italian poetry of the sixteenth + century, often with very happy turns of expression, and Bertaut, + melancholy and graceful, lacked brilliance even if he possessed poetic + emotion. + </p> + <p> + REGNIER.—Regnier the satirist, pupil of Horace and Juvenal, also + assumed the mental attitude of the sixteenth century owing to his + viridity, his crudity, his lack of avoidance of obscenity, even though he + was a true poet, vigorous, powerful, oratorical, and epigrammatical, as + well as a witty and mordant caricaturist. + </p> + <p> + PRÉCIEUX AND BURLESQUES.—Then succeeded the <i>précieux</i> and the + <i>burlesques</i>, who resembled each other, the <i>précieux</i> seeking + wit and believing that all literary art consisted in saying it did not + matter what in a dainty and unexpected fashion; the <i>burlesques</i> also + sought wit but on a lower plane, desiring to be "droll," buffoons, prone + to cock-and-bull stories or crude pranks in thought, style, and parody. + Voiture is the most brilliant representative of the <i>préieux</i> and + Scarron the most prominent of the <i>burlesques</i>. + </p> + <p> + MALHERBE.—In the midst of this unrestrained literature one man + attempted to impose reason, accuracy of mind, taste, and conciseness. This + was Malherbe, who was also a powerful lyric poet, a stylist with an ear + for melody. His influence was considerable, but forty years after his own + time; for it was the poets of 1660 who were formed of him and proclaimed + themselves his disciples. In his own day he had only Maynard and Racan as + pupils, or rather as partisans, for their work but little resembled his. + </p> + <p> + THE THEATRE.—On the stage the first portion of the seventeenth + century, certainly as far as 1636, was only the corollary of the + sixteenth. Hardy, writing without method or rule, being in addition a very + weak poet, presided in the theatre whilst Mairet, in imitation of the + Italians and in imitation too of the bulk of the dramatists of the + sixteenth century, essayed to establish formal tragedy, but without + creating much effect because his talent was of an inferior description. + </p> + <p> + At last Corneille arose and, after feeling his way a little, created + French tragedy; but as this was only in 1636, and as in the course of his + long career he came into the second half of the century, he will be dealt + with a little later. + </p> + <p> + PROSE: BALZAC; DESCARTES.—In prose, the first half of the + seventeenth century was fruitful in important works. Cardinal de Perron, + who began as an amiable elegant poetaster, became a great orator and + formidable controversialist. Guez de Balzac, a little lacking in ideas yet + an extremely good writer, though but little detached from preciosity, as + Voltaire observed, imparted harmony to his phrases both in his letters and + in his <i>Socrates a Christian</i>. Vaugelas arranged the code of the + language founded on custom. Descartes, with whose philosophic ideas we + have here nothing to do, in his broad, ample periods, well delivered and + powerfully articulated, reproduced the Ciceronian phrase though without + its rather weak grace, and in great measure formed the mould whence later + was to flow the eloquence of Bossuet. The important works of Descartes are + his <i>Discourses on Method</i>, his <i>Meditation</i>, and his <i>Treatise + on the Passions</i>. + </p> + <p> + THE GOLDEN AGE: CORNEILLE.—The second half of the seventeenth + century is in all respects the golden age of French literature. Great + poets and great prose writers were then crowded in serried ranks. To begin + with the dramatic poets, who furnished the most vivid glory of the epoch, + there was Corneille, who, from 1636, with <i>The Cid</i>, was in full + splendour and who before 1650 had produced his most beautiful works, <i>Cinna</i>, + <i>The Horaces</i>, <i>Polyeucte</i>, continued for twenty-four years + after 1650 to furnish the stage with dramas that often possessed many fine + qualities, among which must be cited <i>Don Sancho of Aragon</i>, <i>Nicomedes</i>, + <i>Oedipus</i>, <i>Sertorius</i>, <i>Sophonisba</i>, <i>Titus and Berenice</i>, + <i>Psyche</i> (with Molière), <i>Rodogune Heraclius</i>, <i>Pulcheria</i>. + Corneille must be regarded as the real creator of <i>all</i> the French + drama, because he wrote comedies, tragedies, operas, melodramas. It was + therein, apart from his universal virtuosity, that he more particularly + made his mark, and in his best work he was the delineator of the human + will overcoming passions and, as it were, intoxicated with this victory + and his own power, so that he has become a great advocate of energy and a + prominent apostle of duty. + </p> + <p> + RACINE.—Racine, altogether different, without being opposed to duty, + loved to depict passions victorious over man and man the victim of his + passions and of the over-powering misfortunes therefrom resulting, thus + furnishing a moral lesson. He was a more penetrating psychologist than + Corneille, although the latter knew the human heart well, and he showed + himself infallibly wise in composition and dramatic disposition, as well + as an absolutely incomparable master of verse. His tragedies, especially + <i>Andromache</i>, <i>Britannicus</i>, <i>Berenice</i>, <i>Bajazet</i>, <i>Phèdre</i>, + and <i>Athalie</i> will always enchant mankind. + </p> + <p> + MOLIÈRE.—Molière who was admirably gifted to seize the ridiculous + with its causes and consequences, very quick and penetrating in insight, + armed with somewhat narrow but solid common-sense calculated to please the + middle classes of all time, possessed prodigious comic humour, and who + never gave the spectator leisure to reflect or breathe—in short, a + great writer although hasty and careless—created a whole répertoire + of comedy (<i>The School of Women</i>, <i>Don Juan</i>, <i>Tartufe</i>, <i>The + Misanthrope</i>, <i>Learned Ladies</i>) which left all known comedy far + behind, which eliminated all rivalry in his own time, knew eclipse only in + the middle of the eighteenth century, and for the last hundred and forty + years has proved the delight of Europe. He remains the master of universal + comedy. + </p> + <p> + BOILEAU.—Boileau was only a man of good sense, of ability, and of + excellent taste, who wrote verse industriously. This was not enough to + constitute a great poet but enough to make him what he was, a diverting + and acute satirist, an agreeable moralist and critic in verse—which + his master Horace had been so often—expert, dexterous, and + possessing much authority. His <i>Poetic Art</i> for long was the tables + of the law of Parnassus, and even now can be read not only with pleasure + but even with profit. + </p> + <p> + LA FONTAINE.—La Fontaine was one of the greatest poets of any epoch. + He had a profound sentiment for nature, a fine and penetrating knowledge + of the character of men he depicted under the names of animals; he was + free and fantastic as a philosopher but well instructed and sometimes + profound; he had a gentle and smiling sensibility capable at times of + melancholy and also now and again of a delicious elegiac; above all, he + was endowed with incomparable artistic sense, which rendered him the + safest and most dexterous manipulator of verse, of rhythms, and of musical + sonorities, who appeared in France prior to Victor Hugo. It is much more + difficult to state what he lacked than to enumerate the multiple and + miraculous gifts with which he was endowed. His complete lack of morality + or his ingenuous carelessness in this respect formed the only subject for + regret. + </p> + <p> + SECONDARY ABILITY.—Near such great geniuses, it is only possible to + mention those of secondary talent; but no compunction need be felt at + alluding to Segrais, a graceful manufacturer of eclogues, and Benserade, + who rhymed delightfully for masquerades and was capable, on occasions, of + being wittily but also tenderly elegiac. + </p> + <p> + GREAT PROSE WRITERS.—The writers in prose of the second half of the + seventeenth century are legion and but few fail to attain greatness. La + Rochefoucauld, in his little volume of <i>Maxims</i>, enshrined thoughts + that were often profound in a highly accurate and delicate setting. + Cardinal de Retz narrated his tumultuous career in his <i>Memoirs</i>, + which are strangely animated, vivid, and representative of what occurred. + Arnauld and Nicole have explained their rigid Catholicism, which was + Jansenism, in solid and luminous volumes; the latter, more especially, + merits consideration and in his <i>Moral Essays</i> proved an excellent + writer. Mezeray, conscientious, laborious, circumstantial as well as + capable writer, should be reckoned as the earliest French historian. + Bourdaloue, sound logician and good moralist, from his pulpit as a + preacher uttered discourses that were admirable, though too dogmatically + composed, and painted word-pictures that piously satirised the types and + the eccentrics of his day. Malebranche, reconsidering what Descartes had + thought and revitalising his conclusions, arranged in his <i>Research + after Truth</i> a complete system of spiritualist and idealistic + philosophy which he rendered clear, in spite of its depth, and extremely + attractive owing to the merits of his powerful and facile imagination and + of his rich, copious, and elastic style, that attained the happy mean + between conversation and instruction. But five writers of the highest rank + came into the perennial forefront, attracting and retaining general + attention: Pascal, Bossuet, Mme. de Sévigné, La Bruyère, and Fénelon. + </p> + <p> + PASCAL.—Pascal, a scholar and also by scientific education + mathematician, geometrician, physician, turned, not to letters which he + scorned, but to the exposition of those religious ideas which at the age + of thirty-three were precious to him. To defend his friends the Jansenists + against their foes the Jesuits, he wrote <i>The Provincial Letters</i> + (1656), which have often been regarded as the foremost monument of classic + French prose; such is not our view, but they certainly form a masterpiece + of argument, of dialectics, of irony, of humour, of eloquence, and are + throughout couched in a magnificent style. Dying whilst still young, he + left notes on various subjects, more particularly religion, philosophy, + and morality, which have been collected under the title of <i>Thoughts</i> + and are the product of a great Christian philosopher, of a profound + moralist, of a marvellously concise orator, and also of a poet who lacked + neither acute sensitiveness nor vast and imposing imagination. + </p> + <p> + BOSSUET.—Bossuet is universally admitted to be the king of French + orators; all his life he preached with a serious, imposing, vast, copious, + and sonorous eloquence, fed from recollections of Holy Writ and of the + Fathers, being insistent, convincing, and persuasive. His few funeral + orations (on Henrietta of France, Henrietta of England, the Prince de + Condé) are prose poems of glory, grief, and piety. He wrote against all + those he regarded as enemies of true religion (<i>History of Variations</i>, + <i>Quarrels of Quietness</i>), controversial works sparkling with irony + and exalted eloquence. He traced in his <i>Universal History</i> the great + design in all its stages of God towards humanity and the world. He knew + all the resources of the French language and of French style, and in his + hands they were expanded. Despite his errors, which were those of his + epoch, his date counts in the history of France as a great date, the date + in which the religion to which he belonged reached its apogee and when the + grand style of French prose was in its zenith. + </p> + <p> + MADAME DE SÉVIGNÉ.—Madame de Sévigné only wrote letters to her + friends; but they were so witty, lively, picturesque, admirable in aptly + recounting the anecdotes of her day and in depicting the scenes and those + concerned in them, written in a style so brisk and seductive, uniting the + promise of 1630 with the harvest of 1670, that her work still remains one + of the greatest favourites with people of literary taste. + </p> + <p> + She was the friend of M. de la Rochefoucauld, of Cardinal de Retz, and of + that amiable, refined, and gentle Mme. de la Fayette, whose novel, <i>The + Princess of Cleves</i>, is still read with interest and emotion. + </p> + <p> + LA BRUYÈRE.—La Bruyère translated and continued Theophrastus; he was + a moralist, or rather a depicter of morals. He described the court, the + town, and (very rarely) the village and the country. He was on the lookout + for fools in order to be their scourge. He painted, or, better still, he + engraved in an incisive way that was sharp, like aqua-fortis. Almost + invariably bitter to an extreme, he sometimes had flashes of quite + unexpected and very singular sensibility which make him beloved. Somewhat + in imitation of La Rochefoucauld, but more particularly in conformity with + his own nature, he developed a brief, concise, brusque style which became + that of the moralist and even of the general author for the next fifty + years, a style which was that of Montesquieu and Voltaire, and superseded + the broad, sustained, balanced, harmonious, and measured style of the + majority of the writers of the eighteenth century. In the field of + ridicule, wherein he sowed copiously, more so even than Molière, the comic + poets of the eighteenth century came to glean copiously, which did them + less credit (for it is better to observe than to read) than it conferred + on the wise and ingenious author of the <i>Characters</i>. + </p> + <p> + FÉNELON.—Fénelon, extremely individual and original, having on every + subject ideas of his own which were sometimes daring, often practical, + always generous and noble, was a preacher like Bossuet; also like Bossuet, + he was a dexterous, skilled, and formidable controversialist, whilst, for + the instruction of the Duke of Burgundy, which had been confided to him, + he became a fabulist, an author of dialogues, in some degree a romancer or + epic poet in prose in his famous <i>Telemachus</i>, overadmired, then + overdepreciated, and which, despite weaknesses, remains replete with + strength and dazzling brilliance. Nowadays there is a marked return to + this prince of the Church and of literature, whose brain was complex and + even complicated, but whose heart was quite pure and his reasoning on a + high level. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XI. — THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES: ENGLAND + </h2> + <p> + Dramatists: Marlowe, Shakespeare. Prose Writers: Sidney, Francis Bacon, + etc. Epic Poet: Milton. Comic Poets. + </p> + <p> + ELIZABETHAN AGE: SPENSER.—In England the Elizabethan Age is the + period extending from the commencement of the reign of Elizabeth to the + end of her successor, James I; that is, from 1558 to 1625. This was the + golden age of English literature: the epoch in which, awakened or excited + by the Renaissance, her genius gave forth all its development in fruits + that were marvellous. + </p> + <p> + First, there was Spenser, alike impregnated with the Italian Renaissance + and gifted with the slightly fantastic imagination of his own countrymen, + who wrote eclogues, in his <i>Shepheard's Calender</i>, in imitation of + Theocritus and Virgil as well as of the Italians of the sixteenth century, + and who gave charming descriptions in his <i>Faerie Queene</i>. + </p> + <p> + Next came Sidney, the sonnetist, at once passionate and precious, and then + that highest glory of this glorious period, the dramatic poets. + </p> + <p> + THE STAGE: MARLOWE.—As in France, the English stage in the Middle + Ages had been devoted to the performance of mysteries (under the name of + <i>miracles</i>), later of moralities. As in France, tragedy, strictly + speaking, was constituted in the sixteenth century. Towards its close + appeared Marlowe, a very great genius, still rugged but with extraordinary + power, more especially lyrical. His great works are <i>Doctor Faustus</i> + and <i>Edward II</i>. + </p> + <p> + SHAKESPEARE.—Then (at the same time as the rest, for they are of + about the same age, though Marlowe appeared the earlier) came William + Shakespeare, who is perhaps the greatest known dramatic poet. His immense + output, which includes plays carelessly put together and, one may venture + to say, negligibly, also contains many masterpieces: <i>Othello</i>, <i>Romeo + and Juliet</i>, <i>Macbeth</i>, <i>Hamlet</i>, <i>The Taming of the Shrew</i>, + <i>The Merry Wives of Windsor</i>, <i>As You Like It</i>, and <i>The + Tempest</i>. The <i>types</i> and personages of Shakespeare, which have + remained celebrated and are still daily cited in human intercourse, + include Othello, that tragic figure of jealousy; Romeo and Juliet, the + young lovers separated by the feuds of their families but united in death; + Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, the ambitious criminals; Hamlet, the young man + with a great mind and a great heart but with a feeble will which collapses + under too heavy a task and comes to the verge of insanity; Cordelia, the + English Antigone, the devoted daughter of the proscribed King Lear; + Falstaff, glutton, coward, diverting and gay, a kind of Anglo-Saxon + Panurge. A whole dramatic literature has come from Shakespeare. To France + he was introduced by Voltaire and then scorned by him because he had + succeeded only too well in popularising him; subsequently he was exalted, + praised to hyperbole, and imitated beyond discretion by the romantics. In + addition to his dramatic works, Shakespeare left <i>Sonnets</i>, some of + which are obscure, but the majority are perfect. + </p> + <p> + BEN JONSON.—Ben Jonson, classical, exact, pretty faithful imitator + of the writers of antiquity, interested in unusual characters and customs, + gifted with a ready and lively imagination in both comedy and tragedy like + Shakespeare, succeeded especially in comedy (<i>Every Man in his Humour</i>, + <i>The Silent Woman</i>, etc.). Beaumont and Fletcher, who wrote in + collaboration, are full of elevation, of delicacy and grace expressed in a + style which is regarded by their fellow-countrymen as exceptionally + beautiful. + </p> + <p> + PROSE WRITERS: LYLY; SIDNEY; BACON; BURTON.—In prose this amazing + period was equally productive. Lyly, who corresponds approximately to the + French Voiture, created <i>euphemism</i>: that is, witty preciosity. + Sidney, in his <i>Arcadia</i> furnished a curious example of the chivalric + romance. Further in his <i>Defence of Poesie</i>, he founded literary + criticism. Francis Bacon, historian, moralist, philosopher, perhaps + collaborator with Shakespeare, has a place equally allocated to him in a + history of literature as in a history of philosophical ideas. Robert + Burton, moralist or rather <i>Meditator</i>, who gave himself the + pseudonym of Democritus Junior because he was consumed with sadness, left + a great work, but one in which there are many quotations, called <i>The + Anatomy of Melancholy</i>. There is much analogy between him and the + French Sénancour. Sterne, without acknowledgment, profusely pilfered from + him. He is thoroughly English. He did not create melancholy but he greatly + contributed to it and made a specialty of it. Despite his pranks and + whimsicality, he possessed high literary merit. + </p> + <p> + POETRY: WALLER.—The English seventeenth century, strictly speaking, + virtually commencing about 1625, was inferior to the sixteenth, that has + just been considered, which is easily explained by the civil wars + distracting England at this period. In poetry, on the one hand, may be + noticed the softened and pleasing Epicureans, of which the most prominent + representative was Waller, a witty man of the world, who dwelt long in + France, and was a friend of Saint-Évremond (who himself spent a portion of + his life in England). Waller made a very fine eulogy of his cousin + Cromwell, later another of Charles II, and was told by the latter, "This + is not so good as that on Cromwell," whereupon he replied, "Sire, you know + that poets always succeed better in fiction than in fact." Here was a man + of much wit. + </p> + <p> + HERBERT; HABINGTON.—Also must be remarked the austere and mystical + such as George Herbert, with his <i>Temple</i>, a collection of religious + and melancholy poems, and like Habington, sad and gloomy even as far as + the thirst for dissolution, analogous to the modern Schopenhauer: "My God, + if it be Thy supreme decree, if Thou wilt that this moment be the last + wherein I breathe this air, my heart obeys, happy to retire far from the + false favours of the great, from betrayals where the just are preyed + upon...." + </p> + <p> + DRAMATIC POETS.—Let the estimable dramatic poets be alluded to. + Davenant, perhaps a son of Shakespeare; Otway, the illustrious author of + <i>Venice Preserved</i> and of many adaptations from the French (<i>Titus + and Berenice</i>, the <i>Tricks of Scapin</i>, etc.); Dryden, declamatory, + emphatic, but admirably gifted with dramatic genius, author of <i>The + Virgin Queen</i>, <i>All for Love</i> (Cleopatra), <i>Don Sebastian</i>, + was always hesitating between the influence of Shakespeare and that of the + French, over-inclined, too, to licentious scenes but pathetic and + eloquent. + </p> + <p> + MILTON.—Quite apart arose Milton, the imperishable author of <i>Paradise + Lost</i>, the type and model of the religious epic permeated, in fact, + with profound and ardent religious feeling, but also possessing very + remarkable grandeur and philosophical breadth. Milton became a second + Bible to the people to whom the Bible was the inevitable and essential + daily study. To <i>Paradise Lost</i>, Milton added the inferior <i>Paradise + Regained</i> and the poem of <i>Samson</i>. Apart from his great religious + poems, Milton wrote Latin poems (especially in his youth) which are + extremely agreeable, and also works in prose, generally in relation to + polemical politics, which came from a vigorous and exalted mind. Milton, + from the aspect of his prodigious productiveness and his varied life, + divided between literature and the intellectual battles of his times, is + comparable to Voltaire, reservation being made for his high moral + character, wherein no comparison can be entertained with the French + satirist. He did himself full justice. Having become blind, he wrote: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Cyriack, this three years' day these eyes, though clear, + To outward view, of blemish or of spot, + Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot; + Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear + Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year, + Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not + Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot + Of heart or hope, but still bear up and steer + Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask? + The conscience, friend, to have lost them overplied + In Liberty's defence, my noble task, + Of which all Europe rings from side to side. + This thought might lead me through the world's vain mask + Content, though blind, had I no better guide." +</pre> + + <p>NOTABLE PROSE WRITERS.—In prose must be noted, on the austere side, + George Fox, founder of the sect of Quakers, impassioned and powerful + popular orator, author of the <i>Book of Martyrs</i>; John Bunyan, an + obstinate ascetic, author of <i>Grace Abounding</i>, a kind of edifying + autobiography, and of <i>The Pilgrim's Progress</i>, which became one of + the volumes of edification and of spiritual edification to the emigrant + founders of the United States of America; on the side of the Libertines, + Wycherley, who, thoroughly perceiving the moral lowness, fairly well + concealed, which lies at the source of Molière, carried this Gallic vein + to an extreme in shameless imitations of <i>The School for Women</i> and + <i>The Misanthrope</i> (<i>The Country Wife</i> and <i>The Plain Dealer</i>); + delightful Congreve, a far more amusing companion—witty, spiritual, + sardonic, writing excellently, knowing how to create a type and charming + his contemporaries whilst not failing to write for posterity in his <i>Old + Bachelor</i>, <i>Love for Love</i>, and <i>Way of the World</i>. + </p> + <p> + NEWTON; LOCKE.—It must not be forgotten that at this epoch Newton + and Locke, the one belonging more to the history of science and the other + to the history of philosophy, both wrote in a manner entirely commensurate + with their genius. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XII. — THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES: GERMANY + </h2> + <h3> + Luther, Zwingli, Albert Dürer, Leibnitz, Gottsched + </h3> + <p> + NO RENAISSANCE.—The great originality of Germany from the literary + point of view—perhaps, too, from others—is that she <i>had no + renaissance</i>, no contact, at all events close, with classic antiquity. + Her temperament was no doubt hostile; the Reformation, that is, the + impassioned adoption of a primitive unadulterated Christianity + conservative and directly opposed to antiquity whether pagan or + philosophical, added to the repugnance. However that may be, the fact + remains: Germany enjoyed no renaissance. + </p> + <p> + LUTHER.—Also in the sixteenth century in Germany, as in France in + the fourteenth century, there was only popular poetry, and all the prose + is German, all reformist, all moralising, and has little or practically no + echo of antiquity. Luther, by his translation of the Bible into the vulgar + tongue, by his <i>prefaces</i> to each book of the Bible, in his polemical + writings (<i>The Papacy and its Members</i>, <i>The Papacy Elevated at + Rome by the Devil</i>, etc.), by his <i>Sermons and Letters</i>, gave to + Teutonic thought a direction which long endured, and to Teutonic prose a + solidity, purity, sobriety, and vigour which exercised an immense + influence on human minds. + </p> + <p> + THE REFORMERS.—Following Luther, Zwingli, Hutten, Eberling, + Melanchthon (but in Latin), Erasmus (most frequently in Latin but + sometimes in French) spread the new doctrine or doctrines in relation + thereto. + </p> + <p> + ERASMUS; ALBERT DÜRER; GOTTSCHED.—An exception must be made about + Erasmus in what has just been observed. With a very unfettered mind, often + as much in opposition to the side of Luther as to the side of Rome, and + also prone to attack the pure humanists who styled themselves Ciceronians, + Erasmus was a humanist, an impassioned student of ancient letters, so that + he has one foot in the Renaissance and one in reform, and withal possessed + a very original brain, and was, from every aspect, "ultra-modern." + </p> + <p> + Albert Dürer must also be cited: mathematician, architect, painter, yet + belonging to our subject by his <i>four books on the human proportion</i> + wherein he shows, in chastened and precise style, that he himself is + nothing less than the earliest founder of Teutonic æstheticism. + </p> + <p> + The seventeenth century—extending it, as is reasonable enough, up to + the region of 1730—is almost exclusively the era of French influence + and a little, if desired, of Italian influence. The critic Gottsched (<i>Poetic + Art, Grammar, Eloquence</i>) maintained the excellence of French + literature and the necessity of drawing inspiration from it with an energy + of conviction which drew on him the hatred of the succeeding generation. + </p> + <p> + LEIBNITZ.—German poetry of his period, possessing neither + originality nor power, could only interest the erudite and the searchers. + The domain of prose is more enthralling. Leibnitz, who wrote in Latin and + French, and even in German, is pre-eminently the great thinker he is + reputed to be; but though he never possessed nor even pretended to possess + originality in style, he is nevertheless highly esteemed for the purity, + limpidity, and facility of his language. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIII. — THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES: ITALY + </h2> + <p> + Poets: Ariosto, Tasso, Guarini, Folengo, Marini, etc. Prose Writers: + Machiavelli, Guicciardini, Davila. + </p> + <p> + THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.—Italy, after Dante and Petrarch, possessed + literary strength and much literary glory in the sixteenth century. She + produced an admirable pleiad of poets and prose writers of high merit. + These were Ariosto, Tasso, Berni, Sannazaro, Machiavelli, Bandello, + Guicciardini. Below them were a hundred distinguished writers, among which + must be cited Aretino, Folengo, Bembo, Baldi, Tansillo, Dolce, Benvenuto + Cellini, Hannibal Caro, and Guarini. + </p> + <p> + ARIOSTO.—Ariosto wrote <i>Orlando Furioso</i>, which is not the epic + in parody, as has been too often observed, but the gay and joyous epopee + of Orlando and his companions. The principal characters are Orlando, + Charlemagne, Renaud, Agramant, Ferragus, Angelica, Bradamante, Marphisa. + The tone is extremely varied and the author is in turns joyous, satirical, + pathetic, melancholy, and even tragical. Ariosto is the superlative poet + of fantastic imagination combined with a foundation of good sense, reason, + and benevolence. Goethe has said of him very aptly: "From a cloud of gold + wisdom sometimes thunders sublime sentences, whilst to a harmonious lute, + folly seems to riot in savage digressions yet all the while maintains a + perfect measure." Ariosto was well read in the classics, but fundamentally + his master was Homer. + </p> + <p> + TASSO.—Torquato Tasso, whose life was characterised by a thousand + trials and who was long the victim of a mental malady, wrote a poem on the + crusade of Godfrey de Bouillon. The poem is full of the supernatural; the + chief characters are Renaud, Tancred, the enchantress Armida, Clorinda. + The inspiration of Tasso is specially mystic and lyrical; his facility for + description is delicious. The repute of <i>Jerusalem Delivered</i> in the + seventeenth century was immense, and all the literatures of Europe have + innumerable references to the personages and episodes of the poem. In + Italy there were fervid partisans of the superiority of Tasso over Ariosto + or of Ariosto over Tasso, and many duels on the subject, the most + bellicose being, as always happens, between those who had read neither. + </p> + <p> + BERNI.—Berni, like Ariosto, was half burlesque in the diverting + portions of his works. He wrote satires which were often virulent, + paradoxes such as the eulogy of the plague and of famine, and an <i>Amorous + Orlando</i> which is quite agreeable. The Bernesque type, that is, the + humoristic, was created by him and bears his name. + </p> + <p> + SANNAZARO.—Sannazaro wrote both in Latin and Italian. His chief + claim to fame lies in his <i>Arcadia</i>, an idyllic poem of bucolic + sentiment, destined to evoke thousands of imitations. He also produced + eclogues and sonnets in Italian which give sufficient grounds for + regarding him as one of the chief masters of that language. + </p> + <p> + MACHIAVELLI.—Great thinker, great politician, great moral + philosopher, Machiavelli possessed one of the most powerful minds ever + known. He wrote <i>The Prince</i>, <i>Discourses upon Livius</i>, an <i>Art + of War</i>, diplomatic letters and reports, for he was at one time + secretary to the Florentine Republic, a <i>History of Florence</i>, a + comedy (<i>The Mandrake</i>), romances and tales. <i>The Prince</i> is a + treatise of the art of acquiring and preserving power by all possible + means and more particularly by intelligent and discreet crime. Machiavelli + emphasised the separation, at times relative, at times absolute, which + exists between politics and morals. His <i>Discourses upon Livius</i> are + full of sense, penetration, and profundity; his light works show a + singular dexterity of thought united to a fundamental grossness which it + would be impossible to misunderstand or excuse. + </p> + <p> + BANDELLO.—Bandello is the author of novels in the vein of those of + Boccaccio or of Brantôme. His voluntary or spontaneous originality + consists in mixing licentious tales with sentences and maxims which are + most austere and moral. He also wrote elegiac odes that were highly + esteemed. His very pure style is considered in Italy to be strictly + classical. + </p> + <p> + GUICCIARDINI.—Guicciardini wrote with infinite patience, severe + conscientiousness, and imperturbable frigidity in a style that was pure, + though somewhat prolix, that <i>History of Florence</i>, virtually a + history of Italy, which from its first appearance was hailed as a classic + and has remained one. His history is altogether that of a statesman; he + passed his life among prominent public affairs, being Governor of Modena, + Parma, and Bologna, a diplomatist involved in the most important + negotiations; this historian is himself a historical personage. + </p> + <p> + FOLENGO.—Folengo wrote a macaronic poem: that is to say, one in + which Latin and Italian were mixed, called <i>Coccacius</i> (which must be + remembered because when translated into French it became the earliest + model for Rabelais), as well as <i>Orlandini</i> (childhood of Orlando), + which is amusing. Other serious works did not merit serious consideration. + </p> + <p> + ARETINO.—Aretino was a satirist and a poet so fundamentally + licentious that he has remained the type of infamous author. He wrote + comedies (<i>The Courtesan</i>, <i>The Marshal</i>, <i>The Philosopher</i>, + <i>The Hypocrite</i>), intimate letters that are extremely interesting for + the study of the customs of his day, religious and edifying books, replete + with talent if not with sincerity, as well as an innumerable mass of + satires, pamphlets, statements, diatribes which caused all the princes of + his day to tremble, and through making them tremble also brought gold into + the coffers of Aretino; he had raised blackmail to the height of a + literary department. + </p> + <p> + BEMBO; BALDI.—Cardinal Bembo, a devout Ciceronian to the verge of + fanaticism, wrote more especially in Latin, but left Italian poems of much + elegance and charm; he ranks among the most brilliant representatives of + the Italian Renaissance. + </p> + <p> + Baldi, a very widely versed scholar, sought relaxation from his erudition + in writing <i>eclogues</i>, <i>moral poems</i>, and a very curious + didactic poem on <i>navigation</i>. + </p> + <p> + TANSILLO; DOLCE.—Tansillo, a very fertile poet, composed a rather + licentious poem entitled <i>The Vintager</i>, and a religious poem called + <i>The Tears of St. Peter</i> (which the younger Malherbe thought so + beautiful that he partially translated it), <i>The Rustic Prophet</i> and + <i>The Nurse</i>, wherein he showed himself the pupil of Tasso, comedies, + a bucolic drama, etc. + </p> + <p> + Dolce, not less prolific, produced five epic poems of which the best is <i>The + Childhood of Orlando</i>, many comedies, for the most part imitations of + Plautus, tragedies after Euripides and Seneca, and then one which seems to + have been original and was the celebrated <i>Mariamna</i>, so often + imitated in French. He was also an indefatigable translator of Horace, + Cicero, Philostrates, etc. + </p> + <p> + BENVENUTO CELLINI.—The great sculptor and chaser, Benvenuto Cellini, + belongs to literary history because of his <i>Treatise on Goldsmithing and + Sculpture</i> and his admirable <i>Memoirs</i>, which are certainly in + part fictitious, but are a literary work of the foremost rank. + </p> + <p> + HANNIBAL CARO; GUARINI.—Hannibal Caro, by his <i>poems</i>, his <i>letters</i>, + his literary criticism, his comedy, <i>The Beggars</i>, and his metrical + translation of the <i>Aeneid</i>, acquired high rank in the judgment both + of Italy and Europe. + </p> + <p> + Guarini, the friend of Tasso, whom he helped in the labour of revising and + correcting <i>Jerusalem Delivered</i>, was unquestionably his pupil. Tasso + having written a bucolic poem, <i>Aminta</i>, Guarini wrote a bucolic + poem, <i>The Faithful Shepherd</i>, which has been one of the greatest + literary successes ever known. It was a kind of irregular drama mingled + with songs and dances, highly varied, poetic, pathetic sometimes in a + rather insipid way. All the <i>pastorals</i>, whether French or Italian, + and later the opera itself, can be traced to Guarini, or at least the + taste for the eclogue may be derived from the dramas Guarini originated. + This was a man whose influence has been considerable not only on + literature, but also on manners, customs, and morals. + </p> + <p> + DECADENCE OF LITERATURE.—In the seventeenth century Italian + literature indisputably was in decadence. In verse more especially, but + also in prose, it was the period of ability without depth and even without + foundation, of elegant and affected verbiage or burlesque lacking alike in + power, thought, and passion. Marini loomed large with his <i>Adonis</i>, + an ingenious mythological epic, sometimes brilliant but also lame, + sometimes full of points, but also with trifles. Great as was his + reputation in Italy, it was perhaps surpassed in France, where he was + welcomed and flattered by Marie de' Medici and hyperbolically praised by + Voiture, Balzac, Scudéry, etc. + </p> + <p> + SALVATOR ROSA; TASSONI; MAFFEI.—The great painter Salvator Rosa + devoted himself hardly less to literature; he left lyrical poems and + particularly satires which are far from lacking spirit, though often + destitute of taste. Satiric, too, was the paradoxical Tassoni, who scoffed + at Petrarch, and who in his <i>Thoughts</i>, long prior to J.J. Rousseau, + was the first, perhaps (but who knows?), to maintain that literature is + highly prejudicial to society and humanity, and who achieved fame by his + <i>Rape of the Bucket</i>: that is, by a burlesque poem on the quarrel + between the Bolognese and the inhabitants of Modena about a bucket. + </p> + <p> + Maffei (intruding somewhat on the eighteenth century), good scholar and + respected historian, produced in 1714 his <i>Merope</i>, which was an + excellent tragedy, as Voltaire well knew and also testified. + </p> + <p> + HISTORIANS AND CRITICS.—In prose there are none to point out in the + eighteenth century in Italy except historians and critics. Among the + historians must be noted Davila, who spent his youth in France near + Catherine de' Medici, served in the French armies, and on his return to + Padua devoted his old age to history. He wrote a <i>History of the Civil + Wars in France</i> which was highly esteemed, and which Fénelon + recollected when writing his <i>Letter on the Pursuits of the French + Academy</i>. The foregoing are what must be mentioned as notable + manifestations of literary activity in Italy during the seventeenth + century, but let it not be forgotten that the scientific activity of the + period was magnificent, and that it was the century of Galileo, of + Torricelli; of the <i>four</i> Cassini, as well as of so many others who + were praised, as they deserved to be, in the <i>Eulogies of the Learned</i> + of Fontenelle. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIV. — THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES: SPAIN AND + PORTUGAL + </h2> + <p> + Poets: Quevedo, Gongora, Lope de Vega, Ercilla, Calderon, Rojas, etc. + Prose Writers: Montemayor, Cervantes, etc. Portugal: De Camoens, etc. The + Stage. + </p> + <p> + POETRY: QUEVERO; GONGORA.—The sixteenth century and the first half + at least of the seventeenth century were the golden age of both Spanish + and Portuguese literature. In poetry Quevedo is the first to be noticed, + and he is also notable in prose. Born at Madrid, but compelled by the + consequences of his youthful follies to take refuge in Sicily, then back + in Spain and either at the height of his fortune near the Duke of Olivares + or else pursued, imprisoned, and tortured by that minister, he possessed + facility and force which were alike extraordinary. His poems, which are + most satirical, revealed a glow and a freshness that were very remarkable. + </p> + <p> + Gongora, like Lyly in England and Marini in Italy, enjoyed the fame of + founding a bad school. It was <i>Gongorism:</i> that is, the art of + writing not to make oneself read, which could only suit lawyers, orators, + critics, and scientists, but the art of writing to cause one's idea only + to be discovered after many efforts, or even so as to prevent its being + discovered at all. <i>Gongorism</i> belongs to every epoch, and in each + epoch is the means of scaring away the crowd, of obtaining a small band of + enthusiastic admirers, and of being able to scorn the suffrage of the + multitude. Gongora, both in Spain and in France, found devoted admirers + and imitators. + </p> + <p> + LOPE DE VEGA.—Lope de Vega was one of the greatest of the world's + poets, although he was intelligible. Prodigiously fertile, which is not + necessarily a sign of mediocrity, he published some romances in prose (<i>Dorothea + Arcadia</i>), some novels, epic or historic poems (<i>Circe, </i>Shepherds + of Bethlehem<i>, Jerusalem Conquered</i>, <i>The Beauty of Angelica</i>, + <i>The Pilgrim in his Land</i>, <i>The White Rose</i>, <i>The Tragic Crown</i>, + of which Mary Stuart is the heroine, <i>The Laurel of Apollo</i>, etc.), + burlesque and satirical poems, and dramatic poems the number of which + exceed eighteen hundred. In this mass of production may be discerned + comedies of manners, comedies of intrigue, pastorals, historical comedies + (with characters whose names are known in history), classical and + religious tragedies, mythological, philosophical, and hagiological + comedies. Despite these distinctions, which are useful as a guide in this + throng, all the dramatic work of Lope de Vega is that of imagination which + seems to owe little to practical observation and is valuable through happy + invention, dexterous composition, and the charming fertility and variety + of ideas in the details. The dramatic work of Lope de Vega (as yet + incompletely published and which probably never will be published in its + entirety) was a vast mine wherein quarried not only all the dramatic + authors but all the romancists and novelists of Europe. This prodigious + producer, who wrote millions of verses, is the Homer of Spain and more + fertile than Homer, whilst also a Homer as to whose existence there is no + doubt. + </p> + <p> + ERCILLA.—Alonso de Ercilla created a peculiar species, that of + memorialist epic poems. He was a man concerned in important events, who + took daily notes and subsequently, or even concurrently, put them into + verse. Thus Ercilla made his <i>Araucana</i>: that is, the poem of the + expedition against the Araucanians in Chili, or rather he thus wrote the + first (and best) of the three parts; later, desirous of rising to epic + heights, he had resort to the contrivances and conventional traditional + ornaments of this type of work and became dull, without entirely losing + all his skill. "This poem is more savage than the nations which form its + theme," said Voltaire in a pretty phrase which was somewhat hyperbolical. + The <i>Araucana</i> is agreeably savage in its first part without being + ferocious and fastidiously civilised in the sequels without being + contemptible. + </p> + <p> + MENDOZA.—Hurtado de Mendoza must be regarded—that proud, + gloomy, bellicose and haughty minister of Charles V—because he was + the earliest of the picaresque romancists. The picaresque method consisted + in delineating the habits of outcasts, bohemians, spongers, swindlers, and + vagrants. It lasted for about three quarters of a century. To this class + belonged <i>Guzmar of Alfargue</i>, by Mateo Aleman; <i>Marco of Obregon</i>, + by Espinel; <i>The Devil on Two Sticks</i>, by Guevara; and somewhat, in + France, the <i>Gil Bias</i> of Le Sage. Now the prototype of all these was + <i>The Lazarillo of Tormes</i>, by Hurtado de Mendoza. + </p> + <p> + GUEVARA.—A moment's heed must be paid to the amiable Antonio de + Guevara, an insinuating moralist whose <i>Familiar Letters</i> and <i>Dial + of Princes</i>, though rather affectedly grave, contain interesting + passages which commend the author to readers. He is more particularly + interesting to Frenchmen because it was from him La Fontaine borrowed his + <i>Countrymen of the Danube</i>, attributing it to Marcus Aurelius (which + led to much confusion), because the principal personage in <i>The Dial of + Princes</i> is one Marcus Aurelius, who is discreetly intended for Charles + V. In spite of what Taine wrote, though his criticisms in detail were + accurate, La Fontaine followed pretty closely the fine and highly original + wording of Guevara. + </p> + <p> + THE ROMANCE.—The Spanish romance was at its zenith in the sixteenth + and seventeenth centuries. It had a legion of authors, but here the + principal only can be mentioned. Montemayor, who lived at the close of the + sixteenth century and led an adventurous existence, wrote the <i>Diana in + Love</i>, which became celebrated in every country under the title of "<i>Diana</i> + of Montemayor." It is a mythological, bucolic, and magical romance, + entirely lacking in order, being wholly fantastical, sometimes cruelly + dull, sometimes graceful, affecting, seductive, and pathetic, always + ridiculously romantic. Its vogue was considerable in Spain, France, and + Italy. The <i>Astrea</i> of Honoré d'Urfé proceeds in part from it, but is + more sensible and more restrained. + </p> + <p> + QUEVEDO.—Here Quevedo is again found, now as prose writer and in + this no worse than as poet. He was prolific in romances or satirical + fantasies, in social reveries wherein contemporary society is not spared + and Juvenal is often suggested. Finally, he put forth all his powers, + which were considerable, in his great romance, <i>Don Pablo of Segovia</i>, + which, twenty years ago, would have been called naturalist. Quevedo + obviously was an observer, possessed psychological penetration or, at + least, the wisdom of the moralist; but above all, his imagination was + curiously original, he invented, on an apparently true foundation, + adventures which were almost probable and were diverting, burlesque, or + possessed a bitter flavour. His was one of the most original brains in + Spain, which has abounded in mental originalities. + </p> + <p> + CERVANTES.—Montesquieu has said of the Spaniards: "They have only + one good book, the one which mocks at all the others." Nothing could be + more witty nor more unjust; but it is true that the greatest Spanish book + is that in which the author does mock at many other Spanish books. + Cervantes wrote his <i>Don Quixote</i> to ridicule the romances of + chivalry which in his land were a craze among the townsfolk and smaller + aristocratic landowners, but he wrote in no spirit of animosity and even + reserved for his comic hero, that is, for his victim, a discreet sympathy + which he made his reader share. A hero of chivalry himself, warrior with + indomitable courage, thrice wounded at the battle of Lepanto, where he + lost an arm, seven years in captivity in Algiers, on his return to Spain + he became involved in adventures which again consigned him to prison + before he at length attained success, if not fortune, with <i>Don Quixote</i>. + <i>Don Quixote</i> is a realistic romance traversed by a frenzied + idealist: here are the manners of the populace, of innkeepers, muleteers, + galley-slaves, monks, petty traders, peasants, and amid them passes a man + who views the entire world as a romance and who believes he finds romance + at every turn of his road. This perpetual contrast is, first, effective + and supremely artistic in itself, then is of a reality superior to that of + any realism, since it is the complete life of humanity which is thus + painted and penetrated to its very foundations and shown in all its + aspects. There are two portions to this romance, and they are constantly + near each other and, as it were, interlaced; namely, the episodes and the + conversations. The episodes, comic incidents, humorous or sentimental + adventures are of infinite variety and display incredible imagination; the + conversations between Don Quixote and his faithful Sancho represent the + two tendencies of the human mind to recognise on the one side, the + goodness, generosity, devotion, the spirit of sacrifice, and the + illusions; on the other side, common sense, the sense of reality, the + sense of the just mean and, as it were, the proverbial reason, without + malice or bitterness. This masterpiece is perhaps the one for which would + have had to be invented the epithet of <i>inexhaustible</i>. + </p> + <p> + Apart from his immortal romance, Cervantes wrote novels, romances, + sonnets, and also tried the drama, at which he did not succeed. The whole + world, literally, was infatuated with <i>Don Quixote</i>, and, despite all + changes of taste, it has never ceased to excite the admiration of all who + read. + </p> + <p> + THE DRAMA: FERDINAND DE ROJAS.—The drama, even apart from Lope de + Vega, of whom we have written, was most brilliant in Spain during these + two centuries. The Spanish stage was very characteristic, very original + among all drama in that, more than the ancient drama, more than in the + plays of Shakespeare himself, it was essentially lyrical, or, to express + the fact more clearly, it was based on a continual mixture of the lyric + and the dramatic; also it nearly always laid stress on the sentiment and + the susceptibility of honour, "the point of honour," as it was called, and + upon its laws, which were severe, tyrannical, and even cruel. These two + principal characteristics gave it a distinct aspect differing from all the + other European theatres. Without going back to the confused origins and + without expressing much interest in the Spanish drama until the religious + dramas of the <i>autos sacramentales</i>(which continued their career + until the seventeenth century), it is necessary, first, to note, at the + close of the fifteenth century, the celebrated <i>Celestine</i> of + Ferdinand de Rojas, a spirited work, unmeasured, enormous, unequal, at + times profoundly licentious, at times attaining a great height of moral + exaltation, and also at times farcical and at others deeply pathetic. <i>Celestine</i> + was translated several times in various languages, and especially in Italy + and France was as much appreciated as in Spain. + </p> + <p> + CALDERON.—In the seventeenth century (after Lope de Vega) came + Calderon. Almost as prolific as Lope, author of at least two hundred + plays, some authorities say a thousand, Calderon was first prodigiously + inventive, then he was dogmatic, moralising, almost a preacher. Whether in + his religious plays, in his love dramas, in his cap and sword tragedies, + even in his comedies and highly complicated intrigues, the great + sentiments of the Spanish soul—honour, faith, the inviolability of + the oath, loyalty, fidelity, the spirit of great adventures—broaden, + animate and elevate the whole work. With Calderon the titles are always + indicative of the subject. His most celebrated plays are: <i>In this Life + All Is Truth and Falsehood</i>, <i>Life is a Dream</i>, <i>The Devotion to + the Cross</i>, <i>The Lady before All</i>, <i>The Mayor of Zamalea</i>, <i>Love + after Death</i>, <i>The Physician of his Own Honour</i>. + </p> + <p> + ALARCON.—Alarcon comes nearer to us owing to his regular and almost + classic compositions. Nevertheless he was a man of imagination and humour + with an adequate dramatic force. His tragedies must be mentioned: <i>What + Is Worth Much Costs Much</i>, <i>Cruelty through Honour</i>, <i>The Master + of Stars</i>; his comedies, <i>The Examination of Husbands</i>, and that + charming <i>The Truth Suspected</i>, from which Corneille derived <i>The + Liar</i>. + </p> + <p> + TIRSO DE MOLINA.—Tirso de Molina was another prodigy of dramatic + literature, and his fellow-countrymen assert that he wrote three hundred + dramas, of which sixty-five are in existence. All Spanish dramatists were + unequal, he more especially; he passed from grossness to sublimity with + surprising facility and ease. He particularly delighted in ingeniously + complicated intrigue, in surprises, and in unexpected theatrical touches. + Yet <i>The Condemned in Doubt</i> is a sort of moral epopee, adapted to + the stage, possessing real beauty and not without depth. His most + celebrated drama, in so far as it has aroused direct or indirect + imitations, and owing to the type he was the first to suggest, was <i>The + Jester of Seville</i>: that is, Don Juan. All European literatures, + utilising Don Juan, became tributaries to Tirso de Molina. + </p> + <p> + FRANCIS DE ROJAS; CASTRO; DIAMANTE.—Francis de Rojas, who must not + be confused with Ferdinand de Rojas, author of <i>Celestine</i>, though + possessing less spirit than his predecessors, is nevertheless a + distinguished dramatic poet. The French of the seventeenth century freely + pilfered from him. Thomas Corneille borrowed a goodly portion of his <i>Bertrand + de Cigarral</i>, Scarron a large part of his <i>Jodelet</i>, Le Sage an + episode in <i>Gil Blas</i>. If only for their connection with the French + drama, William de Castro and Diamante must be noticed. William de Castro + wrote a play, <i>The Exploits of the Cid in Youth</i>, which Corneille + knew and which he imitated in his celebrated tragedy, adding incomparable + beauty. Diamante in his turn imitated Corneille very closely in <i>The Son + who Avenges his Father</i>. Voltaire, mistaken in dates, believed + Corneille had imitated Diamante. + </p> + <p> + PORTUGUESE WRITERS.—In Portugal the sixteenth century was the golden + age. Poets, dramatists, historians, and moralists were extremely numerous; + several possessed genius and many displayed great talent. Among lyrical + poets were Bernardin Ribeiro, Christoval Falcam, Diogo Bernardes, Andrade + Caminha, Alvarez do Oriente, Rodriguez Lobo. Ribeiro wrote eclogues half + in narrative or dialogue, half lyrical. He also produced a romance + intersected with tales (Le Sage in his <i>Gil Blas</i> thus wrote, as is + known, and in this only imitated the Spaniards), entitled <i>The Innocent + Girl</i>, which often evinces great refinement. + </p> + <p> + Christoval Falcam was also bucolic, but his eclogues often ran to nine + hundred verses. He also wrote <i>Voltas</i>, which are lyric poems + suitable for setting to music. Diogo Bernardes also wrote eclogues and + letters collected under the title of the <i>Lyma</i>. The Lyma is a river. + To Bernardes the Lyma was what the Lignon was to D'Urfé in his <i>Astrea</i>. + </p> + <p> + Caminha, a court poet decidedly analogous to the French Saint-Gelais, + possessed dexterity and happy phraseology. Eclogues, elegiacs, epitaphs, + and epistles were the ordinary occupations of his muse. + </p> + <p> + Alvarez do Oriente has left a great romanesque work, a medley of prose and + verse entitled <i>Portugal Transformed</i> (<i>Lusitania transformanda</i>), + which is extremely picturesque apart from its idylls and lyrical poems. + </p> + <p> + Lobo was highly prolific. He was author of pastoral romances, medleys of + verse and prose (<i>The Strange Shepherd</i>, <i>The Spring</i>, <i>Disenchantment</i>), + a great epic poem (<i>The Court at the Village</i>), in prose + conversations on moral and literary questions which have remained classic + in Portugal, as well as romances and eclogues. + </p> + <p> + EPIC POETS.—The most notable epic poets were Corte-Real, Manzinho, + Pereira de Castro, Francisco de Saa e Menezès, Doña de la Lacerda, and, + finally, the great Camoens. Corte-Real, a writer of the highest talent, + was author of an epic which we would style a romance in verse, although + founded on fact, upon <i>The Shipwreck of Sepulveda</i> and her husband + Lianor. The varied and picturesque narrative is often pathetic. It would + be more so, to us at least, were it not for the incessant intervention of + pagan deities. + </p> + <p> + Francisco de Saa e Menezès sang of the great Albuquerque and of <i>Malaca + Conquered</i>. He mingled amorous and romantic tales with narratives and + descriptions of battles. He possessed the sense of local colour and + brilliant imagination; he has been accused of undue negligence with regard + to correction. + </p> + <p> + Doña de la Lacerda, professor of Latin literature to the children of + Philip III, although born at Porto, wrote nearly always in Spanish. The <i>Spain + Delivered</i> (from the Moors), an epic poem, is her chief work; she also + composed comedies and various poems in Spanish. On rare occasions she + wrote in Portuguese prose. + </p> + <p> + CAMOËNS.—The glory of these sound poets is effaced by that of + Camoëns. Exiled in early youth for a reason analogous to the one which + occasioned the banishment of Ovid, a soldier who lost an eye at Ceuta, + wandering in India, shipwrecked and, according to tradition, only saving + his poem which he held in one hand whilst swimming with the other, he + returned to Portugal after sixteen years of exile, assisting at the + struggles, decline, and subjection of his country, dying (1579) at the + moment when for a time Portugal ceased to have a political existence. He + wrote <i>The Lusiad</i> (that is the Portuguese), which was the history of + Vasco da Gama and of his expedition to India. The description of Africa, + the Cape of Tempests (the Cape of Good Hope), with the giant Adamaston + opposing the passage, and the description of India were the foundation of + the narrative. Episodes narrated by individuals, as in Virgil and as in + the Spanish romance, formed an internal supplement, and thus was narrated + almost all the history of Portugal, and so it came to pass that the love + of Inez de Castro and of Don Pedro formed part of the story of Vasco da + Gama. Camoëns was a powerful narrator, a magnificent orator in verse, and, + above all, a very great painter. He evinced curious taste, even as + compared with his contemporaries, such as the continual commingling of + mythological divinities with Christian truths: for instance, a prayer + addressed by Vasco to Jesus Christ was granted by Venus. It may also be + observed that the poem lacked unity and was only a succession of poems. + But, as Voltaire said, "The art of relating details, by the pleasure it + affords, can make up for all the rest; and that proves the work to be full + of great beauties, since for two hundred years it has formed the delight + of a clever race who must be well aware of its faults." + </p> + <p> + DRAMATISTS.—The principal Portuguese dramatists were Saa de Miranda, + Antonio Ferreira, Gil Vicente. Saa de Miranda was a philosophical poet or, + to express it more correctly, a poet with ideas; he broke with the eternal + idylls, eclogues, bucolics, and pastorals of his predecessors without + declining to furnish excellent examples, but more often aiming elsewhere + and higher. He also reformed the versification, introducing metres + employed in other languages, but hitherto unused in his tongue. He wrote + odes, epistles after the manner of Horace, sonnets, lyric poems in Latin, + and epic compositions. In all this portion of his work he may be compared + to Ronsard. Finally, he wrote two comedies in prose—<i>The Strangers</i> + and <i>The Villalpandios</i> (the <i>Villalpandios</i> are Spanish + soldiers, who have a recognised position in comedy). His mind was one of + the most elevated and best stored with classic literature that Portugal + ever produced. + </p> + <p> + FERREIRA.—Ferreira, who wrote lyric poems, elegiac poems, and + especially epistles, by which he gained for himself the name of the + Portuguese Horace, was more particularly a dramatist. He created <i>Farcas</i>, + which must not be regarded as farces, but as dramatic poems in which the + profane and religious are interwoven; he wrote <i>The Bristo</i>, a + popular comedy; <i>The Jealous One</i>, which was perhaps the earliest + comedy of character ever produced in Europe, and finally, a tragedy, <i>Inez + de Castro</i>, the national tragedy, a tragedy so orthodox and regular in + form that the author felt bound to introduce a chorus in the classic + manner; it is charged with pathos and handled with much art. + </p> + <p> + GIL VICENTE.—Gil Vicente, a prolific poet who wrote forty-two + dramatic pieces, two thirds in Spanish and the rest in Portuguese, touched + every branch of theatrical literature; he produced religious plays (<i>autos</i>), + tragedies, romantic dramas, comedies, and farces. His chief works are <i>The + Sibyl Cassandra</i>, <i>The Widow</i>, <i>Amadis de Gaule</i>, <i>The + Temple of Apollo</i>, <i>The Boat of Hell</i>. His comedies possess a + vivacity that is Italian rather than Portuguese. Tradition has it that + Erasmus learnt Portuguese for the sole purpose of reading the comedies of + Gil Vicente. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XV. — THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES: FRANCE + </h2> + <p> + Of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: Fontenelle, Bayle. Of the + Eighteenth: Poets: La Motte, Jean Baptiste Rousseau, Voltaire, etc. Prose + Writers: Montesquieu, Voltaire, Buffon, Jean Jacques Rousseau, etc. Of the + Nineteenth Century: Poets: Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Musset, Vigny, etc.; + Prose Writers: Chateaubriand, Michelet, George Sand, Mérimée, Renan, etc. + </p> + <p> + FONTENELLE.—The eighteenth century, which was announced, and + announced with great precision, by La Bruyère, was inaugurated by his + enemy Fontenelle. Fontenelle, nephew of Corneille, began with despicable + trifles, eclogues, operas, stilted tragedies, letters of a dandy, so he + might be justly regarded as an inferior Voiture. Very soon, because he + possessed the passion of the eighteenth century for science and + free-thought, he showed himself to be a serious man, and because he had + wit he showed himself an amusing serious man, which is rare. His <i>Dialogues + of the Dead</i> were very humorous and, at the same time, in many passages + profound; he wrote his <i>Discourses on the Plurality of</i> (Habitable) + <i>Worlds</i>; then because he was perpetual secretary of the Academy of + Sciences, came his charming and often astonishing <i>Eulogies of Sages</i>, + which ought to be regarded as the best existent history of science in the + seventeenth century and in the eighteenth up to 1740. + </p> + <p> + BAYLE.—Bayle, a Frenchman who lived in Holland on account of + religion, a journalist and lexicographer, in his <i>News of the Republic + of Letters</i> and in his immense <i>Dictionary</i>, gave proof of broad + erudition about all earthly questions, especially philosophical and + religious, guiding his readers to absolute scepticism. Fontenelle and + Bayle are the two heralds who opened the procession of the eighteenth + century. Successively must now be examined first the poets and then the + prose writers of the first half of that era. + </p> + <p> + LA MOTTE.—La Motte, as celebrated in his own time as he is forgotten + in ours, was lyricist, fabulist, dramatic orator, epical even after a + certain fashion. He wrote odes that were deadly cold, fables that were + often quite witty but affected and laboured, comedies sufficiently + mediocre, of which <i>The Magnificent Lover</i> was the most remarkable, + and a tragedy, <i>Inez de Castro</i>, which was excellent and enjoyed one + of the greatest successes of the French stage. Finally, becoming the + partisan of the modernists against the classicists, he abridged the <i>Iliad</i> + of Homer into a dozen books as frigid as his own lyric poems. He had + parodoxical ideas in literature, and, being a poet, or believing himself + one, he considered that verse enervated thought and that sentiments should + only be written in prose. It was against these tendencies that Voltaire so + vigorously reacted. + </p> + <p> + J.B. ROUSSEAU; POMPIGNAN.—Beside La Motte, being more gifted as a + poet, Jean Baptiste Rousseau was conspicuous. He wrote lyrical poems which + were cold as lyrics but were well composed and, sometimes at least, + attained a certain degree of eloquence. From Malherbe to Lamartine, + lyrical poetry was almost completely neglected by French poets, or at + least very badly treated. Jean Baptiste Rousseau had the advantage of + being nearly solitary and for approximately century was regarded as the + greatest national lyrical poet. + </p> + <p> + Le Franc de Pompignan has endured much ridicule, not the least being for a + certain naive vanity perceptible directly he passed from the south to the + north of France; but he had some knowledge; he was acquainted with Hebrew, + then a sufficiently rare accomplishment, and he was an assiduous student + of classic literature. His tragedy, <i>Dido</i>, succeeded; his <i>Sacred + Songs</i> enjoyed popularity, no matter what Voltaire might say, and + deserved their success; in his odes, which were too often cold, he rarely + succeeded—only once triumphantly, in his ode on the death of Jean + Baptiste Rousseau. + </p> + <p> + THE <i>HENRIADE</i>.—So far as poets, strictly speaking, were + concerned, the foregoing are all that have to be indicated in the first + half of the eighteenth century, except the ingenious and frigid <i>Henriade</i> + of Voltaire. + </p> + <p> + DRAMATIC POETS.—To counterbalance, the dramatic poets are numerous + and not without merit. Let us recall <i>Inez de Castro</i> by De la Motte. + Campistron, the feeble pupil of Racine (and, moreover, there could be no + pupil of Racine, so original was the latter, so closely was his genius + associated with his mind), perpetrated numerous tragedies and operas which + enjoyed the success obtained by all imitative works: that is, a success + which arouses no discussion, and which today appears to be the climax of + tediousness. + </p> + <p> + CRÉBILLON.—Crébillon followed, vigorous, energetic, violently + shaking the nerves, master of horror and of terrors, not lacking some + analogy with Shakespeare, but without delicacy or depth, never even giving + a thought to being psychological or a moralist, writing badly and to a + certain extent meriting the epithet of "the barbarian" bestowed on him by + Voltaire. + </p> + <p> + The latter was infatuated with the drama, having the feeling for beautiful + themes and for new and original topics, adapting them to the stage with + sufficient aptitude, delighting, in addition, in pomp, mimicry, and + decorativeness, and causing tragedy to lean towards opera, which in his + day was no bad thing; but weak in execution, never creating characters + because he could not escape from himself, as moderate in psychology and + morality as Crébillon himself and replacing analysis of passion by these + and philosophical commonplaces. He left tragic dramas which until about + 1815 enjoyed success, but which then fell into a disregard from which + there is no probability they will ever emerge. + </p> + <p> + COMIC POETS.—The comic poets of this period were highly agreeable. + The most notable were Destouches, Regnard, La Chaussée. Destouches was the + very type of the comic writers of the eighteenth century already alluded + to, who took a portrait by La Bruyère and turned it into a comedy, and + that is what was called a comedy of character. Thus he wrote <i>The + Braggart</i>, <i>The Irresolute</i>, <i>The Ungrateful</i>, <i>The + Backbiter</i>, <i>The Spendthrift</i>, etc. Sometimes he took pains to be + a trifle more original, as in <i>The False Agnes</i>, <i>The Married + Philosopher</i>; sometimes he borrowed a subject from a foreign literature + and adapted it fairly dexterously for the Gallic stage, as in <i>The + Impertinent Inquisitive</i>, taken from <i>Don Quixote</i> and <i>The + Night Drum</i>, borrowed from an English author. His versification was + dexterous and correct without possessing other merit. + </p> + <p> + REGNARD.—Regnard, on the contrary, was an original genius, though + frequently imitative of Molière. He possessed the comic spirit, gaiety, + animation, the sense of drollery, and a prodigious capacity for humorous + verse of great flexibility and incredible ease, highly superior in point + of form to that of Boileau and even of Molière, for he suggests a Scarron + perfected by Molière himself and by the Italian poets. Still alive and + probably imperishable are such works as <i>The Gamester</i>, <i>The + Universal Legatee</i>, <i>The Unexpected Return</i>. + </p> + <p> + THE DRAMA: LA CHAUSSÉE.—La Chaussée possessed a vein of the popular + novel, the serial, as we should say, and at the same time a taste for the + stage. The result was he created a new species, which in itself is no + small achievement. He created <i>the drama</i>: that is, the stage-play + wherein common people, and no longer kings and princes, affect us by their + misfortunes. This has been called by all possible names; when it is a + comedy it is described as a tearful comedy; when a tragedy, as a dramatic + tragedy. This is the drama we have known in France for a hundred and fifty + years; such as it already existed in the sixteenth century under the title + of the morality play, such as Corneille, who foresaw everything, + anticipated and predicted in his preface to <i>Don Sancho</i>: "I would + rather say, sir, that tragedy should excite pity and fear, and that in its + essentials, since there is necessity for definition. Now if it be true + that this latter feeling is only excited in us when we see those like + ourselves suffer, and that their misfortunes put us in fear of similar + calamities, is it not also true that we can be more strongly moved by + disasters arriving to people of our own rank, having resemblance to + ourselves, than by the picture of the overthrow from their thrones of the + greatest monarchs, who can have no relation to us except in so far as we + are susceptible to the passions that overwhelmed them, which is not always + the case?" This domestic tragedy La Chaussée wrote in verse, which is not + against French rules, and which has been done by dramatists a hundred and + twenty years later; but it is probably an error, being even more unlikely + that citizens would express themselves in metre than that kings and heroes + should give utterance with a certain solemnity which entails rhythm. Thus + he wrote <i>The Fashionable Prejudice</i>, <i>The School of Friends</i>, + <i>Melanide</i>, very pathetic, <i>The School of Mothers</i>, etc. It must + be stated that he wrote his plays in verse somewhat systematically; he had + made his first appearance in literature by a defence of versification + against the doctrines of La Motte. + </p> + <p> + PIRON.—According to the old system, but in original verse, Piron, + after having met with scant success in tragedy, wrote the delicious <i>Metromania</i> + which, with <i>The Turcaret</i> of Le Sage, <i>The Bad Man</i> of Gresset, + the masterpieces of Marivaux and the two great comedies of Beaumarchais + rank among the seven or eight superior comedies produced in the eighteenth + century. + </p> + <p> + GREAT PROSE WRITERS: MONTESQUIEU.—In prose, writers, and even great + writers, were abundant at this period. Immediately after Fontenelle and + Bayle appeared Montesquieu, sharp, malicious, satirical, already profound, + in <i>The Persian Letters</i>, a great political philosopher and master of + jurisprudence in <i>The Spirit of Laws</i>, a great philosophical + historian in <i>The Grandeur and Decadence of the Romans</i>. The + influence of Montesquieu on Voltaire, no matter what the latter may have + said; on Rousseau, however silent the latter may have been about it; on + Mably, on Raynal, on the encyclopaedists, on a large portion of the men in + the French Revolution, on the greatest minds of the nineteenth century, + has been profound and difficult to measure. As writer he was concise, + collected, and striking, seeking the motive and often finding it, seeking + the formula and invariably finding it—Tacitus mingled with Sallust. + </p> + <p> + LE SAGE; SAINT-SIMON.—In considering Le Sage and Saint-Simon, it is + not, perhaps, the one who is instinctively thought of as a novelist who + really was the greater romancer. They each wrote at the same time as + Montesquieu. Saint-Simon narrated the age of Louis XIV as an eyewitness, + both with spirit and with a feeling for the picturesque that were alike + inimitable, expressed in a highly characteristic fashion, which was often + incorrect, always incredibly vigorous, energetic, and masterful. Le Sage, + in the best of all French styles, that of the purest seventeenth century, + narrated Spanish stories in which he mingled many observations made in + Paris, and set the model for the realistic novel in his admirable <i>Gil + Blas</i>. As a dramatist he will be dealt with later. + </p> + <p> + MARIVAUX; PRÉVOST.—Marivaux also essayed the realistic novel in his + very curious <i>Marianne</i>, full of types drawn from contemporary life + and drawn with an art which was less condensed but as exact as that of La + Bruyère, and in his <i>Perverted Peasant</i> with an art which was more + gross, but still highly interesting. + </p> + <p> + The Abbé Prévost, much inferior, much overpraised, generally insipid in + his novels of adventure, once found a good theme, <i>Manon Lescaut</i>, + and, though writing as badly as was his wont, evoked tears which, it may + be said, still flow. + </p> + <p> + HISTORY: DRAMA.—In history Voltaire furnished a model of vivid, + rapid, truly epic narration in his <i>History of Charles XII</i>, and an + example, at least, of exact documentation and of contemporaneous history + studied with zeal and passion in his <i>Philosophical Letters on England</i>. + On the stage, in prose there were the pretty, witty, and biting light + comedies of Dancourt, De Brueys and Palaprat, and Dufresny, then the + delicious drama, at once fantastic and perceptive, romantic and + psychological, of Marivaux, who, in <i>The Legacy</i>, <i>The False + Confidences</i>, <i>The Test</i>, <i>The Game of Love and of Shame</i>, + showed himself no less than the true heir of Racine and the only one + France has ever had. + </p> + <p> + VOLTAIRE.—In the second portion of the eighteenth century, Voltaire + reigned. He multiplied historical studies (<i>Century of Louis XIV</i>), + philosophies (<i>Philosophical Dictionary</i>), dramas (<i>Zaïre</i>, <i>Mérope</i>, + <i>Alzire</i> [before 1750], <i>Rome Saved</i>, <i>The Chinese Orphan</i>, + <i>Tancred</i>, <i>Guèbres</i>, <i>Scythia</i>, <i>Irene</i>), comedies (<i>Nanine</i>, + <i>The Prude</i>), romances(<i>Tales and Novels</i>), judicial + exquisitions (the Calas, Labarre, and Sirven cases), and articles, + pamphlets, and fugitive papers on all conceivable subjects. + </p> + <p> + THE PHILOSOPHERS.—But the second generation of philosophers was now + reached. There was Diderot, philosophical romancer (<i>The Nun</i>, <i>James + the Fatalist</i>), art critic(<i>Salons</i>), polygraphist (collaboration + in the Encyclopaedia); there was Jean Jacques Rousseau, philosophic + novelist in <i>The New Héloise</i>, publicist in his discourse against <i>Literature + and the Arts and Origin of Inequality</i>, schoolmaster in his <i>Emilius</i>, + severe moralist in his <i>Letters to M. d'Alembert on the Spectacles</i>, + half-romancer, charming, impassioned, and passion-inspiring in the + autobiography which he called his Confessions; there was Duclos, + interesting though rather tame in his <i>Considerations on the Manners of + this Century</i>; there was Grimm, an acute and subtle critic of the + highest intelligence in his <i>Correspondence</i>; then Condillac, + precise, systematic, restrained, but infinitely clear in the best of + diction in his <i>Treatise on the Sensations</i>; finally Turgot, the + philosophical economist, in his <i>Treatise on the Formation and + Distribution of Wealth</i>. + </p> + <p> + BUFFON; MARMONTEL; DELILLE.—Philosophy, meditation on great + problems, filled almost all the literary horizon, while scientific + literature embraced a score of illustrious representatives, of which the + most impressive was Buffon, with his <i>Natural History</i>. Nevertheless, + in absolute literature there were also names to cite: Marmontel gave his + <i>Moral Tales</i>, his <i>Belisarius</i>, his <i>Incas</i>, and his <i>Elements + of Literature</i>. + </p> + <p> + Delille, with his translation in verse of the <i>Georgics</i> of Virgil, + commenced a noble poetic career which he pursued until the nineteenth + century; Gilbert wrote some mordant satires which recalled Boileau, and + some farewells to life which are among the best lyrics; Saint Lambert sang + of <i>The Seasons</i> with felicity, and Roucher treated the same theme + with more vivid sensibility. + </p> + <p> + THE STAGE.—On the stage, a little before 1750. Gresset gave his <i>Wicked + Man</i>, which was witty and in such felicitous metre that it carried the + tradition of great comedy in verse; Diderot, theorist and creator of the + drama in prose, followed La Chaussée, and produced <i>The Father of a + Family</i>, <i>The Natural Son</i>, and <i>Is He Good, Is He Bad</i>? + being the portrait of himself. Innumerable dramas by the fertile Mercier + and a score of others followed, including Beaumarchais, himself a devotee + of the drama, but only able to succeed in comedy, wherein he gave his two + charming works, <i>The Barber of Seville</i> and <i>The Marriage of Figaro</i>. + </p> + <p> + ANDRÉ CHÉNIER.—Almost on the verge of the Revolution, quite + unexpectedly there emerged a really great poet, André Chénier, + marvellously gifted in every way. As the poet of love he recalled Catullus + and Tibullus; in political lyricism he suggested d'Aubigny, though with + more fervour; as elegiac poet he possessed a grace that was truly Grecian; + as the poet of nature he employed the large manner of Lucretius; in + polemical prose he was remarkably eloquent. Struck down whilst quite young + amid the turmoil of the Revolution, he bequeathed immortal fragments. No + doubt he would have been the greatest French poet between Racine and + Lamartine. + </p> + <p> + BERNARDIN DE SAINT-PIERRE.—In prose, his contemporary, Bernardin de + Saint-Pierre, primarily was a man of genius, since he wrote that immortal + idyllic romance, <i>Paul and Virginia</i>; subsequently he became a + gracious and amiable pupil of Jean Jacques Rousseau, being smitten with + the sentiment of nature in his <i>Harmonies of Nature</i>; finally he + attained a great importance in literary history as the creator of exotic + literature through the descriptions he wrote of many lands: Asia, African + isles traversed and studied by him, Russia, and Germany. + </p> + <p> + THE REVOLUTIONARY ORATORS.—During the revolutionary period may be + pointed out the great orators of the Assembly: Mirabeau, Barnave, Danton, + Vergniaud, Robespierre; the ill-starred authors of national songs: Marie + Joseph Chénier; the author of the <i>Marseillaise</i>, Rouget de Lisle, + who only succeeded on the day that he wrote it. And so we reach the + nineteenth century. + </p> + <p> + THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.—At the commencement of a century which was + so brilliant from the literary aspect, James Delille was despotic: his + earlier efforts have already been attended to. A skilled versifier, but + without fire or many ideas, he made cultured translations from Virgil and + Milton, wrote perennially descriptive poems, such as <i>The Man in the + Fields</i>, <i>The Gardens</i>, etc., and a witty satirical poem on <i>Conversation</i>, + which, in our opinion, was the best thing he wrote. + </p> + <p> + GREAT POETS: LAMARTINE.—Great poets were to come. Aroused, without + doubt, by the poetic genius of the prose writer Chateaubriand, the first + generation of the romantics was formed by Lamartine, Victor Hugo, and + Alfred de Vigny. Romanticism was the preponderance of imagination and + sensibility over reason and observation. Lamartine rebathed poetry in its + ancient and eternal sources: love, religion, and the sentiment of nature. + In his <i>Meditations</i>, his <i>Harmonies</i>, and his <i>Contemplations</i>, + he reawoke feelings long slumbering, and profoundly moved the hearts of + men. In <i>Jocelyn</i> he widened his scope, and, emerging from himself, + narrated, as he imagined it, the story of the soul of a priest during the + Revolution, and subsequently in the obscurity of a rural parish; in <i>The + Fall of an Angel</i> he reverted to the life of primaeval man as he + conceived it to be when humanity was still barbarous. Apart from his + poetic works, he wrote <i>The History of the Girondins</i>, which is a + romanesque history of almost the whole of the Revolution, some novels, + some autobiographic episodes, and a few discourses on literature. + </p> + <p> + VICTOR HUGO.—Victor Hugo, though less sensitive than Lamartine but + more imaginative, began with lyrical poems which were somewhat reminiscent + of the classical manner, then went on to pictures of the East, thence to + meditations on what happened to himself, and on all subjects (<i>Autumn + Leaves</i>, <i>Lights and Shades</i>); next, in full possession of his + genius, he dwelt on great philosophical meditations in his <i>Contemplations</i>, + and in <i>The Legend of the Centuries</i> gave that epic fragment which is + a picture of history. His was one of the most powerful imaginations that + the world has ever seen, as well as a <i>creator of style</i>, who made a + style for himself all in vision and colour, and also in melody and + orchestration. Although in prose he lacked one part of his resources, he + utilised the rest magnificently, and <i>Notre Dame</i> and <i>The + Miserable</i> are works which excite admiration, at least in parts. Later, + he will be dealt with as a dramatist. + </p> + <p> + ALFRED DE VIGNY.—Alfred de Vigny was the most philosophical of these + three great poets, though inferior to the other two in creative + imaginativeness. He meditated deeply on the existence of evil on earth, on + the misfortunes of man, and the sadness of life, and his most despairing + songs, which were also his most beautiful, left a profound echo in the + hearts of his contemporaries. Some of his poems, such as <i>The Bottle in + the Sea</i>, <i>The Shepherd's House</i>, <i>The Fury of Samson</i>, are + among the finest works of French literature. + </p> + <p> + MUSSET; THÉOPHILE GAUTIER.—The second generation of romanticism, + which appeared about 1830, possessed Alfred de Musset and Théophile + Gautier as chief representatives. They bore little mutual resemblance, be + it said, the former only knowing how to sing about himself, his pleasures, + his illusions, his angers, and, above all, his sorrows, always with + sincerity and in accents that invariably charmed and sometimes lacerated; + the latter, supremely artist, always seeking the fair exterior and + delighting in reproducing it as though he were a painter, a sculptor, or a + musician, and excellent and dexterous in these "transpositions of art," + whether they were in verse or prose. + </p> + <p> + THE PROSE WRITERS: CHATEAUBRIAND.—The French prose writers of this + first half of the nineteenth century were emphatically poets, as had also + already been Jean Jacques Rousseau and even Buffon. Imagination, + sensibility, and the sentiment for nature were the mistresses of their + faculties. Chateaubriand was the promoter of all the literary movement of + the nineteenth century, alike in prose and poetry. He was a literary + theorist, an epic poet in prose, traveller, polemist, orator. His great + literary theory was in <i>The Genius of Christianity</i>, and consisted in + supporting that all true poetic beauties lay in Christianity. His epic + poems in prose are <i>The Natchez</i>, a picture of the customs of + American Indians, <i>The Martyrs</i>, a panorama of the struggle of + paganism at its close and of Christianity at its beginning; his travels + were <i>The Voyage in America</i> and <i>The Itinerary from Paris to + Jerusalem</i>. Member of the parliamentary assemblies, ambassador and + minister, he wrote and spoke in the most brilliant and impassioned manner + on the subjects that he took up. Finally, falling back on himself, as he + had never ceased to do more or less all through his career, he left, in + his marvellous <i>Memoirs from Beyond the Tomb</i>, a posthumous work + which is, perhaps, his masterpiece. His infinitely supple and variegated + style formed a continuous artistic miracle, so harmonious and musical was + it more musical even than that of Jean Jacques Rousseau. + </p> + <p> + MME. DE STAËL.—At the same time, though she died long before him, + Mme. de Staël, by her curious and interesting, though never affecting, + novels, <i>Delphine</i> and <i>Corinne</i>, by her dissertations on + various serious subjects, by her work on Germany, which initiated the + French into the habits and literature of neighbours they were ill + acquainted with, also directed the minds of men into new paths, and she + was prodigal of ideas which she had almost always borrowed, but which she + thoroughly understood, profoundly reconsidered, and to which she imparted + an appearance of originality even in the eyes of those who had given them + to her. + </p> + <p> + THE HISTORIANS.—Even the historians of this first half of the + century were poets: Augustin Thierry, who reconstituted scientifically but + imaginatively <i>The Merovingian Era</i>; Michelet, pupil of Vico, who saw + in history the development of an immense poem and cast over his account of + the Middle Ages the fire and feverishness of his ardent imagination and + tremulous sensitiveness. Guizot and Thiers can be left apart, for they + were statesmen by education and, although capable of passion, sought the + one to rationally generalise and "discipline history," as was said, the + other solely to capture facts accurately and to set them out clearly in + orderly fashion. + </p> + <p> + THE PHILOSOPHERS.—The philosophers were not sheltered from this + contagion, and if Cousin and his eclectic school loved to attach + themselves to the seventeenth century both in mind and style, Lamennais, + first in his <i>Essay on Indifference</i>, then in his <i>Study of a + Philosophy</i> and in his <i>Words of a Believer</i>, impassioned, + impetuous, and febrile, underwent the influence of romanticism, but also + gave to the romantics the greater portion of the ideas they put in verse. + </p> + <p> + THE NOVEL.—As for the novel, it was only natural that it should be + deeply affected by the spirit of the new school. George Sand wrote lyrical + novels, if the phrase may be used—and, as I think, it is here the + accurate expression—entitled <i>Indiana</i>, <i>Valentine</i>, <i>Mauprat</i>, + and especially <i>Lelia</i>. She was to impart wisdom later on. + </p> + <p> + It even happened that a mind born to see reality in an admirably accurate + manner, saw it so only by reason of the times, or at least partly due to + the times, associated it with a magnifying but deforming imagination + converting it into a literary megalomania; and this was the case of Honoré + de Balzac. + </p> + <p> + NON-ROMANTIC LITERATURE.—Nevertheless, as was only natural, + throughout the whole of the romantic epoch there was an entire literature + which did not submit to its influence, and simply carried on the tradition + of the eighteenth century. In poetry there was the witty, malicious, and + very often highly exalted Béranger, whose songs are almost always + excellent songs and sometimes are odes; and there was also the able and + dexterous but frigid Casimir Delavigne. In prose there was Benjamin + Constant, supremely oratorical and a very luminous orator, also a + religious philosopher in his work <i>On Religions</i>, and a novelist in + his admirable <i>Adolphus</i>, which was semi-autobiographical. + </p> + <p> + Classical also were Joseph de Maistre, in his political considerations (<i>Evenings + in St. Petersburg</i>), and, in fiction, Mérimée, accurate, precise, + trenchant, and cultured; finally in criticism, Sainte-Beuve, who began, it + is true, by being the theorist and literary counsellor of romanticism, but + who was soon freed from the spell, almost from 1830, and became author of + <i>Port Royal</i>. Though possessing a wide and receptive mind because he + was personified intelligence, he was decisively classical in his + preferences, sentiments, ideas, and even in his style. + </p> + <p> + Stendhal, pure product of the eighteenth century, and even exaggerating + the spirit of that century in the dryness of his soul and of his style, a + pure materialist writing with precision and with natural yet intentional + nakedness, possessed valuable gifts of observation, and in his famous + novel, <i>Red and Black</i>, in the first part of the <i>Chartreuse of + Parma</i>, and in his <i>Memoirs of a Tourist</i>, knew how to draw + characters with exactness, sobriety, and power, and to set them in reliefs + that were remarkably rare. + </p> + <p> + THE STAGE.—The drama was very brilliant during this first half of + the nineteenth century. The struggle was lively for thirty or thirty-five + years between the classicists and the romanticists; the classics defending + their citadel, the French stage, much more by their polemics in the + newspapers than by the unimportant works which they brought to the <i>Comédie + française</i>, the romantics here producing nearly all the plays of Hugo (<i>Hernani</i>, + <i>Marion de Lorme</i>, <i>Ruy Blas</i>, <i>The Burghers</i>, etc.), and + the works of Vigny(<i>Othello</i>, <i>Marshal d'Ancre</i>), as well as the + dramas of Dumas (<i>Henry III and his Court</i>, etc.). Between the two + schools, both of which were on the stage nearer to the modern than to the + antique, the dexterous Casimir Delavigne, with almost invariable success, + gave <i>Marino Faliero</i>, <i>Louis XI</i>, <i>The Children of Edward</i>, + <i>Don Juan of Austria</i>, and <i>Princess Aurelia</i>, which was pretty, + but without impassioned interest. + </p> + <p> + A veritable dramatic genius, although destitute of style, of elevation of + thought and of ideas, but a prodigious constructor of well-made plays, was + Eugène Scribe, who, by his dramas and comedies, as well as the libretti of + operas, was the chief purveyor to the French stage between 1830 and 1860. + </p> + <p> + ROMANTICISM AND REALISM.—So far as pure literature was concerned, + the second half of the nineteenth century was divided between enfeebled + but persistent romanticism and realism. Théophile Gautier, in 1853, gave + his <i>Enamels and Cameos</i>, his best poetic work, and later (1862) his + <i>Captain Fracasse</i>. Hugo wrote his <i>Miserables</i>, the second and + third <i>Legends of the Centuries</i>, <i>Songs of the Streets and the + Woods</i>, etc. + </p> + <p> + A third romantic generation, of which Théodore de Banville was the most + brilliant representative, and which proceeded far more from Gautier than + from Hugo or De Musset, pushed verbal and rhythmic virtuosity to the limit + and perhaps beyond. Then great or highly distinguished poets appeared. + </p> + <p> + FAMOUS POETS.—Leconte de Lisle, philosophical poet, attracted by + Indian literature, by pessimism, by the taste for nothingness, and the + thirst for death, forcing admiration by his sculptural form and majestic + rhythm; Sully-Prudhomme, another philosopher, especially psychological, + manipulating the lyrical elegy with much art and, above all, infusing into + it a grave, sad, and profound sensibility which would have awakened the + affection and earned the respect of Catullus, Tibullus, and Lucretius; + Francis Coppée, the poet of the joys and sorrows of the lowly, a dexterous + versifier too, and possessed of a sincerity so candid as to make the + reader forget that there is art in it; Baudelaire, inquisitive about rare + and at times artificial sensations, possessing a laborious style, but + sometimes managing to produce a deep impression either morbid or + lugubrious, considered by an entire school which is still extant as one of + the greatest poets within the whole range of French literature; Verlaine, + extremely unequal, often detestable and contemptible, but suddenly + charming and touching or revealing a religious feeling that suggests a + clerk of the Middle Ages; Catulle Mendès, purely romantic, wholly + virtuoso, but an astonishingly dexterous versifier. To these poets some + highly curious literary dandies set themselves in opposition, being + desirous of renovating the poetic art by ascribing more value to the sound + of words than to their meaning, striving to make a music of poesy and, in + a general way—which is their chief characteristic—being + difficult to understand. They gave themselves the name of symbolists, and + accepted that of decadents; they regarded Stephen Mallarmé either as their + chief or as a friend who did them honour. This school has been dignified + by no masterpieces and will probably ere long be forgotten. + </p> + <p> + REALISTIC LITERATURE.—Confronting all this literature, which had a + romantic origin even when it affected scorn of the men of 1830, was + developed an entire realistic literature composed almost exclusively of + writers in prose, but of prose imbued with poetry written by some who had + read the romantics and who would not have achieved what they did had + romanticism not already existed, a fact which they themselves have not + denied, and which is now almost universally accepted. Flaubert, whose + masterpiece, <i>Madame Bovary</i>, is dated 1857, was very precisely + divided between the two schools; he possessed the taste for breadth of + eloquence, for the adventurous, and for Oriental colouring, and also the + taste for the common, vulgar, well visualised, thoroughly assimilated + truth, tersely portrayed in all its significance. But as he has succeeded + better, at least in the eyes of his contemporaries, as a realist than as a + man with imagination, he passes into history as the founder of realism + always conditionally upon considering Balzac as possessing much of the + vigorous realism which provided the impulse and furnished models. + </p> + <p> + NATURALISM.—From the realism of Flaubert was born the naturalism of + Zola, which is the same thing more grossly expressed. Also by his + energetic, violent, and tenacious talent, as well as by a weighty though + powerful imagination, he exercised over his contemporaries a kind of + fascination which it would be puerile to regard as an infatuation for + which there was no cause. + </p> + <p> + More refined and even extremely delicate, though himself also fond of the + small characteristic fact; possessed, too, with a graceful and gracious + sensibility, Alphonse Daudet often charmed and always interested us in his + novels, which are the pictorial anecdotes of the Parisian world at the + close of the second Empire and the opening of the third Republic. + </p> + <p> + The brothers De Goncourt also enjoyed notable success, being themselves + absorbed in the exceptional deed and the exceptional character whilst + possessing a laboured style which is sometimes seductive because of its + unlooked-for effects. + </p> + <p> + THE POSITIVISTS.—Two great men filled with their renown an epoch + already so brilliant; namely, Renan and Taine, both equally historians and + philosophers. Renan composed <i>The History of the Children of Israel</i> + and <i>The Origins of Christianity</i>, as well as various works of + general philosophy, of which the most celebrated is entitled <i>Philosophical + Dialogues</i>. Taine wrote the history of <i>The Origins of Contemporary + France</i>: that is, the history of the French Revolution, and sundry + philosophical works of which the principal are <i>On Intelligence</i> and + <i>The French Philosophers of the Eighteenth Century</i>. Both were + "positivists," that is to say, elevating Auguste Comte, who has his place + in the history of philosophy, but not here, because he was not a good + writer; both were positivists, but Renan possessed a lively and profound + sense of the grandeur and the moral beauty of Christianity, Taine being + imbued with more philosophic strictness. Renan, with infinite flexibility + of intelligence, applied himself to understand thoroughly and always (with + some excess) to bring home to us the great figures of the Bible, the + Gospels, and the early Christians, as well as their foes down to the time + of Marcus Aurelius. Further, he affirmed science to possess <i>unique</i> + value in his <i>Future of Science</i>; elsewhere, under the similitude of + "dreams," he indulged in conceptions, hypotheses, and metaphysical + imaginations which were voluntarily rash and infinitely seductive. As + always happens, he possessed the style of his mind, supple, sinuous, + undulating, astonishingly plastic, insatiable, and charming, evoking the + comment, "That is admirably done and it is impossible to know with what it + is done." + </p> + <p> + TAINE.—Taine, more rigid, accumulating documents and methodically + arranging them in a method that refuses to be concealed, advances in a + rectilineal order, step by step, and with a measured gait, to a solid + truth which he did not wish to be either evasive or complex. Highly + pessimistic and a little affecting to be so, just as Renan was optimistic + and much affected being so, he believed in the evil origin of man and of + the necessity for him to be drastically curbed if he is to remain + inoffensive. He has written a history of the Revolution wherein he has + refused admiration and respect for the crimes then committed, which is why + posterity now begins to be very severe upon him. His learned style is + wholly artificial, coloured without his being a colourist, composed of + metaphors prolonged with difficulty, yet remaining singularly imposing and + powerful. He was a curious philosopher, an upright, severe, and rather + systematic historian, solid and laboriously original as a writer. + </p> + <p> + BRUNETIÈRE.—Brunetière, of the great French thinkers before our + contemporaneous epoch, was critic, literary historian, philosopher, + theologian, and orator. As critic, he defended classic tradition against + bold innovations, and, especially, moral literature against licentious or + gross literature; as a literary historian he renovated literary history by + the introduction of the curious, audacious, and fruitful theory of + evolution, and his <i>Manual of the History of French Literature</i> was a + masterpiece; as philosopher he imparted clearness and precision into the + system of Auguste Comte, whose disciple he was; as theologian, exceeding + Comte and utilising him, he added weight to Catholicism in France by + finding new and decisive "reasons for belief"; as orator he raised his + marvellously eloquent tones in France, Switzerland, and America, making + more than a hundred "fighting speeches." Since the death of Renan and + Taine, he has been the sole director of French thought, which he continues + to guide by his books and by the diffusion of his thought among the most + vigorous, serious, and meditative minds of the day. + </p> + <p> + THE CONTEMPORANEOUS DRAMA.—The drama, since 1850, has been almost + exclusively written in prose. Emil Augier, however, composed some comedies + and dramas in verse and in verse particularly suited to the stage; but the + major portion of his work is in prose, whilst Alexander Dumas and Sardou + have written exclusively in prose. Augier and Dumas came from Balzac, and + remained profoundly realistic, which was particularly suitable to authors + of comedy. They studied the manners of the second Empire and depicted them + wittily; they studied the social questions which agitated educated minds + at this time and drew useful inspiration. Augier leant towards good + middle-class common-sense, which did not prevent him from having plenty of + wit. Dumas was more addicted to paradox and possessed as much ability as + his rival. Victorien Sardou, as dexterous a dramatic constructor as + Scribe, and who sometimes rose above this, dragged his easy tolerance from + the grand historic drama to the comedy of manners, to light comedy and to + insignificant comedy with prodigious facility and inexhaustible fertility. + </p> + <p> + The most admired living authors, whom we shall be content only to name + because they are living, are poets: Edmond Rostand, author of <i>Loiterings</i>; + Edmond Haraucourt, author of <i>The Naked Soul</i> and <i>The Hope of the + World</i>; Jean Aicard, author of <i>Miette el Noré</i>; Jean Richepin, + author of <i>Césarine</i>, <i>Caresses</i>, <i>Blasphemies</i>, etc.; in + fiction, Paul Bourget, Marcel Prévost, René Bazin, Bordeaux, Boylesve, + Henri de Régnier; in history, Ernest Lavisse, Aulard, Seignobos, + D'Haussonville; in philosophy, Boutroux, Bergson, Théodule Ribot, + Fouillée, Izoulet; in the drama, Paul Hervieu, Lavedan, Bataille, Brieux, + Porto-Riche, Bernstein, Wolff, Tristan Bernard, Edmond Rostand, author of + <i>Cyrano de Bergerac</i> and of <i>The Aiglon</i>; as orators, Alexander + Ribot, De Mun Poincaré, Jaurès, etc. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVI. — THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES: ENGLAND + </h2> + <p> + Poets of the Eighteenth Century: Pope, Young, MacPherson, etc.: Prose + Writers of the Eighteenth Century: Daniel Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, + Swift, Sterne, David Hume. Poets of the Nineteenth Century: Byron, + Shelley, the Lake Poets: Prose Writers of the Nineteenth Century: Walter + Scott, Macaulay, Dickens, Carlyle. + </p> + <p> + THE REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE: POETS.—As in France, the eighteenth century + (the age of Queen Anne) was in England richer in prose than in poetry. As + poets, however, must be indicated Thomson, descriptive and dramatic, whose + profound feeling for nature was not without influence over French writers + of the same century; Pope, descriptive writer, translator, moralist, + elegiast, very intelligent and highly polished, whose <i>Essay on + Criticism</i> and <i>Essay on Man</i> were remarkably utilised by + Voltaire; Edward Young, whose <i>Night Thoughts</i> enjoyed the same + prodigious success in France as in England, and who contributed in no + small measure to darken and render gloomy both literatures; MacPherson, + who invented <i>Ossian</i>, that is, pretended poems of the Middle Ages, a + magnificent genius, be it said, who exercised considerable influence over + the romanticism of both lands; Chatterton, who trod the same road, but + with less success, yet was valued almost equally by the French romantic + poets, and to them he has owed at least the consolidation of his + immortality; Cowper, elegiac and fantastic, with a highly humorous vein; + Crabbe, a very close observer of popular customs and an ingenious novelist + in verse, quite analogous to the Dutch painters; Burns, a peasant-poet, + sensitive and impassioned, yet at the same time a careful artist moved by + local customs, the manifestations of which he saw displayed before his + eyes. + </p> + <p> + PROSE WRITERS.—The masters of prose (some being also true poets) + were innumerable. Daniel Defoe, journalist, satirist, pamphleteer, was the + author of the immortal <i>Robinson Crusoe</i>; Addison, justly adored by + Voltaire, author of a sound tragedy, <i>Cato</i>, is supremely a scholar, + the acute, sensible, and extremely thoughtful editor of <i>The Spectator</i>; + Richardson, the idol of Diderot and of Jean Jacques Rousseau, enjoyed a + European success with his sentimental and virtuous novels, <i>Pamela</i>, + <i>Clarissa Harlowe</i>, and <i>Sir Charles Grandison</i>. As a critic and + as a personality, Dr. Johnson has no parallel in any age or land. His <i>Dictionary</i> + is famous despite its faults, and <i>Rasselas</i>, which he wrote to pay + for his mother's funeral, can still be read. + </p> + <p> + Fielding, who began by being only the parodist of Richardson, in <i>Joseph + Andrews</i>, ended by becoming an astounding realistic novelist, the + worthy predecessor of Thackeray and Dickens in his extraordinary <i>Tom + Jones</i>. The amiable Goldsmith, more akin to Richardson, wrote that + idyllic novel <i>The Vicar of Wakefield</i>, the charm of which was still + felt throughout Europe only fifty years ago. Laurence Sterne, the most + accurate representative of English <i>humour</i>, capable of emotion more + especially ironical, jester, mystificator, has both amused and disquieted + several generations with his <i>Sentimental Journey</i> and his + fantastical, disconcerting and enchanting <i>Tristram Shandy</i>. Swift, + horribly bitter, a corrosive and cruel satirist, sadly scoffed at all the + society of his time in <i>Gulliver's Travels</i>, in <i>Drapier's Letters</i>, + in his <i>Proposal to Prevent the Children of the Poor Being a Burden</i>, + in a mass of other small works wherein the most infuriated wrath is + sustained under the form of calm and glacial irony. + </p> + <p> + HISTORY.—History was expressed in England in the eighteenth century + by David Hume, who chronicled the progress of the English race from the + Middle Ages until the eighteenth century; by Robertson, who similarly + handled the Scotch and who narrated the reign of Charles V; and by Gibbon, + so habitually familiar with the French society of his time, who followed + the Romans from the first Cæsars to Marcus Aurelius, then more closely + from Marcus Aurelius to the epoch of Constantine, and finally the + Byzantine Empire up to the period of the Renaissance. The imposing + erudition, the rather pompous but highly distinguished style of the + author, without counting his animosity to Christianity, caused him to + enjoy a great success, especially in France. The work of Gibbon is + regarded as the finest example of history written by an Englishman. + </p> + <p> + THE STAGE.—The stage in England in the eighteenth century sank far + below its importance in the seventeenth century; yet who does not know <i>She + Stoops to Conquer</i> of Goldsmith, and that sparkling and lively comedy, + <i>The School for Scandal</i>, by Sheridan? Note, as an incomparable + journalist, the famous and mysterious Junius, who, from 1769 to 1772, + waged such terrible war on the minister Grafton. + </p> + <p> + THE LAKE POETS.—In the nineteenth century appeared those poets so + familiar to the French romanticists, or else the latter pretended they + were, who were termed the lake poets, because they were lovers of the + countryside; these were Southey, Coleridge, and Wordsworth. Southey was an + epic and elegiac poet, whilst he was also descriptive; Coleridge, + philosopher, metaphysician, a little nebulous and disordered, had very + fine outbursts and some lamentable falls. Wordsworth was a most + distinguished lyricist. Lord Byron did not acquire honour by so roughly + handling Southey and Wordsworth. + </p> + <p> + THE ROMANTIC EPOCH.—The two greatest English poets of the romantic + period were Lord Byron and Shelley; the former the admirable poet of + disenchantment and of despair, gifted with a noble epic genius, creating + and vitalising characters which, it must be confessed, differed very + little from one another, but an exalted figure with a grand manner and, + except Shakespeare, the only English poet who exercised genuine influence + over French literature; the latter an idealistic poet of the most suave + delicacy, aërial and heavenly, despite a private life of the utmost + disorder and even guilt, he is one of the most perfect poets that ever + lived; a great tragedian, too, in his <i>Cenci</i>, quite unknown in + France until the middle of the nineteenth century, but since then the + object of a sort of adoration among the larger number of Gallic poets and + lovers of poetry. + </p> + <p> + Keats was as romantic as Shelley and Byron, both in spite of and because + of his desperate efforts to assimilate the Grecian spirit. He dreamt of + its heroes and its ancient myths, but there is in him little that is + Grecian except the choice of subjects, and it is not in his grand poem, <i>Endymion</i>, + nor even in that fine fragment, <i>Hyperion</i>, that can be found the + real melancholy, sensitive, and modern poet, but in his last short poems, + <i>The Skylark</i>, <i>On a Greek Vase</i>, <i>Autumn</i>, which, by the + exquisite perfection of their form and the harmonious richness of the + style, take rank among the most beautiful songs of English lyrism. + </p> + <p> + Nearer to us came Tennyson, possessing varied inspiration, epical, + lyrical, elegiac poet, always exalted and pure, approaching the classical, + and himself already a classic. + </p> + <p> + Swinburne, almost exclusively lyrical, a dexterous and enchanting + versifier, inspired by the ancient Greeks, generally evinced a highly + original poetic temperament, and Dante Rossetti, imbued with mediaeval + inspiration, possessed a powerful and slightly giddy imagination. Far less + known on the Continent, where critics may feel surprise at her necessary + inclusion here, is his sister, Christina Rossetti. Her qualities as a poet + are a touching and individual grace, much delicate spontaneity, a pure and + often profound emotion, and an instinct as a stylist which is almost + infallible. The Brownings form a celebrated couple, and about them + Carlyle, on hearing of their marriage, observed that he hoped they would + understand each other. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, translator of Aeschylus + of Theocritus, gave proof in her original poetry of a vigour, of a + vividness, and of a vigorous exuberance of similes that often recalled the + Elizabethans, but marred her work by declamatory rhetoric and by a + tormented and often obscure style. Robert Browning was yet more difficult, + owing to his overpowering taste for subtlety and the bizarre—nay, + even the grotesque. Almost ignored, or at least unappreciated by his + contemporaries, he has since taken an exalted place in English admiration, + which he owes to the depth, originality, and extreme richness of his + ideas, all the more, perhaps, because they lend themselves to a number of + differing interpretations. + </p> + <p> + THE NOVELISTS.—In prose the century began with the historical + novelist, Sir Walter Scott, full of lore and knowledge, reconstructor and + astonishing <i>reviver</i> of past times, more especially the Middle Ages, + imbuing all his characters with life, and even in some measure vitalising + the objects he evoked. None more than he, not even Byron, has enjoyed such + continuous appreciation with both French romantic poets and also the + French reading public. The English novel, recreated by this great master, + was worthily continued by Dickens, both sentimentalist and humourist, a + jesting, though genial, delineator of the English middle class, and an + accurate and sympathetic portrayer of the poor; by Thackeray, supreme + railer and satirist, terrible to egoists, hypocrites, and snobs; by the + prolific and entertaining Bulwer-Lytton, by the grave, philosophical, and + sensible George Eliot, by Charlotte Brontë, author of the affecting <i>Jane + Eyre</i>, etc., and her sister Emily, whose <i>Wuthering Heights</i> has + been almost extravagantly admired. + </p> + <p> + Four other great prose writers presenting startling divergences from one + another cannot be omitted. Belonging to the first half of the nineteenth + century, Charles Lamb earned wide popularity by his <i>Tales from + Shakespeare</i> and <i>Poetry for Children</i>, written in collaboration + with his sister Mary; but he was specially remarkable for his famed <i>Essays + of Elia</i>, wherein he affords evidence of possessing an almost + paradoxical mixture of delicate sensibility and humour, as well as of + accurate and also fantastic observation. Newman, at first an English + clergyman but subsequently a cardinal, after conversion to the Catholic + Church, appears to me hardly eligible in a history of literature in which + Lamennais has no place. As a literary man, his famous sermons at Oxford + and the Tracts exercised much influence, and provoked such impassioned and + prodigious revival of old doctrines and of an antiquated spirit in + religion; then the <i>Apologia Pro Vita Sua</i>, <i>Callista</i>, and the + <i>History of Arianism</i>, revealed him as a master of eloquence. + </p> + <p> + Ruskin, as art critic, in his bold volumes illumined with remarkable + beauty of styles, <i>Modern Painters</i>, <i>The Seven Lamps of + Architecture</i>, and <i>The Stones of Venice</i>, formulated the creed + and the school of pre-Raphaelitism. At the time of the religious revival + at Oxford, he preached a servile imitation of antiquity by the path of the + Renaissance, appealing to national and mediæval inspiration, not without + <i>naïveté</i> and archaism, none the less evident because he was sincere + and mordant. George Meredith, who died only in 1910, was a prolific and + often involved novelist (the Browning of prose), with a passion for + metaphors and a too freely expressed eclectic scorn for the multitude. + Withal, he had a profound knowledge of life and of the human soul; + impregnated with humour, he was creator of unforgettable types of + character, and no pre-occupation of his epoch was foreign to his mind, + whilst his vigorous realism always obstinately refused to turn from + contemporaneous themes, or to gratify the needs and aspirations which it + was possible to satisfy. His epitaph might well be that he understood the + women of his time, a rare phenomenon. + </p> + <p> + HISTORY.—History could show two writers of absolute superiority—Macaulay + (<i>History of England since James II</i>), an omnivorous reader and very + brilliant writer, and Carlyle, the English Michelet, feverish, passionate, + incongruous, and disconcerting, who dealt with history as might a very + powerful lyrical poet. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVII. — THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES: GERMANY + </h2> + <p> + Poets of the Eighteenth Century: Klopstock, Lessing, Wieland; Prose + Writers of the Eighteenth Century: Herder, Kant. Poets of the Nineteenth + Century: Goethe, Schiller, Körner. + </p> + <p> + THE AGE OF FREDERICK THE GREAT.—In the literature of Germany the + eighteenth century, sometimes designated under the title of the age of + Frederick the Great, forms a Renaissance or, if preferred, an awakening + after a fairly prolonged slumber. This awakening was assisted by a + quarrel, sufficiently unimportant in itself, but which proved fertile, + between Gottsched, the German Boileau, and Bodmer, the energetic + vindicator of the rights of the imagination. In the train of Bodmer came + Haller, like him a Swiss; then suddenly Klopstock appeared. <i>The Messiah</i> + of Klopstock is an epic poem; it is the history of Jesus Christ from Cana + to the Resurrection, with a crowd of episodes dexterously attached to the + action. The profound religious sentiment, the grandeur of the setting, the + beauty of the scenes, the purity and nobility of the sermon, the Biblical + colour so skilfully spread over the whole composition, cause this vast + poem, which was perhaps unduly praised on its first appearance, to be one + of the finest products of the human mind, even when all reservations are + made. German literature revived. As for Gottsched, he was vanquished. + </p> + <p> + THE POETS.—Then came Lavater, Bürger, Lessing, Wieland. Lavater, a + Swiss like Haller, is remembered for his scientific labours, but was also + a meritorious poet, and his naive and moving <i>Swiss Hymns</i> have + remained national songs; Bürger was a great poet, lyrical, impassioned, + personal, original, vibrating; Wieland, the Voltaire of Germany, although + he began by being the friend of Klopstock, witty, facile, light, and + graceful, whose <i>Oberon</i> and <i>Agathon</i> preserve the gift of + growing old felicitously, is one of the most delightful minds that Germany + produced. Napoleon did him the honour of desiring to converse with him as + with Goethe. + </p> + <p> + LESSING.—Lessing, personally, was a great author, and owing to the + influence he exercised over his fellow-countrymen, he holds one of the + noblest positions in the history of German literature. He was a critic, + and in his <i>Dramaturgie of Hamburg</i> and elsewhere, with all his + strength, and often unjustly, he combated French literature to arrest the + ascendency which, according to his indolent opinion, it exercised over the + Germans; and in his <i>Laocoön</i>, with admirable lucidity, he made a + kind of classification of the arts. As author, properly speaking, he wrote + <i>Fables</i> which to our taste are dry and cold; he made several + dramatic efforts none of which were masterpieces, the best being <i>Minna + von Barnhelm</i> and <i>Emilia Galotti</i>, and a philosophical poem in + dialogue (for it could hardly be termed drama), <i>Nathan the Sage</i>, + which possessed great moral and literary beauties. + </p> + <p> + HERDER.—Herder was the Vico of Germany. Here was the historical + philosopher, or rather the thoughtful philosopher on history. He did + everything: literary criticism, works of erudition, translations, even + personal poems, but his great work was <i>Ideas on the Philosophy of the + History of Mankind</i>. This was the theory of progress in all its breadth + and majesty, supported by arguments that are at least spacious and + imposing. From Michelet to Quinet, on to Renan, every French author who + has at all regarded the unity of the destinies of the human race has drawn + inspiration from him. His broad, measured, and highly coloured style is on + the level of the subject and conforms to it. Even in an exclusively + literary history Kant must not be forgotten, because when he set himself + to compose a moral dissertation, as, for example, the one upon lying, he + took high rank as a writer. + </p> + <p> + THE GLORIOUS EPOCH.—Thus is reached the end of the eighteenth close + on the beginning of the nineteenth century. In this intermediary epoch + shone the most glorious hour of Teutonic literature. Simultaneously + Iffland, Kotzebue, Körner, Schiller, and Goethe were to the fore. This + formed a great constellation. Iffland, actor, manager, and author, friend + and protector of Schiller, wrote numerous dramas, the principal of which + were <i>The Criminal through Ambition</i>, <i>The Pupil</i>, <i>The + Hunters</i>, <i>The Lawyers</i>, <i>The Friends of the House</i>. He was + realistic without being gloomy. He resembled the French Sédaine. Kotzebue, + who was the friend of Catherine of Russia, subsequently disgraced by her, + possessed a highly irritable and quarrelsome disposition, and was finally + killed in 1819 as a reactionary by a Liberal student, did not fall far + short of genius. He wrote a number of dramas and comedies. Those still + read with pleasure are <i>Misanthropy and Repentance</i>, <i>Hugo Grotius</i>, + <i>The Calumniator</i>, and <i>The Small German Town</i>, which has + remained a classic. + </p> + <p> + KÖRNER.—Körner, the "Tyrtaeus of Germany," was simultaneously a + brave soldier and a great lyrical poet who was killed on the battlefield + of Gadebusch, wrote lyrical poems, dramas, comedies, farces, and, above + all, <i>The Lyre and Sword</i>, war-songs imbued with splendid spirit. + </p> + <p> + SCHILLER.—Schiller is a vast genius, historian, lyrical poet, + dramatic poet, critic, and in all these different fields he showed himself + to be profoundly original. He wrote <i>The Thirty Years' War</i>; odes, + ballads, dithyrambic poems, such as <i>The Clock</i>, so universally + celebrated; dissertations of philosophic criticism, such as <i>The God of + Greece</i> and <i>The Artists</i>; finally, a whole repertory of drama + (the only point on which it is possible to show that he surpasses Goethe), + in which may be remarked his first audacious and anarchical work, <i>The + Brigands</i>, then the <i>Conjuration of Fieso</i>, <i>Intrigue and Love</i>, + <i>Don Carlos</i>, <i>Wallenstein</i> (a trilogy composed of <i>The Camp + of Wallenstein</i>, <i>The Piccolomini</i>, <i>The Death of Wallenstein</i>), + <i>Mary Stuart</i>, <i>The Betrothed of Messina</i>, <i>The Maid of + Orleans</i>, <i>William Tell</i>. By his example primarily, and by his + instruction subsequently (<i>Twelve Letters on Don Carlos</i>, <i>Letters + on Aesthetic Education</i>, <i>The Sublime</i>, etc.), he exercised over + literature and over German thought an influence at least equal, and I + believe superior, to that of Goethe. He was united to Goethe by the ties + of a profound and undeviating friendship. He died whilst still young, in + 1805, twenty-seven years before his illustrious friend. + </p> + <p> + GOETHE.—Goethe, whom posterity can only put in the same rank as + Homer, is even more universal genius, and has approached yet closer to + absolute beauty. Of Franco-German education, he subsequently studied at + Strasburg, commencing, whilst still almost a student, with the + imperishable <i>Werther</i>, to which it may be said that a whole + literature is devoted and, parenthetically, a literature diametrically + opposed to what Goethe subsequently became. Then a journey through Italy, + which revealed Goethe to himself, made him a man who never ceased to + desire to combine classic beauty and Teutonic ways of thinking, and who + was often magnificently successful. To put it in another way, Goethe in + his own land is a Renaissance in himself, and the Renaissance which + Germany had not known in either the sixteenth or seventeenth century came + as the gift of Goethe. Immediately after his return from Italy he wrote <i>Tasso</i> + (of classic inspiration), <i>Wilhelm Meister</i> (of Teutonic + inspiration), <i>Iphigenia</i> (classical), <i>Egmont</i> (Teutonic), etc. + Then came <i>Hermann and Dorothea</i>, which was absolutely classic in the + simplicity of its plan and purity of lyric verse, but essentially modern + in its picture of German customs; <i>The Roman Elegies</i>, <i>The + Elective Affinities</i>, <i>Poetry and Truth</i> (autobiography mingled + with romance), <i>The Western Eastern Divan</i>, lyrical poems, and + finally, the two parts of <i>Faust</i>. In the first part of <i>Faust</i>, + Goethe was, and desired to be, entirely German; in the second, through + many reveries more or less relative to the theme, he more particularly + desires to depict the union of the German spirit with that of classical + genius, which formed his own life, and led to <i>intelligent action</i>, + which also was a portion of his existence. And for beauty, drama, pathos, + ease, phantasy, and fertility in varied invention, nothing has ever + surpassed if anything has even equalled the two parts of <i>Faust</i> + regarded as a single poem. + </p> + <p> + Apart from his literary labours, Goethe occupied himself with the + administration of the little duchy of Weimar, and in scientific research, + notably on plants, animals, and the lines in which he displayed marked + originality. He died in 1832, having been born in 1749. His literary + career extends over, approximately, sixty years, equal to that of Victor + Hugo, and almost equal to that of Voltaire. + </p> + <p> + THE CONTEMPORANEOUS PERIOD.—After the death of Goethe, Germany could + not maintain the same height. Once more was she glorified in poetry by + Henry Heine, an extremely original witty traveller, in his <i>Pictures of + Travel</i>, elegiac and deeply lyrical, affecting and delightful at the + same time in <i>The Intermezzo</i>; by the Austrian school, Zedlitz, Grün, + and the melancholy and deep-thinking Lenau; in prose, above all, by the + philosophers, Fichte, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Hartmann, and lastly Nietzsche—at + once philosopher, moralist (after his own manner), and poet, with an + astonishing imagination; by the historians Niebuhr (before 1830), + Treitschke, Mommsen, etc. Germany seems to have drooped, so far as + literature is concerned, despite some happy exceptions (especially in the + drama: Hauptmann, Sudermann), since her military triumphs of 1870 and the + consequent industrial activity. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVIII. — THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES: ITALY + </h2> + <p> + Poets: Metastasio, Goldoni, Alfieri, Monti, Leopardi. Prose Writers: + Silvio Pellico, Fogazzaro, etc. + </p> + <p> + LITERARY AWAKENING.—After a long decadence, Italy, less overwhelmed + politically than previously, reawoke about 1750. Once more poets came + forward: Metastasio, author of tragedies and operas; Goldoni, a very witty + and gay comic poet; Alfieri who revived Italian tragedy, which had been + languishing and silent since Maffei, and who, like Voltaire in France, and + with greater success, established a philosophical and political tribune; + Foscolo, sufficiently feeble in tragedy but very touching and eloquent in + <i>The Tombs</i>, inspired by Young's <i>Night Thoughts</i> and <i>The + Letters of Jacob Ortis</i>, an interesting novelist and eloquently + impassioned patriot; Monti, versatile and master of all recantations + according to his own interests, but a very pure writer and not without + brilliance in his highly diversified poems. + </p> + <p> + EMINENT PROSE WRITERS.—Italy could show eminent prose writers, such + as those jurisprudent philanthropists Filangieri and Beccaria; critics and + literary historians like Tiraboschi. + </p> + <p> + NINETEENTH CENTURY.—In the nineteenth century may first be found + among poets that great poet, the unhappy Leopardi, the bard of suffering, + of sorrow, and of despair; Carducci, a brilliant orator, imbued with + vigorous passions; Manzoni, lyricist, dramatist, vibrating with patriotic + enthusiasm, affecting in his novel <i>The Betrothal</i>, which became + popular in every country in Europe. In prose, Silvio Pellico equally moved + Europe to tears by his book <i>My Prisons</i>, wherein he narrated the + experiences of his nine years of captivity at the hands of Austria, and + found his agreeable tragedy of <i>Francesca da Rimini</i> welcomed with + flattering appreciation. Philosophy was specially represented by Gioberti, + author of <i>The Treatise on the Supernatural</i>, and journalism by + Giordani, eloquent, at times with grace and ease, and at others with + harshness and violence. + </p> + <p> + THE MODERNS.—As these words were written came the news of the death + of the illustrious novelist Fogazzaro. Gabriel d'Annunzio, poet and + ultra-romantic novelist, and Mathilde Serao, an original novelist, pursue + their illustrious careers. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIX. — THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES: SPAIN + </h2> + <p> + The Drama still Brilliant: Moratin. Historians and Philosophers, + Novelists, Orators. + </p> + <p> + THE DRAMA. Since the middle of the seventeenth century, approximately, + Spain has exercised less literary influence than in the preceding + centuries. Nevertheless Spanish literature was not extinct; it was in the + drama more especially that it was manifest. Candamo, Cañizares, and Zamora + all illumined the stage. Candamo devoted himself to the historical drama; + his masterpiece in this type was <i>The Slave in Golden Chains</i>; + Cañizares, powerful satirist, displayed the comic spirit in his comedies + of character; Zamora manipulated the comedy of intrigue with remarkable + dexterity. Then came Vincente de la Huerta, skilful in combining the type + of French tragedy with something of the ancient dramatic national genius; + then Leandro Moratin (called Moratin the Younger to distinguish him from + his father Nicholas), very imitative, no doubt, of Molière, but in himself + highly gifted, and of whose works can still be read with pleasure <i>The + Old Man and the Young Girl</i>, <i>The New Comedy on the Coffee</i>, <i>The + Female Hypocrite</i>, etc. He also wrote lyrical poems and sonnets. He + lived long in France, where he became impregnated with Gallic classical + literature. + </p> + <p> + PROSE.—Stronger and more brilliant at that period than the poetry, + the prose was represented by Father Florez, author of <i>Ecclesiastical + Spain</i>; by the Marquis de San Phillipo, author of the <i>War of + Succession in Spain</i>; by Antonio de Solis, author of <i>The Conquest of + Mexico</i>. In fiction there was the interesting Father Isla, a Jesuit, + who gave a clever imitation of the <i>Don Quixote</i> of Cervantes in his + <i>History of the Preacher Friar Gerund</i>. He was well read and + patriotic. He was convinced that Le Sage had taken all his <i>Gil Blas</i> + from various Spanish authors, and he published a translation of his novel + under the title: <i>The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santiago, stolen from + Spain and adopted in France by M. Le Sage, restored to their country and + native tongue by a jealous Spaniard who will not endure being laughed at</i>. + Another Jesuit (and it may be noticed that Spanish Jesuits of the + seventeenth century often displayed a very liberal and modern mind), + Father Feijoo, wrote a kind of philosophical dictionary entitled <i>Universal + Dramatic Criticism</i>, a review of human opinions which was satirical, + humorous, and often extremely able. The historian Antonio de Solis, who + was also a reasonably capable dramatist, produced a <i>History of the + Conquest of South America Known under the name of New Spain</i>, in a + chartered style that was very elegant and even too elegant. Jovellanos + wrote much in various styles. Among others he wrote one fine tragedy, <i>Pelagia</i>; + a comedy presenting clever contrasts, entitled <i>The Honorable Criminal</i>; + a mass of studies on the past of Spain, economic treatises, satires, and + pamphlets. Engaged in all the historical and political vicissitudes of his + country, he expired miserably in 1811, after having been alternately in + exile and at the head of affairs. + </p> + <p> + ROMANTICISM.—In the nineteenth century Spanish romanticism was + brought back in dignified poetic style by Angel Saavedra, José Zorilla, + Ventura de la Vega, Ramon Campoamor, Espronceda. The latter especially + counts among the great literary Spaniards, for he was poet and novelist, + who wrote <i>The Student of Salamanca</i> (Don Juan), <i>The Devil World</i> + (a kind of Faust), lyrical poems, and an historical novel, <i>Sancho + Saldano</i>. + </p> + <p> + THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.—In drama, <i>Quintana</i> also produced a <i>Pelagia</i>; + the Duke of Rivas a <i>Don Alvaro</i>, which enjoyed an immediate success; + Zorilla a <i>Don Juan</i> entirely novel in conception; Martinez de la + Rose tragedies, some in the classic vein, others with modern intrigue and + comedies; Gutierrez, by his <i>Foundling</i>, attracted the attention of + librettists of French operas; Breton de los Herreros wrote sparkling + comedies, the multiplicity of which suggest Scribe. In prose, Fernan + Caballero was a fertile novelist and an attentive and accurate painter of + manner. Trueba (who was also an elegant poet) was an affecting idyllic + novelist. Emilio Castelar, the Lamartine of Spain as he was called by + Edmond About, was a splendid orator, thrown by the chances of political + life for one hour at the head of national affairs, who raised himself to + the highest rank in the admiration of his contemporaries by his novels: + for instance, <i>The Sister of Charity</i> and his works on philosophical + history and the history of art, <i>Civilisation in the First Centuries of + Christianity</i>, <i>The Life of Byron</i>, <i>Souvenirs of Italy</i>, + etc. In our day, there have been numerous distinguished authors (and for + us, at least, out of the crowd stands forth the dramatist José Echegaray), + who carry on the glorious tradition of Spanish literature. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XX. — RUSSIAN LITERATURE + </h2> + <p> + Middle Ages. Some Epic Narratives. Renaissance in the Seventeenth Century. + Literature Imitative of the West in the Eighteenth Century. Original + Literature in the Nineteenth Century. + </p> + <p> + THE MIDDLE AGES.—Russia possessed a literature even in the Middle + Ages. In the eleventh century the metropolitan Hilarion wrote a discourse + on the Old and the New Testament. In the twelfth century, the <i>Chronicle</i> + that is said to be by <i>Nestor</i> is the first historical monument of + Russia. At the same period Vladimir Monomaque, Prince of Kief, who devoted + his life to fighting with all his neighbours, left his son an + autobiographic <i>instruction</i>, which is very interesting for the light + it throws on the events and, especially, on the customs of his day. At the + same time the hegumen (abbot) Daniel left an account of his pilgrimage to + the Holy Land. In the thirteenth century (probably) another Daniel, Daniel + the prisoner, wrote from his distant place of exile to his prince a + supplicatory letter, which is astonishing because in it is found a + remarkable and wholly unexpected degree of literary talent. In the + thirteenth or fourteenth century two epic pieces, <i>The Lay of the Battle + of Igor</i> and <i>The Zadonstchina</i>, of which it is uncertain which + imitated the other, alike present vigorous and vivid accounts of battles. + In the fifteenth or sixteenth century there is a didactic work, <i>The + Domostroi</i>, which is a moral treatise, a handbook of domestic economy, + a manual of gardening, and a cookery book, etc. The Tzar Ivan the Terrible + (sixteenth century) was a dexterous diplomatist and a precise, nervous, + and ironical writer. He left highly curious letters. + </p> + <p> + RENAISSANCE.—Kutochikine (seventeenth century), who was minister in + his own land, then disgraced and exiled in Sweden, wrote an extremely + interesting book on the habits of his contemporaries. The "Renaissance," + if it may be so termed, that is, the contact between the Russian spirit + and Western genius, occurred in the eighteenth century. Prince Kantemir, + Russian ambassador in London, who knew Montesquieu, Maupertuis, the Abbé + Guasco, etc., wrote satires in the manner of Horace and of Boileau. + Trediakowski took on himself to compose a very tedious <i>Telemachidus</i>, + but he knew how to unravel the laws of Russian metre and to write odes + which at least were indicative of the right direction. + </p> + <p> + LOMONOSOV.—Lomonosov is regarded as the real father of Russian + literature, as the Peter the Great of literature—a great man withal, + engineer, chemist, professor, grammarian. Regarding him solely as a + literary man, he made felicitous essays in tragedy, lyrical poetry, epic + poetry, polished the Russian versification, established its grammar, and + imparted a powerful impulse in a multitude of directions. + </p> + <p> + CREATION OF THE DRAMA.—Soumarokoff founded the Russian drama. He was + manager of the first theatre opened in St. Petersburg (1756). In the + French vein he wrote tragedies, comedies, fables, satires, and epigrams. + He corresponded with Voltaire. The latter wrote to him in 1769: "Sir, your + letter and your works are a great proof that genius and taste pertain to + all lands. Those who said that poetry and music belonged only to temperate + climates were deeply in error. If climate were so potent, Greece would + still produce Platos and Anacreons, just as she produces the same fruits + and flowers; Italy would have Horaces, Virgils, Ariostos, and Tassos.... + The sovereigns who love the arts change the climates; they cause roses to + bud in the midst of snows. That is what your incomparable monarch has + done. I could believe that the letters with which she has honoured me came + from Versailles and yours from one of my colleagues in the Academy.... + Over me you possess one prodigious advantage: I do not know a word of your + language and you are completely master of mine.... Yes, I regard Racine as + the best of our tragic poets.... He is the only one who has treated love + tragically; for before him Corneille had only expressed that passion well + in <i>The Cid</i>, and <i>The Cid</i> is not his. Love is ridiculous or + insipid in nearly all his other works. I think as you do about Quinault; + he is a great man in his own way. He would not have written the <i>Art of + Poetry</i>, but Boileau would not have written <i>Armida</i>. I entirely + agree with what you write about Molière and of the tearful comedy which, + to the national disgrace, has succeeded to the only real comic type + brought to perfection by the inimitable Molière. Since Regnard, who was + endowed with a truly comic genius and who alone came near Molière, we have + only had monstrosities.... That, sir, is the profession of faith you have + asked of me." This letter is quoted, despite its errors, because it forms, + as it were, <i>a preface to Russian literature</i>, and also a patent of + nobility granted to this literature. + </p> + <p> + CATHERINE II.—The Empress wrote <i>in Russian</i> advice as to the + education of her grandson, very piquant comedies, and review articles. Von + Vizin, a comic author, was the first to look around and to depict the + custom of his country, which means that he was the earliest humorous + national writer. The classic works of Von Vizin were <i>The Brigadier</i> + and <i>The Minor</i>. Whilst pictures of contemporaneous manners, they + were also pleadings in favour of a reformed Russia against the Russia that + existed before Peter the Great, which still in part subsisted, as was only + natural. He made a journey to France and it will be seen from his + correspondence that he brought back a highly flattering impression. + </p> + <p> + RADISTCHEF.—Radistchef was the first Russian political writer. Under + the pretext of a <i>Voyage from Petersburg to Moscow</i>, he attacked + serfdom, absolute government, even religion, for which he was condemned to + death and exiled to Siberia. He was pardoned later on by Paul I, but soon + after committed suicide. He was verbose, but often really eloquent. + </p> + <p> + ORATORS AND POETS.—The preacher Platon, whose real name was + Levchine, was an orator full of sincerity, unction, and sometimes of real + power. He was religious tutor to the hereditary Grand Duke, son of + Catherine II. Another preacher, and his successor at the siege of Moscow, + Vinogradsky, was likewise a really great orator. It was he who, after the + French retreat from Russia, delivered the funeral oration on the soldiers + killed at Borodino. Ozerov was a classical tragedy writer after the manner + of Voltaire, and somewhat hampered thereby. Batiouchkov, although he lived + right into the middle of the nineteenth century, is already a classic. He + venerated and imitated the writers of antiquity; he was a devout admirer + of Tibullus, and wrote elegies which are quite exquisite. Krylov was a + fabulist: a dexterous delineator of animals and a delicate humourist. + Frenchmen and Italians have been alike fascinated by him, and his works + have often been translated; until the middle of the nineteenth century he + enjoyed European popularity. + </p> + <p> + THE GOLDEN AGE: PUSHKIN.—The true Russian nineteenth century and its + golden age must be dated from Pushkin. He wrote from his earliest youth. + He was an epic poet, novelist, and historian. His principal poems were <i>Ruslan + and Liudmila</i>, <i>Eugene Onegin</i>, <i>Poltava</i>; his most + remarkable historical essay was <i>The Revolt of Pugachev</i>. He + possessed a fertile and vigorous imagination, which he developed by + continual and enthusiastic study of Byron. He did not live long enough + either for his own fame or for the welfare of Russian literature, being + killed in a duel at the age of thirty-eight. Mérimée translated much by + Pushkin. The French lyric stage has mounted one of his most delicate + inspirations, <i>La Rousalka</i> (the water nymph). He was quite conscious + of his own genius and, freely imitating the <i>Exegi monumentum</i> of + Horace, as will be seen, he wrote: "I have raised to myself a monument + which no human hand has constructed.... I shall not entirely perish ... + the sound of my name shall permeate through vast Russia.... For long I + shall be dear to my race because my lyre has uttered good sentiments, + because, in a brutal age, I have vaunted liberty and preached love for the + down-trodden. Oh, my Muse, heed the commands of God, fear not offence, + claim no crown; receive with equal indifference eulogy and calumny, but + never dispute with fools." + </p> + <p> + LERMONTOV.—Lermontov was not inferior to his friend Pushkin, whom he + closely resembled. Like him he drew inspiration from the romantic poets of + the West. He loved the East, and his short, glorious suggestions came to + him from the Caucasus. Among his finest poetic works may be cited <i>The + Novice Ismael Bey</i>, <i>The Demon</i>, <i>The Song of the Tzar Ivan</i>. + He wrote a novel, perhaps autobiographical, entitled <i>A Hero of Our Own + Time</i>, the hero of which is painted in highly Byronic colours. + </p> + <p> + GOGOL.—Russian taste was already veering to the epic novel or epopee + in prose, of which Gogol was the most illustrious representative until + Tolstoy. He was highly gifted. In him the feeling for Nature was acutely + active, and recalling his descriptions of the plains of the Crimea, its + rivers and steppes, he must be regarded as the Rousseau and Chateaubriand + of Russia. Further, he was a close student of village habits, and a + painter in astonishing hues. He eminently possessed the sense of epic + grandeur, and added a sarcastic vein of delightful irony. His <i>Taras + Bulba</i>, <i>King of the Dwarfs</i>, <i>History of a Fool</i>, and <i>Dead + Souls</i>, have the force of arresting realism, his <i>Revisor</i> + (inspector of finances) is a caustic comedy which has been a classic not + only in Russia but in France, where it was introduced in translation by + Mérimée. + </p> + <p> + TURGENEV.—Turgenev, less epical than Gogol, was also studious of + local habits and dexterous in describing them. He began with exquisite <i>Huntsman's + Tales</i> impregnated with truth and precision, as well as intimate and + picturesque details; then he extended his scope and wrote novels, but + never at great length, and therefore suited to the exigencies or habits of + Western Europe (such as <i>Smoke</i>). He had selected Paris as his abode, + and he mixed with the greatest thinkers of the day: Taine, Flaubert, + Edmond About. In the eyes of his fellow-countrymen he became ultimately + too Western and too Parisian. His was a delicate, sensitive soul, prone to + melancholy and perpetually dreaming. He had a cult of form in which he + went so far as to make it a sort of scruple and superstition. + </p> + <p> + TOLSTOY.—Tolstoy, so recently dead, was a great epic poet in prose, + a very powerful and affecting novelist, and in some measure an apostle. He + began with <i>Boyhood Adolescence and Youth</i>, in itself very curious + and particularly valuable because of the idea it conveys of the life of + the lords of the Russian soil, and for its explanation of the formation of + the soul and genius of Tolstoy; then came <i>The Cossacks</i>, full of + magnificent descriptions of the Caucasus and of interesting scenes of + military and rural life; subsequently that masterpiece of Tolstoy's, <i>War + and Peace</i>, narratives dealing with the war of Napoleon with Russia and + of the subsequent period of peaceful and healthy rural life. It is + impossible to adequately admire the power of narration and descriptive + force, the fertility of incidents, characterisations, and dramatic + moments, the art or rather the gift of portraiture, and finally, the + grandeur and moral elevation, in fact, all the qualities, not one of which + he appeared to lack, of which Tolstoy gave proof and which he displayed in + this immense history of the Russian soul at the commencement of the + nineteenth century; for it is thus that it is meet to qualify this noble + creation. The only analogy is with <i>Les Misérables</i> of Victor Hugo, + and it must be admitted that despite its incomparable merits, the French + work is the more unequal. <i>Anna Karenina</i> is only a novel in the vein + of French novels, but very profound and remarkable for its analysis of + character and also impassioned and affecting, besides having considerable + moral range. <i>The Kreutzer Sonata</i> is a romance rather than a novel, + but cruelly beautiful because it exposes with singular clairvoyance the + misery of a soul impotent for happiness. <i>Resurrection</i> shows that + mournful and impassioned pity felt by Tolstoy for the humble and the + "fallen," to use the phrase of Pushkin; it realises a lofty dramatic + beauty. Tolstoy, in a thousand pamphlets or brief works, preached to his + own people and to mankind the strict morality of Christ, charity, + renunciation, peace at all price, without taking into account the + necessities of social life; and he denounced, as had Jean Jacques + Rousseau, the culpability of art and literature, being resigned to + recognising his own works as condemnable. His was the soul of an exalted + poet and a lofty poetical mind; from a poet must not be demanded practical + common sense or that feeling for reality which is demanded, often + unavailingly, from a statesman. + </p> + <p> + DOSTOEVSKY.—Dostoevsky, with a tragic genius as great as that of + Tolstoy, may be said to have been more restricted because he exclusively + delineated the unhappy, the miserable, and those defeated in life. He knew + them personally because, after being arrested in 1849 at the age of fifty + for the crime of belonging to a secret society, he spent years in the + convict prisons of Siberia. Those miseries he describes in the most exact + terms and with heart-rending eloquence in <i>Buried Alive: Ten Years in + Siberia</i>, and in the remarkable novel entitled <i>Crime and Punishment</i>. + He has lent invaluable aid in the propagation of two sentiments which have + created some stir in the West and which, assuredly, we desire to foster: + namely, "the religion of human suffering" and the cult of "expiation." + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXI. — POLISH LITERATURE + </h2> + <p> + At an Early Date Western Influence sufficiently Potent. Sixteenth Century + Brilliant; Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries highly Cultured; + Nineteenth Century Notably Original. + </p> + <p> + WESTERN INFLUENCE—Widely different from Russian literature, much + more Western, based more on Greek and Latin culture, Polish literature + holds high rank in the histories of European literature. Christians from + the tenth century, the Poles knew from this epoch religious songs written + by monks, in the vulgar tongue. To this is due the possession of the <i>Bogarodzica</i>, + a religious and bellicose song dedicated to the Virgin mother of God, + which is even now comprehensible, so little has the Polish language + changed. All through the Middle Ages, literary historians can only find + chronicles written sometimes in Latin, sometimes in the native language. + Under the influence of the universities, and also of the parliamentary + rule, the language acquired alike more consistency and more authority in + the fifteenth century, whilst the sixteenth was the golden literary epoch + of the Poles. There were poets, and even great poets, as well as orators + and historians. Such was Kochanowski, very much a Western, who lived some + time in Italy, also seven years in France, and was a friend of Ronsard. + His writings were epical, lyrical, tragical, satirical, and especially + elegiacal. He is a classic in Poland. Grochowski left a volume of + diversified poems, hymns on various texts of Thomas à Kempis, <i>The + Nights</i> of Thorn, etc. Martin Bielski, who was an historian too, but in + Latin, left two political satires on the condition of Poland, and his son + Joachim wrote a history of his native land in Polish. + </p> + <p> + SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES.—Though somewhat less brilliant + than the preceding, the period of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries + is not unfavourable to Poland. Then may be enumerated the satirical + Opalinski, the lyrical Kochanowski, the dramatist Bogulawski, manager of + the theatre at Warsaw, who not only translated plays from the French, + English, and Spanish, but himself wrote several comedies, of which <i>The + Lover, Author, and Servant</i> has remained the most celebrated. Rzewuski + was a dramatic author with such national plays as <i>Wladislas at Varna</i> + and <i>Zolkewishi</i>, and comedies as <i>The Vexations</i> and <i>The + Capricious</i>, and he also was historian, orator, literary critic, and + theorist. + </p> + <p> + Potocki was a literary and theoretical critic and founder of a sort of + Polish academy (society for the perfection of the tongue and of style). + Prince Czartoryski showed himself an excellent moralist in his <i>Letters + to Doswiadryski</i>. Niemcewicz extended his great literary talent into a + mass of diversified efforts. He wrote odes held in esteem, tragedies, + comedies, fables, and tales, historical novels, and he translated the + poems of Pope and the <i>Athalie</i> of Racine. + </p> + <p> + LITERARY RENAISSANCE.—Losing her national independence, Poland + experienced a veritable literary renaissance, which offered but slender + compensation. She applied herself to explore her origins, to regain the + ancient spirit, and to live nationally in her literature. Hence her great + works of patriotic erudition. Czacki with his <i>Laws of Poland and of + Lithuania</i>, Kollontay with his <i>Essay on the Heredity of the Throne + of Poland</i>, and his <i>Letters of an Anonymous to Stanislas Malachowski</i>, + etc., Bentkowski with his <i>History of Polish Literature</i> and his <i>Introduction + to General Literature</i>, etc. Thence came the revival of imaginative + literature, Felinski, on the one hand translator of Crébillon, Delille and + Alfieri on the other, he was the personally distinguished author of the + drama <i>Barbe Radzivill</i>; Bernatowicz, author of highly remarkable + historical novels, among which <i>Poïata</i> gives a picture of the + triumph of Christianity in Lithuania in the fourteenth century; Karpinski, + dramatist, author of <i>Judith</i>, a tragedy; <i>Alcestis</i>, an opera; + <i>Cens</i>, a comedy, etc.; Mickiewicz, scholar, poet, and novelist, who, + exiled from his own land, was professor of literature at Lausanne, then in + Paris, at the College of France, extremely popular in France, Germany, + Switzerland, and Italy, the friend of Goethe, Lamennais, Cousin, Michelet, + and of all the French youth. He was the author of fine poems, of a great + historical novel, <i>Conrade Vattenrod</i>, of <i>The People and the + Polish Pilgrims</i>, of a <i>Lesson on the Slav States</i>. + </p> + <p> + MODERN EPOCH.—At the time of writing, Poland continues to be a + literary nation well worthy of attention. She presents an example to the + races which incur the risk of perishing as nations because of their + political incapacity; by preserving their tongue and by sanctifying it + with a worthy literature they guard their country and, like the Greeks and + Italians, hope to reconquer it some day through the sudden turns of + fortune shown in history. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0026" id="link2H_4_0026"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + INDEX OF NAMES CITED + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + A + + About + Addison + Aeschines + Aeschylus + Aesop + Aicard + Alarcon + Alcasus + Alcamo, Ciullo of + Aleman + Alexander + Alfieri + Alphonso X + Alphonso XI + Alvarez + Ambrose, St. + Amyot + Anacreon + Anaxagoras + Andocides + Anne, Queen + Annunzio, Gabriel d' + Antiphon + Antonina + Antonius Diogenes + Apollonius + Appian + Apuleius + Aratus + Arcadius + Archilochus + Aretino + Ariosto + Aristophanes + Aristotle + Arnauld + Arrian + Asclepiades + Athanasius, St. + Attius + Aubigné, Agrippa d' + Augier + Augustine, St. + Augustus + Aulard + Aurispa + Ausonius + Avienus + + B + + Babrius + Bacon, Francis + Baldi + Balzac, G. de + Balzac, H. de + Bandello + Banville, T. de + Barnave + Barthari + Basil, S. + Bataille + Batiouchkov + Baudelaire + Bayle + Bazin + Beaumarchais + Beaumont + Beccaria + Belisarius + Bellay, Joachim du + Belleau + Bembo + Benserade + Bentkowski + Béranger + Bergerac, Cyrano de + Bergson + Bernard, Tristan + Bernardes + Bernatowicz + Berni + Bernstein + Bertaut + Bielski, Joachim + Bielski, Martin + Bion + Boccaccio + Bodmer + Boëtie, La + Bogulawski + Boileau + Bojardo + Bordeaux + Bordello + Bossuet + Bourdaloue + Bourget + Boutroux + Boylesve + Brantôme + Brieux + Brontë, C. + Brontë, E. + Browning, E. B. + Browning, Robert + Brueys, de + Brunetière + Brunetto + Buddha + Buffon + Bulwer-Lytton + Bunyan + Bürger + Burgundy, Duke of + Burns + Burton, Robert + Byron + + C + + Caballero + Caesar, Julius + Calderon + Callimachus + Callinos + Calvin + Caminha + Camoëns + Campistron + Campoamor + Candamo + Cañizares + Carducci + Carlyle + Caro + Cassini + Cassius + Castelar + Castro + Catherine of Russia + Cato + Catullus + Cellini, Benvenuto + Cephalon + Cervantes + Charles of Orleans + Charles II + Charles V + Chateaubriand + Chatterton + Chaucer + Chénier, André + Chénier, Marie-Joseph + Chrysippus + Chrysostom + Cicero + Claudian + Cleanthes + Coleridge + Comines + Commodian + Comnenus + Comte + Condillac + Congreve + Constant + Copernicus + Coppée + Corneille + Corte-Real + Cousin + Cowper + Crabbe + Cratinos + Crébillon + Cromwell + Cyprian, St. + Czacki + Czartoryski + + D + + Dancourt + Daniel (the abbot) + Daniel (the prisoner) + Dante + Danton + Daudet + Davenant + Davila + Defoe + Delavigne + Delille + Demosthenes + Descartes + Desportes + Destouches + Diamante + Dickens + Diderot + Dietmar + Diogenes + Dolce + Dostoevsky + Dryden + Duclos + Dufresny + Dumas, (<i>père</i>) + Dumas, (<i>fils</i>) + Dürer + + E + + Eberling + Echegaray + Eliot, George + Elisabeth + Ennius + Epictetus + Epicurus + Erasmus + Ercilla + Espinel + Espronceda + Eudoxia + Eupolis + Euripides + Eusebius + Eustathius + Evemerus + + F + + Falcam + Fayette, Mme. de la + Feijoo + Felinski + Fénelon + Ferreira + Fichte + Ficino + Fielding + Filangieri + Flaubert + Fletcher + Florez + Fogazzaro + Folengo + Fontenelle + Foscolo + Fouillée + Fox + Frederick II + Froissart + + G + + Galen + Galileo + Garnier + Gautier + Gellius Aulus + Gerson + Gibbon + Gilbert + Gil Vicente + Gioberti + Giordani + Goethe + Gogol + Goldoni + Goldsmith + Goncourt, de + Gongora + Gorgias + Gottsched + Gower + Gregory, St. + Gresset + Grimm + Grochowski + Grün + Guarini + Guasco + Guevara + Guicciardini + Guittone + Guizot + Gutierrez + Guyot + + H + + Habington + Haller + Haraucourt + Hartmann + Hauptmann + Haussonville, d' + Hecataeus of Abdera + Hegel + Heine + Heliodorus + Henry VI + Heraclitus + Herbert + Herder + Herodian + Herodotus + Herreros + Hervieu + Hesiod + Hilarion + Hilarius, St. + Hildebrand + Hippocrates + Homer + Horace + Huerta + Hugo, Victor + Hugo of Berzi + Hume + Hutten + Hyperides + + I + + Iffland + Isla + Isocrates + Ivan + Izoulet + + J + + Jacopone + James I + Jaurès + Jerome, St. + Jodelle + Johnson, Dr + Joinville + Jonson, Ben + Joseph of Byzantium + Jovellanos + Julian the Apostate + Junius + Justinian + Juvenal + Juvencus + + K + + Kalidas + Kant + Kantemir + Karpinski + Keats + Kempis, T. à + Klopstock + Kochanowski + Kollontay + Körner + Kotzebue + Krylov + Kürenberg + Kutochikine + + L + + Laberius + La Bruyère + Lacerda + La Chaussée + Lactantius + La Fontaine + Lamartine + Lamb, C + Lamennais + La Motte + Lanfranc + La Rochefoucauld + Lascaris + Lavater + Lavedan + Lavisse + Leconte de Lisle + Leibnitz + Lenau + Leonardo da Vinci + Leonidas + Leopardi + Lermontov + Le Sage + Lessing + Libanius + Livius + Livy + Lobo + Locke + Lomonosov + Longus + Lope de Vega + Lorris, William of + Louis, St + Louis XI + Lucena + Lucian + Lucilius + Lucretius + Luther + Lycophron + Lyly + Lysias + + M + + Mably + Macaulay + Machiavelli + MacPherson + Maffei + Mairet + Maistre, Joseph de + Malaspina + Malebranche + Malherbe + Mallarmé + Manuel, John + Manzinho + Manzoni + Marcus Aurelius + Marini + Marivaux + Marlowe + Marmontel + Marot + Martial + Martinez, Rose de la + Mary, Princess + Maynard + Medici, Catherine de' + Medici, Marie de' + Melanchthon + Meleager + Menander + Mendès + Mendoza + Mercier + Meredith + Mérimée + Metastasio + Meung, John de + Mezeray + Michelet + Mickiewicz + Milton + Mirabeau + Molière + Mommsen + Monomaque + Montaigne + Montalvo + Montchrestien + Montemayor + Montesquieu + Monti + Montluc + Moratin, Leandro + Moratin, Nicholas + Moschus + Mun, de + Musseus + Musset, A. de + + N + + Naevius + Napoleon + Nepos + Nerva + Newman + Newton + Nicole + Niebuhr + Niemcewicz + Nietzsche + Nonnus + + O + + Olivares + Opalinski + Oppian + Otway + Ovid + Ozerov + + P + + Pacuvius + Palaprat + Pandolfini + Pascal + Paulinus, St. + Paul I + Pellico + Pereira + Pericles + Perron + Perseus + Peter the Great + Petrarch + Petronius + Philetas + Philip III + Philostrates + Pico della Mirandola + Pindar + Piron + Pisistratus + Planudes + Plato + Platon + Plautus + Pliny the Elder + Pliny the Younger + Plutarch + Politien + Polybius + Pompignan + Pomponius + Pontus + Pope + Porto-Riche + Potocki + Prévost, Abbé + Prévost, Marcel. + Procopius + Propertius + Protagoras + Prudentius + Ptolemy + Publius Syrus + Pulci + Pushkin + + Q + + Quevedo + Quinet + Quintana + Quintilian + Quintus + Quintus Curtius + + R + + Rabelais + Racan + Racine + Radistchef + Raynal + Regnard + Régnier, H. de + Régnier, M. + Renan + Retz, Cardinal de + Ribeiro + Ribot, A. + Ribot, T. + Richardson + Richepin + Rivas + Robert + Robertson + Robespierre + Rojas + Ronsard + Rosa + Rosa, Salvator + Rossetti, Christina + Rossetti, Dante + Rostand + Roucher + Rouget de Lisle + Rousseau, J. B. + Rousseau, J. J. + Ruskin + Rutilius + Rzewuski + + S + + Saa de Miranda + Saa e Menezès + Saavedra + Saint-Amant + Saint-Évremond + Saint-Gelais + Saint-Lambert + Saint-Pierre, Bernardin de + Saint-Simon + Sainte-Beuve + Sakyamuni + Sallust + Sand, George + San Phillipo + Sannazaro + Sappho + Sardou + Savonarola + Scarron + Scève, Maurice + Schiller + Schopenhauer + Scipio + Scott + Scribe + Scudéry + Sédaine + Segrais + Seignobos + Sénancour + Seneca the Philosopher + Seneca the Tragic + Serao + Sévigné + Sextus Empiricus + Shakespeare + Shelley + Sheridan + Sidney + Silius Italicus + Simonides + Socrates + Solis + Sophocles + Soumarokoff + Southey + Spenser + Staël, Mme. de + Statius + Stendhal + Sterne + Sudermann + Sully-Prudhomme + Swift + Swinburne + + T + + Tacitus + Taine + Tannhäuser + Tansillo + Tasso + Tassoni + Tennyson + Terence + Tertullian + Thackeray + Thales + Theocritus + Theodora + Theophrastus + Thespis + Thibaut + Thierry + Thiers + Thomson + Thorn + Thucydides + Tibullus + Tiraboschi + Tirso de Molina + Tolstoy + Torricelli + Trajan + Trediakowski + Treitschke + Trueba + Turgenev + Turgot + Tyrtaeus + + U + + Urfé, Honoré d' + + V + + Vair, du + Valerius Flaccus + Valmiki + Varro + Vaugelas + Ventura de la Vega + Vergniaud + Verlaine + Vian, Theophilus de + Vico + Vignes, Peter of + Vigny, Alfred de + Villehardouin + Villon + Vinogradsky + Virgil + Vizin, von + Voiture + Voltaire + + W + + Waller + Wieland + Wolff + Wordsworth + Wycherley + + X + + Xenophon + + Y + + Young + + Z + + Zamora + Zedlitz + Zeno + Ziorgi + Zola + Zorilla + Zwingli +</pre> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Initiation into Literature, by Emile Faguet + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INITIATION INTO LITERATURE *** + +***** This file should be named 8555-h.htm or 8555-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/5/5/8555/ + + +Text file produced by Ted Garvin, Marlo Dianne, Charles Franks and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + +HTML file produced by David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Initiation into Literature + +Author: Emile Faguet + +Translator: Home Gordon + + +Release Date: July, 2005 [EBook #8555] +This file was first posted on July 22, 2003 +Last Updated: May 22, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INITIATION INTO LITERATURE *** + + + + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Marlo Dianne, Charles Franks and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + + + +INITIATION INTO LITERATURE + +By Emile Faguet + + +Translated From The French By Sir Home Gordon, Bart. + +The Translator begs to acknowledge with appreciation the courtesy of the +Author in graciously consenting to make some valuable additions, at his +request, specially for the English version. + + + + +PREFACE + + +This volume, as indicated by the title, is designed to show the way to +the beginner, to satisfy and more especially to excite his initial +curiosity. It affords an adequate idea of the march of facts and of +ideas. The reader is led, somewhat rapidly, from the remote origins to +the most recent efforts of the human mind. + +It should be a convenient repertory to which the mind may revert in order +to see broadly the general opinion of an epoch--and what connected it +with those that followed or preceded it. It aims above all at being _a +frame_ in which can conveniently be inscribed, in the course of +further studies, new conceptions more detailed and more thoroughly +examined. + +It will have fulfilled its design should it incite to research and +meditation, and if it prepares for them correctly. + +E. FAGUET. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER I + +ANCIENT INDIA + +The Vedas. Buddhist Literature. Great Epic Poems, then very Diverse, much +Shorter Poems. Dramatic Literature. Moral Literature. + + +CHAPTER II + +HEBRAIC LITERATURE + +The Bible, a Collection of Epic, Lyric, Elegiac, and Sententious +Writings. The Talmud, Book of Ordinances. The Gospels. + + +CHAPTER III + +THE GREEKS + +Homer. Hesiod. Elegiac and Lyric Poets. Prose Writers. Philosophers and +Historians. Lyric Poets, Dramatic Poets. Comic Poets. Orators. Romancers. + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE LATINS + +The Latins, Imitators of the Greeks. Epic Poets. Dramatic Poets. Golden +Age: Virgil, Horace, Ovid. Silver Age: Prose Writers, Historians, and +Philosophers: Titus-Livy, Tacitus, Seneca. Decadence Still Brilliant. + + +CHAPTER V + +THE MIDDLE AGES: FRANCE + +_Chansons de Geste: Song of Roland_ and Lyric Poetry. Popular +Epopee: _Romances of Renard_. Popular Short Stories: Fables. +Historians. The Allegorical Poem: _Romance of the Rose_. Drama. + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE MIDDLE AGES: ENGLAND + +Literature in Latin, in Anglo-Saxon, and in French. The Ancestor of +English Literature: Chaucer. + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE MIDDLE AGES: GERMANY + +Epic Poems: _Nibelungen_. Popular Poems. Very Numerous Lyric Poems. +Drama. + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE MIDDLE AGES: ITALY + +Troubadours of Southern Italy. Neapolitan and Sicilian Poets: Dante, +Petrarch, Boccaccio. + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE MIDDLE AGES: SPAIN AND PORTUGAL + +Epic Poems: _Romanceros_. Didactic Books. Romances of Chivalry. + + +CHAPTER X + +THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES: FRANCE + +First Portion of Sixteenth Century: Poets: Marot, Saint-Gelais; Prose +Writers: Rabelais, Comines. Second Portion of Sixteenth Century: Poets: +"The Pleiade"; Prose Writers: Amyot, Montaigne. First Portion of +Seventeenth Century: Intellectual and Brilliant Poets: Malherbe, +Corneille; Great Prose Writers: Balzac, Descartes. Second Portion of +Seventeenth Century: Poets: Racine, Moliere, Boileau, La Fontaine; Prose +Writers: Bossuet, Pascal, La Bruyere, Fenelon, etc. + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES: ENGLAND + +Dramatists: Marlowe, Shakespeare. Prose Writers: Sidney, Francis Bacon, +etc. Epic Poet: Milton. Comic Poets. + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES: GERMANY + +Luther, Zwingli, Albert Duerer, Leibnitz, Gottsched. + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES: ITALY + +Poets: Ariosto, Tasso, Guarini, Folengo, Marini, etc. Prose Writers: +Machiavelli, Guicciardini, Davila. + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES: SPAIN AND PORTUGAL + +Poets: Quevedo, Gongora, Lope de Vega, Ercilla, Calderon, Rojas, etc. +Prose Writers: Montemayor, Cervantes, etc. Portugal: De Camoens, etc. The +Stage. + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES: FRANCE + +Of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: Fontenelle, Bayle. Of the +Eighteenth: Poets: La Motte, Jean Baptiste Rousseau, Voltaire, etc.; +Prose Writers: Montesquieu, Voltaire, Buffon, Jean Jacques Rousseau, etc. +Of the Nineteenth Century: Poets: Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Musset, Vigny, +etc.; Prose Writers: Chateaubriand, Michelet, George Sand, Merimee, +Renan, etc. + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES: ENGLAND + +Poets of the Eighteenth Century: Pope, Young, MacPherson, etc. Prose +Writers of the Eighteenth Century: Daniel Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, +Swift, Sterne, David Hume. Poets of the Nineteenth Century: Byron, +Shelley, the Lake Poets. Prose Writers of the Nineteenth Century: Walter +Scott, Macaulay, Dickens, Carlyle. + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES: GERMANY + +Poets of the Eighteenth Century: Klopstock, Lessing, Wieland. Prose +Writers of the Eighteenth Century: Herder, Kant. Poets of the Nineteenth +Century: Goethe, Schiller, Koerner. + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES: ITALY + +Poets: Metastasio, Goldoni, Alfieri, Monti, Leopardi. Prose Writers: +Silvio Pellico, Fogazzaro, etc. + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES: SPAIN + +The Drama still Brilliant: Moratin. Historians and Philosophers, +Novelists, Orators. + + +CHAPTER XX + +RUSSIAN LITERATURE + +Middle Ages. Some Epic Narratives. Renaissance in the Seventeenth +Century. Literature Imitative of the West in the Eighteenth Century. +Original Literature in the Nineteenth Century. + + +CHAPTER XXI + +POLISH LITERATURE + +At an Early Date Western Influence Sufficiently Potent. Sixteenth Century +Brilliant; Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries highly Cultured; +Nineteenth Century Notably Original. + + +INDEX + + + + +INITIATION INTO LITERATURE + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +ANCIENT INDIA + +The _Vedas_. Buddhist Literature. Great Epic Poems, then very +Diverse, much Shorter Poems. Dramatic Literature. Moral Literature. + + +THE _VEDAS_.--The ancient Indians, who spoke Sanscrit, possess a +literature which goes back, perhaps, to the fifteenth century before +Christ. At first, like all other races, they possessed a sacred +literature intimately bound up with their religion. The earliest volumes +of sacred literature are the _Vedas_. They describe and glorify the +gods then worshipped, to wit, Agni, god of fire, of the domestic hearth, +of the celestial fire (the sun), of the atmospheric fire (lightning); +Indra, god of atmosphere, analogous to Zeus of the Greeks; Soma, the +moon; Varuna, the nocturnal vault, the god who rewards the good and +punishes the evil; Rudra, the irascible god, more evil than well +disposed, though sometimes helpful; others too, very numerous. + +The style of the _Vedas_ is continually poetic and metaphorical. +They contain a sort of metaphysics as well as continual allegories. + +BUDDHA.--Buddhism, a philosophical religion, sufficiently analogous to +Christianity, which Sakyamuni, surnamed Buddha (the wise), spread through +India towards 550 B.C., created a new literature. It taught, as will be +remembered, the equality of all castes in the sight of religion, +metempsychosis, charity, and detachment from all passions and desires in +order to arrive at absolute calm (_nirvana_). The literature it +inspired was primarily _gnomic_, that is, sententious, analogous to +that of Pythagoras, with a tendency towards little moral tales and +parables, as in the Gospel. + +This literature subsequently expanded into large and even immense epic +poems, of which the principal are the _Mahabharata_ and the _Ramayana_. + +THE _MAHABHARATA_; THE _RAMAYANA_.--The _Mahabharata_ (that is, the +_great history of the Bharatas_) is a legend or a novel in verse +intersected with moral digressions, with episodes vaguely related to the +subject, with discourses and prayers. There are charming episodes full of +delicate sensibility, of moving tenderness--that is to say, of human +beauty, comparable to the farewells of Hector and Andromache in Homer; +and everywhere, amid tediousness and monotony, is found a powerful and +superabundant imagination. + +The _Ramayana_, the name of the author of which, Valmiki, has come +down to us, is a poem yet more vast and unequal. There are portions which +to us are quite unreadable, and there are others comparable to the most +imposing and most touching in all epic poetry. Reduced to its theme, the +subject of _Mahabharata_ is extremely simple; it is the history of +Prince Rama, dispossessed of his throne, who saw his beloved wife, Sita, +ravished by the monstrous demon Ravana, who made alliance with the good +monkeys and with them constructed a bridge over the sea to reach the +island on which Sita was detained, who vanquished and slew Ravana, who +re-found Sita, and finally went back happily to his kingdom, which had +also been re-conquered. + +The most noticeable exterior characteristic of the _Mahabharata_ is +the almost constant mingling of men and animals, a mingling which one +feels is in conformity with the dogma of the transmigration of souls. Not +only monkeys but vultures, eagles, gazelles, etc., are brought into the +work and form important personages. We are in the epoch when the animals +spoke. Battles are numerous and described in great detail; the +_Ramayana_ is the _Iliad_ of the Indians; pathetic scenes, as +well as those of love, of friendship, of gratitude are not rare, and are +sometimes exquisite. The whole poem is imbued with a great feeling of +humanity, heroism, and justice. Victory is to the good and right is +triumphant; the gods permit that the just should suffer and be compelled +to struggle; but invariably it is only for a time and the merited +happiness is at the end of all. + +After these two vast giant epics there were written among the Indians a +number of shorter narrative poems, very varied both in tone and manner, +which suggest an uninterrupted succession of highly important and +animated schools of literature. Nearer to our own time--that is, towards +the fifth or sixth century of our era, lyric poetry and the drama were, +as it were, detached from the epopee and existed on their own merits. +Songs of love, of hate, of sadness, or of triumph took ample scope; they +were more often melancholy than sad, for India is the land of optimism, +or at least of resignation. + +DRAMATIC POETRY.--As for the dramatic poetry, that is very curious; it is +not mixed with epopee in the precise sense of the word; but it is +continually mingled with descriptions of nature, with word-paintings of +nature and invocations to nature. The Indian dramatic poet did not +separate man from the air he breathed nor from the world around him; in +recalling the moment of the day or night in which the scene takes place, +_the actual hour_, the poet, no doubt in obedience to a law dictated +to him by his public, kept his characters in communication with earth +and heaven, with the dawn he described, the moon he painted, the evening +he caused to be seen, the plants he portrayed as withering or reviving, +the birds which he showed everywhere in the country or returning to their +habitation, etc. + +From the purely dramatic aspect, these plays are often affecting or +curious, possessing penetrating and thoughtful psychology. The most +celebrated dramas still left to us of the Indian stage are _The Chariot +of Baked Clay_ and the affecting and delicate _Sakuntala_ the gem +of Indian literature, the work of the poet Kalidas, who was also a +remarkable lyric poet. + +GNOMIC POETRY.--Gnomic, that is sententious, poetry, which, it has been +indicated, very early enjoyed high appreciation among the Indians, long +continued to obtain their approval. It was always wise and often +intellectual. The collection of Barthari, who belonged to the sixth or +seventh century A.D., contains thoughts which would do honour to the +highest moralists of the most enlightened epochs. "The fortune, ample or +restricted, which the Creator hath inscribed on thy forehead thou wilt +assuredly attain; wert thou in the desert or in the gold-mines of Meru, +more couldst thou not acquire. Therefore, of what avail to torment +thyself and to humiliate thyself before the powerful. A pot does not draw +more water from the sea than from a well." + +And this might be by a modern man opposing La Rochefoucauld: "The modest +man is one poor in spirit, the devout a hypocrite, the honest man is +artful, the hero is a barbarian, the ascetic is a fool, the unreserved +a chatterbox, the prudent a waverer. Tell me, which is the virtue among +all the virtues that human malice cannot vilify?" + +Here, finally, is a truth for all time: "It is easy to persuade the +ignorant, still easier to persuade the very wise; but he who hath a +commencement of wisdom Brahma himself could not cajole." + +Indian literature continued to be productive, though losing much of its +fecundity, until the fifteenth or sixteenth century of our era. Without +exaggeration, it is permissible to conject that its scope extended over +twenty-five centuries. It possesses the uniquely honourable trait that it +is, assuredly, the only one which owes nothing to any other and is +literally indigenous. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +HEBRAIC LITERATURE + +The Bible, a Collection of Epic, Lyric, Elegiac, and Sententious +Writings. The Talmud, Book of Ordinances. The Gospels. + + +THE BIBLE.--The Hebrew race possessed a literature from about 1050 B.C. +It embodied in poems the legends which had circulated among the people +since the most remote epoch of their existence. It was those poems, +gathered later into one collection, which formed what, since +approximately the year 400, we call the Bible--that is, the Book of +books. + +In the Bible there are histories (_Genesis_, _History of the Jews +up to Joshua_, the _Book of Joshua_, _Judges_, _Kings_, etc.), then +anecdotal episodes (_Ruth_, _Esdras_, _Tobit_, _Judith_, _Esther_), then +books of moral philosophy(_Proverbs of Solomon_, _Ecclesiastes_, +_Wisdom_, _Ecclesiasticus_), then books of an oratorical and lyrical +character (_Psalms of David_ and all the _Prophets_). Finally, a single +work, still lyrical but in which there are marked traces of the dramatic +type (the _Song of Songs_). + +THE TALMUD.--To the works which have been gathered into the Bible, it is +necessary to add the Talmud, a collection of commentaries on the civil +and religious laws of the Jews, which forms an indispensable supplement +to the Bible, to anyone desiring to understand the Hebraic civilisation. + +THE GOSPELS.--The Gospels, published in the Greek tongue, have nothing +Hebraic except that they were compiled by Jews or by their immediate +disciples and that they have preserved something of the manner of writing +of the Jews. + +BIBLICAL WRITINGS.--The Biblical writings, regarded solely from the +literary point of view, form one of the finest monuments of human +thought. The sentiment of grandeur and even of infinity in _Genesis_; +the profound and simple sensibility as in the _History of Joseph_, +_Tobit_, and _Esther_; eloquence and exquisite religious sentiment as in +the _Book of Job_ and the _Psalms of David_; ecstatic lyricism, vehement +and fiery, accompanied with incredible satiric force as in the +_Prophets_; wisdom alike equal to that of the Stoics and of the serious +Epicureans as in _Ecclesiastes_ and the _Proverbs_; everywhere +marvellous imagination, always concise at least, if not restrained; +lyrical sensuality which recalls the most perturbed creations of erotic +Greeks and Latins, whilst surpassing them in beauty as in the _Song of +Songs_; and throughout there is this grandeur, this simple majesty, this +easy and natural sublimity which in the same degree is to be found only +occasionally in Homer and which appears to be the privilege of the +people who were the first to believe in a single God. That is what +makes, almost in a continuous way, the astonishing beauty of the Bible, +and which explains how whole nations, of other origin, have made down to +our own day, and still continue to make, the Bible their uninterrupted +study, and draw from it courage, serenity, exaltation of soul, and a +singular ferment of their poetic and literary genius. + +As has been the case with many other literary monuments, it is possible, +without owning that it is desirable, that the Bible may even survive the +numerous and important religions which have been born from it. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +THE GREEKS + +Homer. Hesiod. Elegiac and Lyric Poets. Prose Writers. Philosophers and +Historians. Lyric Poets. Dramatic Poets. Comic Poets. Orators. Romancers. + + +HOMER.--The most ancient Greek writer known is Homer, and it cannot be +absolutely stated in what epoch he lived. + +Since the seventeenth century it has even been asked if he ever existed +and if his poems are not collections of epic songs which had circulated +in ancient Greece and which at a very recent epoch, that of Pisistratus, +had been gathered into two grand consecutive poems, thanks to some +rearrangement and editing. At the commencement of the nineteenth century +the erudite were generally agreed that Homer had never existed. Now +they are reverting to the belief that there were only two Homers, one the +author of the _Iliad_ and the other of the _Odyssey_. + +THE _ILIAD_.--The _Iliad_ is the story of the wrath of Achilles, of his +retreat far from his friends who were endeavouring to capture Troy and of +his return to them. + +It is the poem of patriotism. It is filled with the spirit that when a +people is divided against itself, all misfortunes fall on and overwhelm +it. Achilles, unjustly offended, deprived his fellow-countrymen of his +support; they are all on the point of perishing; he returns to them in +order to avenge the death of his dearest friend and they are saved. + +The _Iliad_ is almost entirely filled with battles, which are very +skillfully diversified. Some episodes, such as the farewell of Hector to +his wife Andromache when he quits her for the fight, or King Priam +coming, in tears, to ask Achilles for the corpse of his son Hector that +he may piously inter it, are among the most beautiful passages that ever +came from a human inspiration. + +THE _ODYSSEY_.--The _Odyssey_ is also the poem of patriotism, +of the _little homeland_, of the native land. It is the story of +Ulysses, after the siege of Troy, reconquering Ithaca, the small island +of which he is king, and taking ten years to acquire it. What makes the +unity of the poem, what forms the backbone of the poem, is the smoke +which rises above the house of Ulysses, which he always perceives in the +dream of his hopes and desires, which invincibly attracts him, which he +desires to see again before he dies, and the thought of which sustains +him in his trials and causes him to scorn all joys on his road thither. +The thousand adventures of Ulysses, his sojourn with the nymph Calypso, +his terrible perils in the cave of the giant Polyphemus and near the isle +of the Sirens, the tempests which he survives, the hospitality he +receives from King Alcinoues, the visit he pays to the dead--among whom is +Achilles regretting the earth and preferring to be a ploughman among the +living rather than king among the dead; these are vigorous, curious, +interesting, touching, picturesque scenes from which all subsequent +literatures have drawn inspiration and which still delight all races. + +HESIOD.--Posterior, very probably, to Homer, Hesiod has left two great +poems, one on the families of the gods (_Theogenia_) and the other +on the works of man (_Works and Days_). The _Theogenia_ is very +valuable to us because we learn from it and it makes us understand how +the Greeks understood the divinity, its different manifestations, and, so +to say, its evolution through the world. _Works and Days_ is a poem +filled with both sadness and courage, the author finding the world wicked +and men unjust; but always concluding that with energy, perseverance, and +obstinacy it is possible to save oneself from anything, and that there is +only one real misfortune, which is to know despair. + +ELEGIACAL AND LYRICAL POETS.--Almost from the most remote antiquity, from +the seventh century, perhaps the eighth century before the Christian era, +the Greeks possessed elegiacal and lyrical poets--that is to say, poets +who put into verse their personal sentiments, the joys and sorrows which +they felt as men. Such were Callinos, the satiric Archilochus, the +satiric Simonides of Amorgos, the martial Tyrtaeus. Then there were +the poets who made verses to be set to music: Alcaeus, Sappho, Anacreon, +Alcman. Alcaeus appears to have been the greatest lyrical Greek poet +judging by the fragments we possess by him and by the lyrical poems of +Horace, which there are reasons for believing were imitated from Alcaeus. + +Of the poetess Sappho we have too little to enable us to judge her very +exactly; but throughout antiquity she enjoyed a glory equal to that of +the greatest. She specially sang of love and in such a manner as to lead +to the belief that she herself had not escaped the passion. + +Anacreon sang after the same fashion and with a charm, a grace, a witty +ingenuity which are fascinating. He was the epicurean of poetry (before +the birth of Epicurus) and from him was born a type of literature known +as anacreonotic, which extended right through ancient times and has been +prolonged to modern times. + +PROSE WRITERS.--Finally prose was born, in the sixth century before +Christ, with the philosophers Thales, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, and with +the historians, of whom only one of that epoch has remained famous, +namely Herodotus. + +HERODOTUS.--Herodotus, in a general history of his own time and of that +immediately preceding it, is often not far from epic poetry. His style is +at once limpid and warm, he possesses a pleasing power of distinction, +the taste for and curiosity about the manners of foreign peoples, a +laughing and easy imagination without any pretence at the philosophy of +history or of moralising through history. He was, above all, a delightful +writer. + +AESOP.--To this period (albeit somewhat at hazard) it is possible to +ascribe Aesop, about whom nothing is known except that he wrote the +fables which have been imitated from generation to generation. The +collection that we possess under his name is one of these imitations, +perpetrated long after his death, but as to which it is impossible to +assign a date. + +PINDAR.--Pindar, the Theban, broadened and extended the lyrical type. +Under him it preserved its power, its high spirits, its verse and, so to +say, its fine fury; but he introduced into the epic the narration of +ancient legends, the acts and gestures of the ancient heroes, and +effected this so admirably that the most lyrical of Grecian lyricists is +an historian. Capable of sustained elevation, of sublime thoughts and +expressions, of a fine disorder which has been overpraised, and which on +close expression is found to be very careful, he has been regarded as the +very type of dignified and poetic style, and more or less to be imitated +by all ambitious poets commencing with Ronsard. The wise, like Horace, +have contented themselves with praising him. From fragments left to us he +is infinitely impassioned to read. + +GREEK TRAGEDY.--Greek tragedy, which is one of the miracles of the human +brain, began in the sixth century B.C. It was born of the dithyramb. The +dithyramb is a chant in chorus in honour of a god or a hero. From this +chorus emerged a single actor who sang the praises of the god, and to +which the choir replied. When, instead of one actor, there were two who +addressed one another in dialogue and were answered by the choir, the +dramatic poem was founded. When there were three--and there were hardly +ever any more--tragedy, as the Greeks understood it, existed. + +THESPIS; AESCHYLUS; SOPHOCLES.--Thespis was the earliest known to us who +took rudimentary tragedies from town to town in Attica. Then came +Aeschylus, whose tragedy, already rigid and hieratical, was very +powerful, imbued with terrible majesty; then came Sophocles, a religious +philosopher, having a feeling for the old religion and the art of giving +it a moral character, great lyrical poet, master of dialogue, eloquent, +moving, knowing how to construct and carry on a dramatic poem with +infinite skill, to whom, in fact, can be denied no quality of dramatic +poetry and who attains a conception of perfection. + +EURIPIDES.--Euripides, less religious as a philosopher, sometimes +suggesting the sophist and a little the rhetorician, but full of ideas, +eloquent, affecting, "the most tragic" (that is, the most pathetic) of +all the acting dramatists, as Aristotle observed, the most modern, too, +and the one we best understand, has been the true source whence have been +freely drawn the tragedies of modern times, more particularly of our own. + +The greatest works of Aeschylus are _Seven Against Thebes_ and +_Prometheus Bound_; the greatest of Sophocles: _Antigone_, _Oedipus +the Tyrant_ and _Oedipus at Colonos_; the greatest of Euripides: +_Hippolytus_ and _Iphigenia_. + +After Euripides tragedy was exhausted and only produced very second-rate +works. + +COMEDY.--Comedy enjoyed a longer existence. Very obscure in origin, no +doubt proceeding from the opprobrious jests exchanged by the lower +classes in mirthful hours, it was at first freely fantastical, composed +in dialogue, oratorical, lyrical, satirical, even epical at times. Like +tragedy, it possessed a chorus for which the lyrical part was specially +reserved. It was personal--that is, it directly attacked known +contemporaries, often by name and often by bringing them on the stage. +The celebrated authors of this "ancient comedy" were Eupolis, Cratinos, +of whom we have only fragments, and Aristophanes, whose work has come +down to us. + +ARISTOPHANES.--Aristophanes was a great poet, with incisive humour and +also incomparable lyrical power, with voluntary vulgarity which is often +shocking and an elevation of ideas and language which frequently raise +him to the heights of Aeschylus and Sophocles. Here was one of the +grandest poetic minds that the world has produced. His most considerable +achievements are _The Frogs_, the earliest known work of literary +criticism, in dramatic form too, wherein he sets up a parallel between +Aeschylus and Euripides and cruelly jeers at the latter; _The +Clouds_, in which he mocks the sophists; _The Wasps_, wherein he +ridicules the Athenian mania for judging, and magnificently praises the +old Athenians of the time of Marathon. + +MENANDER.--To this "ancient comedy," immediately succeeded the "middle +comedy," in which it was forbidden to introduce personalities and of +which Aristophanes gave an example and a model in his _Plutus_. +Later, in the fourth century before Christ, with the refined, witty, and +discreet Menander, the "new comedy" was analogous to that of Plautus, of +Terence, and that of our own of the seventeenth century. + +THUCYDIDES.--To return to the time of Pericles; Attic prose developed in +the hands of historians, sages, and philosophers. Thucydides founded true +history, scientific, drawn from the sources, supported and strengthened +by all the information and corroboration that the skilled historian can +gather, examine, and control. As a writer, Thucydides was terse, bare, +limpid, and possessed an agreeable sober elegance. He introduced into his +history imaginary discourses between great historical personages which +allowed him to show the general state of Greece or of particular portions +of Greece at certain important times. It is not known why these +discourses were written in a style differing from that of the rest of the +work, wise, even beautiful, but so extremely concise and elliptic as, in +consequence, to be extremely difficult to understand. + +HIPPOCRATES.--Hippocrates created scientific medicine, the medicine of +observation, denying prodigies, seeking natural causes for diseases, and +already setting up rational therapeutics. There are seventy-two works +called "Hippocratical," which belong to his school; some may be by +himself. + +SOPHISTS AND ORATORS.--The language grew flexible in the hands of the +learned, subtle, and ingenious sophists (Gorgias, Protagoras) who +attacked Socrates by borrowing his weapons, as it were, and making them +perfect. + +A new type of literature was created: the oratorical. Antiphon was the +earliest in date alike of the Athenian orators and of the professors of +eloquence. In a crowd after him came Isocrates, Andocides, Lysias, +Aeschines, Hyperides, and the master of them all, that astonishing +logician, that impassioned and terrible orator, Demosthenes. + +THE PHILOSOPHERS: PLATO.--Contemporaneously the philosophers, quite as +much as the sophists, even confining the matter to the literary aspect, +cast immortal glory on Attica. Imbued with the spirit of Socrates, even +when more or less unfaithful to him, Plato, psychologist, moralist, +metaphysician, sociologist, marvellous poet in prose, seductive and +fascinating mythologist, really created philosophy in such fashion that +even the most modern systems, if not judged by how much they agree or +differ from him, at least invariably recall him, whether they seem a +distant echo of him or whether they challenge and combat him. + +ARISTOTLE; XENOPHON; THEOPHRASTUS.--Aristotle, pre-eminently learned, +admirably cultivated naturalist, acquainted also with everything known in +his day, more prudent metaphysician than Plato but without his depth, a +precise and sure logician and the founder of scientific logic, a clear +and dexterous moralist, an ingenious and pure literary theorist; +Xenophon, who commanded the retreat of the ten thousand, moralist and +Intelligent pedagogue displaying much attractiveness in his +_Cyropoedia_, the sensible, refined, and delightful master of +familiar and practical life in his _Economics_; Theophrastus, +botanist, very witty satirical moralist, highly caustic and +realistic--these three established Greek wisdom for centuries, and +probably for ever, erecting a solid and elegant temple wherein humanity +has almost continuously sought salutary truths, and where some at least +of our descendants, and those not the least illustrious, will always +perform their devotions. + +The chief works of Plato are the _Socratic Dialogues_, the +_Gorgias_, the _Timoeus_, the _Phaedo_ (immortality of the +soul), the _Republic_, and the _Laws_. The principal books of +Aristotle are his _Natural History_, _Metaphysics_, _Logic_, _Rhetoric_, +_Poetica_. The most notable volumes of Xenophon are the _Cyropoedia_, +the _Economics_ and the _Memorabilia of Plato_. The only work of +Theophrastus we possess is his _Characters_, which was translated +and _continued_ by La Bruyere. + +STOICS AND EPICUREANS.--In the fourth and even the third century, +philosophy spoke to mankind through two principal schools: those of the +Stoics and of the Epicureans. The chief representatives of the Stoics +were Zeno and Cleanthes. Chrysippus taught an austere morality which may +be summed up in these words: "Abstain and endure." The Epicureans, whose +chief representatives were Epicurus and Aristippus, taught, when all was +taken into account, the same morality but starting from a different +principle, which was that happiness must be sought, and in pursuance of +this principle they advised less austerity, even in their precepts. +Although these are schools of philosophy, yet they must be taken into +account here because each of them has exercised much influence over +writers, the first on Seneca and much later on Corneille; the second on +Lucretius and Horace; both sometimes on the same man, one example being +Montaigne. + +After Alexander, intellectual Greece extended and enlarged itself so that +Instead of having one centre, Athens, it possessed five or six: Athens, +Alexandria, Antioch, Pergamos, Syracuse. This was an admirable literary +efflorescence; the geniuses were less stupendous but the talents were +innumerable. + +In the cities named, and in others, history, rhetoric, geography, +philosophy, history of philosophy, philology, were taught with ardour and +learnt with enthusiasm; the literary soil was rich and it was assiduously +cultivated. + +ALEXANDRINE LITERATURE.--From this soil rose a fresh literature--more +erudite, less spontaneous, less rich in popular vigour, yet very +interesting. This is the literature known as _Alexandrine_. With +this literature first appeared the _romance_, unknown to the +ancients. The historical romance began with Hecataeus of Abdera, the +philosophical romance with Evemerus of Messenia, who pretended to have +found an ancient inscription proving that the gods of ancient Greece were +old-time kings of the land deified after death, an ingenious invention +from which was to come a whole school of criticism of ancient mythology. + +THE ELEGY AND IDYLL: THEOCRITUS.--True and, at the same time, great poets +belonged to this period. One was Philetas of Cos, founder of the Grecian +elegy, celebrated and affectionately saluted centuries later by Andre +Chenier. Of his works only a few terse fragments remain. Another was +Asclepiades of Samos, both elegiac and lyric, of whose _epigrams_, +(short elegies) those preserved to us are charming. Yet another was the +sad and charming Leonidas of Tarentum. The two leaders of this choir were +Theocritus and Callimachus. Theocritus, a Sicilian, passes as the founder +of the idyll which he did not invent, but to which he gave the importance +of a type by marking it with his imprint. The idyll of Theocritus was +always a picture of popular customs and even a little drama of popular +morals; but at times it had its scene set in the country, at others in a +town, or again by the sea, and consequently there are rustic idylls +(properly _bucolics_), maritime idylls, popular urban idylls. An +astonishing sense of reality united to a personal poetic gift and a +highly alert sensitiveness made his little poems alike beautiful for +their truth and also for a certain ideal of ardent and profound passion. +It is curious without being astonishing that the idyll of Theocritus +often suggests the poetry of the Bible. + +PUPILS OF THEOCRITUS.--Moschus and Bion were the immediate pupils of +Theocritus. He had more illustrious ones, commencing with Virgil in his +_Eclogues_, continuing with the numerous idylls of the Renaissance +in France and Italy, as well as with Segrais in the seventeenth century, +and ending, if it be desired, with Andre Chenier, though others more +modern can be traced. + +CALLIMACHUS.--Callimachus, more erudite, more scholastic, was what is +termed a neoclassic, which is that he desired to treat in a new way the +same subjects that had been dealt with by the great men of ancient +Greece, and so far as possible to conceive them in the same spirit. +Therefore he wrote tragedies, comedies, "satiric dramas" (a kind of farce +in which secondary deities were characterised), lyric and elegiac poems +after the manner of Alcaeus or Sappho, a familiar epopee, a romance in +verse, which was perhaps a novel type, but more probably imitated from +certain poems of ancient Greece which we no longer possess. To us his +poetry seems cold and calculated, although clever and dexterous. It was +held in high esteem not only in his own day but to the close of +antiquity. + +DIDACTIC POETRY: ARATUS; APOLLONIUS.--Didactic poetry, of the cultivation +of which there had been no trace since Hesiod, was destined to be revived +in this clever period; and, in fact, at this time Aratus wrote his +_Phoenomena_, which is a course of astronomy and meteorology in +conformity with the science of his era. More ambitious, and desirous not +only of writing an epic fragment like Callimachus, but also of restoring +the old-time grand epic poem after the manner of Homer (Callimachus and +he had a violent quarrel on the subject), Apollonius of Rhodes in his +_Argonautics_ narrated the expedition of Jason. It was a fine epic +poem and especially an astonishing psychological poem. The study of +passion and of the progress and catastrophe of the infatuation of Medea +form a masterpiece. Assuredly Virgil in his _Dido_, and perhaps +Racine in his _Phedre_ remembered Apollonius. + +LYCOPHRON.--Lycophron also belongs to this period. He left such an +admirable poem (_Alexandra_, that is Cassandra) that his +contemporaries themselves failed to understand it in spite of all their +efforts. He is the head and ancestor of that great school of inaccessible +or impenetrable poets who are most ardently admired. Maurice Sceve in the +sixteenth century is the illustrious example. + +THE EPIGRAMMATISTS: MELEAGER.--To these numerous men of great talent must +be added the epigrammatists--that is, those who wrote very short, very +concise, very limpid poems wherein they sought absolute perfection. They +were almost innumerable. The most illustrious was Meleager, in whom we +can yet appreciate delicate genius and exquisite sensibility. + +POLYBIUS.--Reduced to Roman provinces (successively greater Greece, +Greece proper, Egypt, Syria), the Grecian world none the less continued +to be an admirable intellectual haven. As early as the Punic wars, the +Greek Polybius revealed he was an excellent historian, military, +political, and philosophical, inquisitive about facts, inquisitive, too, +about probable causes, constitutions, and social institutions, the +morals, character, and the underlying temperament of races. His principal +work is the _Histories_--that is, the history of the Graeco-Roman +world from the second Punic war until the capture of Corinth by the +Romans. He was an intellectual master; unfortunately he wrote very badly. + +EPICTETUS; MARCUS AURELIUS.--It must, however, be recognised that in the +first century before Christ and in the first after, Greece--even +intellectually--was in a state of depression. But dating from the Emperor +Nerva--that is, from the commencement of the second century--there was a +remarkable Hellenic revival. Primarily, it was the most brilliant moment +since Plato in Grecian philosophy. Stoicism exerted complete sway over +the cultivated classes; Epictetus gave his _Enchiridion_ and +_Manual_, wherein are condensed the elevated and profound thoughts +most deeply realised of the doctrine of Zeno; later, the Emperor Marcus +Aurelius, in his solitary meditations entitled _For Myself_, depicts +his own soul, admirable, chaste, pure, severe to himself, indulgent to +others, pathetically resigned to the universal order of things and +adhering to them with a renunciation and a faith that are truly +religious. Less severe, even playful and smiling, Dion Chrysostom (that +is, mouth of gold, nickname given to him because of his eloquence) is +penetrated with the same spirit a little mingled with Platonism, which +makes him, therefore, perhaps, penetrate more easily than the +over-austere pure Stoics. + +PLUTARCH.--Plutarch, as historian discreetly romantic, as philosophical +moralist decidedly dexterous, gently obstinate in conciliation and +concord, in a large portion of his _Parallel Lives_ narrated those +of illustrious Romans and Greeks to show how excellent they were and how +highly they ought to esteem one another; elsewhere, in his moral works, +he sought to conciliate philosophy and paganism, no doubt believing in a +single God, as did Plato, but also believing in a crowd of intermediary +spirits between God and man, which allowed him to regard the deities of +paganism as misunderstood beings and even in a certain sense to admit +their authority. Emphatically a man who observed the golden mean, he +opposed the Stoics for being too severe on human nature and the +Epicureans for being too easy or for too lightly risking the future. He +was an elegant writer--gracious, self-restraining; nearer, all said and +done, to eclecticism than to simplicity, and he must not be judged by the +geniality which was virtually imparted to him by Amyot in translating +him. Throughout Europe, since the Renaissance, of all the Grecian authors +he has perhaps been the most read, the most quoted, the best loved, and +the most carefully edited. + +THE GREEK HISTORIANS.--Greek historians multiplied about this period. To +mention only the most notable: Arrian, philosopher, disciple of +Epictetus, and historian of the expedition of Alexander; Appian, who +wrote the history of the Roman people from their origin until the time of +Trajan; Dion Cassius, who also compiled Roman history in a sustained +manner full of elegance and nobility; Herodian, historian of the +successors of Marcus Aurelius, who would only narrate what he had himself +witnessed, a showy writer who seems over-polished and a little +artificial. + +A historian of a highly individualistic character was Diogenes of +Laertius, who wrote the _Lives of Philosophers_, being very little +of a philosopher himself and too prone to drop into anecdotage, but +interesting and invaluable to us because of the scanty information we +possess about ancient philosophy. + +LUCIAN.--Immeasurably superior to those just cited since Plutarch, Lucian +of Samosata (Syria) may be regarded as the Voltaire of antiquity--witty, +sceptical, amusing, even comic. He was primarily a lecturer, wandering +like a sophist from town to town, in order to talk in vivacious, +animated, nimble, and paradoxical fashion. Then he was a polygraphic +writer, producing treatises, satires, and pamphlets on the most diverse +subjects. He wrote against the Christians, the pagans, the philosophers, +the prejudiced, sometimes against common sense. Amongst his works were +_The Way to Write History_, partly serious, partly sarcastic; _The +Dialogues of the Dead_, moralising and satirical, imitated much later +in very superior fashion by Fontenelle; _The Dialogues of the Gods_, +against mythology; _True History_, a parody of the false or romantic +histories then so fashionable, more especially about Alexander. He +certainly possessed little depth, but his talent was incredible: +alertness, causticity, amusing logic, burlesque dialectics, an +astonishing instinct for caricature, the art of natural dialogue, gay +insolence, light but vivid psychological penetration, an almost profound +sense of the ridiculous, joyous fooling; above all, that first essential +of satire, to be himself amused by what he wrote to amuse others; all +these he possessed in a high degree. Rabelais has been called the Homeric +buffoon, Lucian is certainly the Socratic. + +POETRY AND ROMANCE.--Greek poetry no longer existed at this period. +Hardly is it permissible to cite the didactic Oppian, with his poem on +sin, and the fabulist Babrius, imitator of Aesop in his fables. In +reparation, the romance was born and the scientific literature was +important. The romance claimed among its representatives Antonius +Diogenes, with his _Marvels Beyond Thule_; Heliodorus, with his +_Aethiopica_ or _Theagenes and Chariclea_, the love-story so +much admired by Racine in his youth; Longus, with his _Daphnis and +Chloe_, which still retains general approval and which possesses real, +though somewhat studied grace, and of which the ability of the style is +quite above the normal. + +SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE.--Scientific literature includes the highly +illustrious mathematician and astronomer Ptolemy, whose system obtained +respect and belief until the advent of Copernicus; the physician Galen; +the philosopher-physician Sextus Empiricus, who was a good historian, +highly sceptical, but well informed and intelligent about philosophical +ideas. + +DECADENCE OF THE GREEK SPIRIT.--Vitality was slowly withdrawn from the +Grecian world, although not without revivals and highly interesting +semi-renaissances. In the fourth century, the sophist--that is, the +professor of philosophy and of rhetoric--Libanius left a vast number of +official or academic discourses and letters which were dissertations. +Like his friend the Emperor Julian, he was a convinced pagan, and with +kindly but firm spirit combated the Christian bishops, priests, and +particularly the monks, who were objects of veritable repulsion to him. +He possessed talent of a secondary but honourable rank. + +THE EMPEROR JULIAN.--The Emperor Julian, a Christian in childhood, but +who on attaining manhood reverted to paganism, which earned him the title +of "the Apostate," was highly intelligent, pure in heart, and filled with +a spirit of tolerance; but he was a heathen and he wrote against +Christianity. He possessed satiric force and wit, even a measure of +eloquence. A pamphlet by him, the _Misopogon_, directed against the +inhabitants of Antioch, who had chaffed him about his beard, makes +amusing reading. He died quite young; he would, in all probability, have +become a very great man. + +PROCOPIUS.--It is necessary to advance to the sixth century to mention +the historian Procopius, that double-visaged annalist who, in his +official histories, was lost in admiration of Justinian, and who, in his +_Secret History_, only published long after his death, related to us +the turpitude, real or imagined, of Theodora, wife of the Emperor +Justinian, and of Antonina, wife of Belisarius. + +POETRY.--Greek poetry was not dead. Quintus of Smyrna, who was of the +fourth century, perhaps later, wrote a _Sequel to Homer_, without +much imagination, but with skill and dexterity; Nonnus wrote the +_Dionysiaca_, a poetic history of the expedition of Bacchus to +India, declamatory, copious, and powerful, full alike of faults and +talent; Musaeus (date absolutely unknown) has remained justly celebrated +for his delicious little poem _Hero and Leander_, countless times +translated both in prose and verse. + +GRECIAN CHRISTIAN WRITERS.--It is necessary to revert to the fourth +century in order to enumerate Grecian Christian writers. As might be +expected these were almost all controversial orators. Saint Athanasius of +Alexandria was an admirable man of action, a fiery and impassioned +orator, the highly polemical historian of the Church, after the manner of +Bossuet in his _History of Variations_. Saint Basil, termed by his +admirers "the Great," without there being much hyperbole in the +qualification, was an incomparable orator. He, as it were, reigned over +Eastern Christianity, thanks to his word, his skill, and his courage. +Even to us his works possess charm. He intermingled the finest ideas of +Plato and of Christianity in the happiest and most orthodox manner. The +humanists held him in esteem for having rendered justice to antiquity in +his _Lecture on Profane Authors_ and having advised Christians to +study it with prudence but with esteem. Saint Gregory of Nazianzen, the +intimate friend of Saint Basil, was also a great orator, exalted, ardent, +and lyrical, whilst he was also as a poet, refined, gracious, and full of +charm. Saint Gregory of Nyssa, brother of Saint Basil, was essentially a +theologian and in his day a theological authority. + +SAINT JOHN CHRYSOSTOM.--The most splendid figure of the Greek Church was +Saint John Chrysostom, celebrated in political history for his struggle +with the Emperor Arcadius and the Empress Eudoxia, and for the +persecutions he had in consequence to suffer. His heated, fiery, and +violent eloquence, which was altogether that of a tribune of the people, +can still profoundly affect us because therein can be felt a deeply +sincere ardour, a passion for justice, charity, and love. A bellicose +moralist, he was, like Bourdaloue, a realist and therefore an exact and +cruel delineator of the customs of his time, which were not good; and he +teaches us better than anyone else what was the sad state of Eastern +morality in his day. His widely varied genius, passing from the most +spiritually familiar of tones to the height of moving and imposing +eloquence, was one of the grandest of all antiquity. + +EUSEBIUS.--Allusion should be made to that good historian Eusebius, who +narrated Christian history from its origins until the year 323. + +THE BYZANTINE PERIOD.--What is termed the Byzantine period extended from +the close of the reign of Justinian to the definite fall of the Eastern +Empire (565-1453). This long epoch, practically corresponding to the +Middle Ages of the West, is very weak from the literary point of view, +but yet possessed a number of interesting and valuable historians (Joseph +of Byzantium, Comnenus, etc.) and skilled and learned grammarians, that +is professors of language and literature (Eustathius, Cephalon, Planudes, +Lascaris). It was the later of these grammarians, among them Lascaris, +who after the fall of Constantinople being welcomed in France and Italy, +brought the Greek writers to the West, commentated on them, made them +known, and thence came the Renaissance of Literature. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +THE LATINS + +The Latins, Imitators of the Greeks. Epic Poets, Dramatic Poets. Golden +Age: Virgil, Horace, Ovid. Silver Age: Prose Writers, Historians and +Philosophers:--Titus-Livy, Tacitus, Seneca. Decadence Still Brilliant. + + +LATIN LITERATURE.--Latin literature is little more than a branch of Greek +literature. It commenced much later, finished earlier, and has always +poured into the others at least a portion of its living force. Roman +literature really begins only at the moment when the Romans came into +contact with the Greeks, read their works, and were tempted to imitate +them; that is to say, it commences in the third century before Christ. +The first manifestation of this literature was epic. Naevius and Livius +Andronicus made epopees. They are destitute of talent. Ennius made one: +it possessed merit; what the Latin critics have quoted of his +_Annals_ is marked, first by an energetic patriotic sentiment which +affords pleasure; then it possesses energy and sometimes even a certain +brilliance. In addition, Ennius wrote several didactic and satiric poems. +Among the Romans, Ennius was the great ancestor and father of Latin +literature. + +LUCILIUS.--Lucilius was a satirist. Judging by the fragments of his work +which have come down to us, he was a very acute and penetrating political +satirist. Horace, despite his sovereign disdain for all that preceded his +own century, did not fail to value him and agreed that there was +something to be drawn and appreciated from this "muddy torrent." + +COMEDY: PLAUTUS; TERENCE.--Comedy and tragedy existed at this period. It +may be apposite here to point out that it was later and in the finest +period of Latin literature that they ceased to exist. Plautus conceived +the plan of transporting to Rome Grecian comedies of the time of the new +comedy and of adapting them more or less to Latin morals. He possessed a +strong and brutal verve which did not lack power, and more than once +Moliere did him the honour of taking inspiration from him. Terence, after +him, the friend of Scipio the second Africanus, and perhaps in +collaboration with him, in a way widely different from that of Plautus so +far as type of talent, tender, gentle, romantic, sentimental, smiling +rather than witty, so far as can be judged directly inspired by Menander, +wrote comedies which are highly agreeable to read, but it is doubtful if +they could ever have been widely appreciated on the stage. However, the +Roman writers held him in great esteem, and at one epoch of our own +history, in the seventeenth century, he enjoyed remarkable and unanimous +appreciation. + +L'ATELLANE.--To comedy strictly defined, whether it dealt with Romans or +Greeks, the Romans also added the atellane, which came to them from the +Etruscans (Atella, a city of Etruria) and which was a sort of farce with +stereotyped characters (the fat glutton, the lean glutton, the old miser +always baffled, etc.). Pomponius and Naevius endeavoured to raise this +popular recreation to a literary standard and succeeded. It then became a +thoroughly national characteristic. There was considerable analogy +between it and the modern popular Italian comedy, showing its Cassandras, +its Pantaloon, and its Harlequin, without it being possible to assert +that the Italian comedy proceeded from the atellane. The atellane enjoyed +much success in the second century before Christ. It was, however, ousted +by the mime, which was the kind of comic literature thoroughly national +at Rome. The mime was a farce of popular morals, particularly of the +lower classes; it was a portrayal of the dregs of society in their comic +aspects. It maintained its sway until the close of the Roman Empire +without becoming more dignified; rather the reverse. The names of some +authors of mimes have survived: Publius Syrus and Laberius, in the time +of Caesar. What is curious is that these mimes, licentious and even +obscene though they were, throughout gave occasional utterance to highly +moral observations which Latin grammarians have preserved for us. This +curious mixture may be explained or contrasted at pleasure; perhaps it +was only a conventional habit. + +TRAGEDY.--As for what there was of tragedy, it was destined to be yet +shorter-lived than comedy, but it was evidently very brilliant and it is +regrettable that it has not been preserved. Livius Andronicus and Nasvius +wrote tragedies, but the three greatest tragedians were Ennius, his +nephew Pacuvius, and Attius. Ennius imitated Euripides, Pacuvius +Sophocles, and Attius Aeschylus. All three soared to the grand, the +majestic, and the sublime; all seem to have been very sententious and +replete with maxims; but it is needful to be cautious: these authors are +known to us only by the citations made by grammarians, and grammarians +who, having naturally cited phrases rather than fragments of dialogue, +make it possible that these authors appear to us sententious when they +were in reality not abnormally so. + +PROSE LITERATURE.--Prose literature at Rome appeared almost at the same +time as the poetic. Cicero has given us the names of great orators, +contemporaries of Ennius, and there were historians and didacticians in +prose of the same period. The elder Cato, the great censor, was an +historian; he wrote a work, _The Origins_, which seems to have been +the history not only of Rome but of all Italy since the foundation of +Rome; he was didactic; he wrote a _De Re Rustica_ (On Rural Life) +which has come down to us and is infinitely valuable as showing the +simplicity, the hardness, and the avarice of the old Roman proprietors, +all qualities which Cato thoroughly well knew they possessed. + +THE AGE OF CAESAR.--The age of Caesar was a great literary epoch. Before +all and almost over all was Caesar himself: great orator, letter-writer, +grammarian, and historian. His _Commentaries_, that is, his memoirs, +history of his campaigns, are admirable in their conciseness and +precision of rapid and running narrative. Apart from him, Cornelius Nepos +made a very clear abridgment, characterised by marked sobriety, of +universal history under the title of _Chronica_. Varro, a kind of +encyclopaedist, wrote a _De Re Rustica_, also a work on the Latin +language, _Menippic Satires_--satires it is true, but mixtures of +prose and verse--and a work on _Roman Life_, as well as a crowd of +small books dealing with every possible subject. Cicero told him, "You +have taught us all things human and divine." He possessed immense +erudition and a violent mind not without charm. He can be imagined as a +sage of our own sixteenth century. + +CICERO.--Cicero was perhaps the greatest _litterateur_ that has ever +lived. It is obvious that all tastes were in his soul at the same time, +as Voltaire said of himself, and he gratified them all. He was +politician, lawyer, orator, poet, philosopher, professor of rhetoric, +moralist, grammarian, political writer, correspondent; he encompassed all +human knowledge, involved himself in all human matters and was a very +great writer. What to-day interests us most in his immense output are his +political discourses, his letters and his moral treatises. His political +discourses are those of an honest man who always held upright views and +the sentiment of the great interests of his country; his letters are +those of a witty man and of an excellent friend; his moral treatises, +more particularly his _De Officiis_ (On Duties), are in a very +elevated spirit which subordinates all other human duties beneath +obligations towards one's country. He did not always rise to +circumstances; he was well content, on the contrary, that they should +serve him. + +SALLUST.--Sallust, who as an individual seems to have been contemptible, +was a highly sagacious and excellent historian. He has left a history of +Catiline and another of Jugurtha. They are masterpieces of lucidity and +of dramatic vivacity. Admirable especially are his maxims, which seem as +well thought out as those of La Rochefoucauld: "Friendship is to desire +the same things and to hate the same things"; "the spirit of faction is +the friendship of scoundrels." + +POETRY: CATULLUS.--Poetry was not less brilliant than prose in the time +of Caesar. It was the era of Lucretius and of Catullus. Catullus, a +delightful man of the world, a charming voluptuary, passionate and +eloquent lover, formidable epigrammatist, a little coloured by +Alexandrianism (but barely, for this trait has been much exaggerated), +comes very close to being a great poet. In many respects he closely +recalls Andre Chenier, who, it may be added, was thoroughly conversant +with his writing. + +LUCRETIUS.--Lucretius is a very noble poet. If we knew Epicurus otherwise +than by fragments, it is highly probable we should be tempted to assert +that Lucretius was only a translator; but on that we cannot pronounce, +and of the didactic part of the poem of Lucretius (_On Nature_), +even if it were a simple translation, all the oratorical and the +descriptive portions would remain, and they are the most beautiful of the +work. In his invocations to Epicurus, in his prosopopoeia of nature to +man inviting resignation to death, in his descriptions of the immolation +of Iphigenia and of the cow wandering in the fields in search of her lost +heifer, there are a breadth, a grasp, and an epic grandeur, which recall +Homer, arouse thoughts of Dante, and which Virgil himself, whilst much +less unequal though never greater, has not attained. + +THE AUGUSTAN AGE.--The Augustan Age, which was only really very great if +under this title is also included the epoch of Caesar and also that of +Octavius, and thus it was understood by our ancestors, does not fail to +offer writers of fine genius. These are Virgil, Horace, and Titus-Livy. + +TITUS-LIVY.--Titus-Livy, who is one of the purest and most beautiful +writers and an orator of seductive talent in his own chamber, wrote a +Roman history composed, as to the first portion, of the legends +transmitted at Rome from generation to generation, and in which it is +impossible for us to distinguish the false from the true; for two-thirds +of the work made very accurate investigations of all that previous +historians and the annals of the pontiffs could give the author. As has +been observed, Titus-Livy, being a Cisalpine, was a Gaul who already +possessed the French qualities: order, clearness, regulated development, +sustained and careful style, oratorical tastes. An ardent patriot, +republican at his soul, yet treated in friendly fashion by Augustus, he +wrote Roman history at first, no doubt, to make it known, but above all +to inspire the Romans of his own time with admiration, respect, and love +for the austere morals and exalted virtues of their ancestors. He erected +a monument, one portion of which is unhappily destroyed, but into which +modern tragedians have often quarried and which orators have not scorned +when desiring to instruct themselves in their art. + +VIRGIL.--Virgil came from almost the same country. His was a charming +soul, tender and gentle, infinitely capable of friendship, very pure and +white, as Horace said, with a tendency to melancholy. The two sources of +his inspiration were Homer and love of Rome; add, for a time, Theocritus. +Lover of the country and of moral life, he first wrote those delicious +_Bucolics_ wherein he did not venture to be as realistic as the +Sicilian poet, but in which there is not only infinite grace and delicate +sensibility, but also, in certain verses, admirable descriptions that +arouse memories of those of La Fontaine. Lover of the soil and desirous, +in harmony with Augustus, to attract the Italians back to a taste for +agriculture, he wrote the _Georgics_: that is, the toils of the +field, describing these labours with singular exactitude and precision; +then, to give the reader variety, he introduced from time to time an +episode which is a fragment of history or of mythological legend. At +length, desirous of attributing to Rome the most glorious past possible, +he revived the old legend which claimed that the ancient kings of Rome +descended from the famous kings of Troy in her zenith, and he composed +the _Aeneid_. The _Aeneid_ is at once both an _Odyssey_ and an +_Iliad_. The first five books containing the adventures of +Aeneas after the fall of Troy until his arrival in Italy form an +_Odyssey_; the last six books, containing the combats of Aeneas in +Italy in order to conquer a place for himself, form an _Iliad_. In +the middle, the sixth book is a descent into hell, again an imitation of +Homer, yet altogether new, enriched as it is with very fine philosophical +ideas which Homer could never have known. The main theme of the poem and +what gives it unity is Rome, which does not yet exist, but which is +always to be seen looming in the future. All the poem leans in that +direction, and alike by ingenious artifices, by prophecies more and more +exact, by the description of the shield of Aeneas, Roman history itself, +in its broad lines, is traced. + +The sovereign merit of Virgil is his artistic sense. Others are more +powerful or more profound. No man has written better verse than he on any +subject on which he wrote. + +HORACE.--Horace was a man of infinite wit, profoundly conversant with the +Grecian poets. With that knowledge of the poets he filled his odes with +recollections of Alcasus and Stesichorus; they were minutely and finely +polished, accustoming the Romans to find in Latin words the musical +phrases of the Greeks, but withal remaining very cold. With his wit, his +verve, his very lively sense of humour, his pretty moral philosophy +borrowed a little from the Stoics but mainly from the Epicureans, he +created his _Satires_ and his _Epistles_, which form the most +delicate feast and which have no more lost their interest for us than +Montaigne has. Here was a charming man. He was not a great poet. He was +the most witty of poets, the poet of the men of wit. + +TIBULLUS; PROPERTIUS; OVID.--Tibullus, Propertius, and Ovid immediately +followed him. Tibullus was a tender and sad elegiast, less passionate and +less powerful than Catullus, but gracious and touching. All the elegiacal +poets, and Andre Chenier in particular, have evinced recollections of +him. Propertius possessed great talent for versification, but was more +erudite than inspired; being almost pure Alexandrine, he is more +interesting to the humourist than to the ordinary man. Ovid, gifted with +facility and the skill of a prodigious versifier, dexterous descriptist +in his _Metamorphoses_, ingenious and cold in his _Art of +Love_, has found some pathetic notes in his elegies wherein as an +exile he weeps over his own misfortunes. + +DECADENCE.--With the second century arrived the commencement of +decadence. The rhetoricians, who in Rome were what the sophists were in +Athens, only far less intelligent, directed the public mind. They did +not spoil it completely, but they did not give it strength, and the +Latins, believing they had reached the zenith of the Greeks, seemed to +draw less inspiration from the eternal models. + +QUINTUS CURTIUS.--However, the Latin sap is still strong. Quintus +Curtius, romantic historian, who wrote a history of Alexandria which is +too generous towards the legendary, narrates brilliantly and strews his +pages with vigorously phrased maxims and apothegms. He is a remarkable +author. The elder Pliny, a very erudite sage and a somewhat precious +writer, is a worthy successor of Varro. + +SENECA.--Seneca, who certainly was well nurtured in Greek philosophy, +preached stoicism in concise, antithetic, and epigrammatic styles, all in +highly thoughtful points which sometimes attain power. + +PETRONIUS; LUCIAN; MARTIAL.--Petronius was a man possessing highly +refined taste who painted extremely ugly morals. Tragedy endeavoured to +obtain renaissance with Seneca the tragic, who is perhaps the same as the +moralist Seneca, alluded to above, and the effort was sufficiently +brilliant for our tragedians of the sixteenth century, and even Racine in +his _Phedre_, frequently to follow it. Perseus, pupil of Horace so +far as his satires are concerned, was concise to the point of obscurity, +but often displayed such vigour and ruggedness as to be powerfully +moving. Lucian, spoilt by a certain taste for declamation, is really a +sound poet, more especially as a poetic orator, and in this respect he is +often admirable. Silius Italicus, Valerius Flaccus, Statius, revert to +the school of Virgil and display talent for versification. Martial, +almost exclusively epigrammatic, was extremely witty. + +JUVENAL.--Juvenal, arising sardonically from the crowd, is the prince of +satirists for all time. He possessed a passion for honesty, spirit, and +oratorical breadth, and incredible vigour as colourist, the gift of verse +cast in medallions and also the gift of energetic metallic sonorousness. +Victor Hugo, in the satiric portion of his work, not merely drew +inspiration from but seemed saturated with him. + +THE TRAJAN EPOCH.--now came the Trajan epoch. Quintilian, in elegant +fashion, with point and rather affected graces, taught us excellent +rhetoric full of sense and taste. Pliny the Younger, gentle and gay, +honest and amusing, pleaded as an insinuating orator, and, under the +pretext of _Letters_ to his friends, wrote essays of amiable +morality which evoke recollections of Montaigne. + +TACITUS.--Tacitus is a great psychological historian and moralist. He is, +as Racine observed, "the greatest painter of antiquity," and Racine meant +the greatest painter of portraits. He possessed an entirely fresh style +of his own creation: nervous, articulate, coloured, concise, with brief +metaphors which reveal not only a poet, but a fine poet, in the vein of +Michelet, but with the difference of febrility to the potent discharge of +power. + +AULUS GELLIUS; APULEIUS.--Under Marcus Aurelius Latin literature fell +into decay. Aulus Gellius was only a rather untidy or at least not very +methodical scholar who wrote feebly; Apuleius with his _Golden Ass_ +was merely a fantastic romancist, very complex, curious about everything, +more especially with regard to singularities, lively, amusing, mystical +at times; in short, distinctly disconcerting. + +WRITERS ON CHRISTIANITY.--Christianity was at an adult age. There were +writers of importance and some who were really great; the energetic and +violent Tertullian, beloved by Bossuet; Saint Cyprian, full of unction, +gentleness, and charity; Lactantius, skilful Christian philosopher, +ingenious and possessing insinuating subtlety; Saint Hilarius, an ardent +polemist, impetuous and torrential; Saint Ambrose, exalted, wise, serene, +very well read, very "Roman," who may be styled the Cicero of +Christianity; Saint Jerome, ardent, impassioned, possessing lively +sensibility, an animated and seductive imagination, who--excluding all +idea of scandal--suggests what is purest and most beautiful in Jean +Jacques Rousseau; finally, that great doctor and noble philosopher of +the Church, Saint Augustine. + +SAINT AUGUSTINE.--Saint Augustine is pre-eminently a philosopher, a man +who analysed ideas and saw all that they contained, their first principle +and their trend as well as their ultimate consequences. He was in +addition a great orator; he was also a historian, or at least a +philosopher of history, in his _City of God_; finally, he was a poet +at heart and imbued with the most exquisite sensibility in his immortal +_Confessions_. Probably he was the most extraordinary man of the +world of antiquity. + +CHRISTIAN POETS.--Christianity even had its poets: Commodian, Juvencus, +the impassioned and skilful Prudentius, St. Paulinus of Nola. None were +very prominent, all possessed lively sentiment, such as Chateaubriand +evinced, for what is profoundly poetic in Christianity. + +SECULAR POETS.--The last mundane poets were more brilliant than those of +Christianity. Avienus possessed charming elegance and rather effeminate +grace. It should be noted that he (with Prudentius) was the sole lyric +poet after Horace. Ausonius had sensibility and remarkable descriptive +talent; Claudian, rhetorician in verse, rose sometimes to veritable +eloquence and maintained a continual brilliance which is fatiguing +because it is continual, but does not fail to be a marvellous fault. +Finally must be cited Rutilius, first because he had talent, then because +even amid the invasions of the barbarians he made an impassioned eulogy +of Rome which is, involuntarily, a funeral oration; finally, because, +despite being a bitter foe to Christianity, he once more involuntarily +defined the great and noble change from paganism to Christianity: _Tunc +mutabantur corpora, nunc animi_ ("Formerly bodies were metamorphosed, +now souls"). + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +THE MIDDLE AGES: FRANCE + +_Chansons de Geste: Song of Roland_ and Lyric Poetry. Popular +Epopee: _Romances of Renard_. Popular Short Stories: Fables. +Historians. The Allegorical Poem: _Romance of the Rose_. Drama. + + +_CHANSONS DE GESTE_.--The literature of the Middle Ages freed itself from +Latin about the tenth century. This was the moment when the great epopees +which are called _chansons de geste_ began to be heard. The most +celebrated is the one entitled _The Song of Roland_. It is the story +of the last struggle in which Roland engaged on returning from Spain at +the pass of Roncevaux and of his death. The form of this poem is rather +dry and a little monotonous; but there are admirable passages such as the +benediction of the dying by the Bishop Turpin, the farewell of Roland to +Oliver, Roland holding out his glove to his Lord God at the moment of +death, etc. The _chansons de geste_ were numerous. Some +commemorated Charlemagne and his comrades, others Arthur, King of +Britain, and his knights, others, as a rule less interesting, were about +the heroes of antiquity, Troy, Alexander, not well known but not +forgotten. The _chansons de geste_ permeated the whole of the +eleventh and twelfth centuries. + +JOINVILLE; VILLEHARDOUIN.--In the thirteenth century appeared an +historian, Joinville, friend of St. Louis, who described the crusade in +which he took part with his master. He possessed _naivete_, grace, +naturalness, and picturesqueness. Villehardouin, who described the fourth +crusade, in which he played his part, was a realist--exact, precise, +luminous--in whom the strangeness and grandeur of the things he had +witnessed sometimes inspired a true nobility, simple enough but +singularly impressive. + +THE TROUBADOURS.--Lyric poetry barely existed during these centuries +except south of the Loire, in the Latin country, among the poets called +troubadours; nevertheless, in the north, the noble Count Thibaut of +Champagne, to cite only one, wrote songs possessing amiable inspiration +and happily turned. Beside him must be instanced the highly remarkable +Ruteboeuf, narrator, elegiast, lyric orator, admirably gifted, who, to be +a great poet, only needed to live in a more favourable period and to have +at his disposition a more flexible language, one more abundant and more +widely elaborated. + +_THE ROMANCES OF RENARD_.--In the fourteenth century, the _Romances of +Renard_ enjoyed remarkably wide popularity and multiplied in +abundance. Each was like a fable by La Fontaine expanded to the +proportions of an epic poem. Under the names of animals they were human +types in action and concerned in multifarious adventures: the lion was +the king; the bear, called Bruin, was the seigneurial lord of the soil; +the fox was the artful, circumspect citizen; the cock, called +Chanticleer, was the hero of warfare, and so on. Some of the _Romances +of Renard_ are insipid; others possess a satiric and parodying spirit +that is extremely diverting. + +THE FABLES.--Contemporaneously the _Fables_ amused our ancestors. +They were anecdotes, tales in verse for the most part dealing with +adventures of citizens, analogous to the tales of La Fontaine. The +majority were jeering, bantering, and satirical; some few were affecting +and refined. They were certainly the most living and characteristic +portion of old French literature. + +THE BIBLES.--The Middle Ages, after the manner of the ancients, delighted +in gathering into one volume all the knowledge current. These didactic +books were called bibles. Some were celebrated: the _Bible_ of Guyot +of Provence, the _Bible_ of Hugo of Berzi. As a rule, whilst learned +as far as the resources of the times permitted, they were also satiric, +precisely as almost the whole of the literature of the Middle Ages is +satiric. + +_THE ROMANCE OF THE ROSE_.--The _Romance of the Rose_, which was by +two authors writing with almost half a century of interval between them, +was in the first portion, of which the author is William of Lorris, an +art of love in the form of a romance in verse; and the second part, +written by John de Meung, formed in some measure a continuation of the +first, but above all was a work of erudition and instruction, in which +the poet put all that he knew as well as his philosophical conceptions, +often of a remarkable and highly unexpected boldness. Aptly John de Meung +has been compared with Rabelais, and it is not astonishing that the +popularity of this poem should have lasted more than two centuries nor +that it should have charmed or irritated our ancestors according to the +tendency of their minds. + +FROISSART.--The representative of history in the fourteenth century was +Froissart, a picturesque chronicler, very vital, always full of interest, +although it is indisputable that he was lacking in historical criticism; +and among the orators, polemists, and controversialists of the times must +at least be cited the impassioned and virtuous Gerson, who expended his +life in incessant struggles on behalf of his Christian faith. + +To him, without decisive proof, has often been attributed the +_Imitation of Jesus Christ_, which, in any case, whoever wrote it, +must be emphasised as one of the purest products of the religious spirit +of the Middle Ages. + +CHARLES OF ORLEANS; VILLON.--The fifteenth century, otherwise somewhat +sterile, introduced one distinguished poet, Charles of Orleans, graceful +and pleasing; and one who at moments rose to the height of being almost +a great poet: this was Francis Villon, the celebrated author of _The +Ballade of Dames of Ancient Times_, of which the yet more famous +refrain was, "Where are the snows of last year?" + +MYSTERIES AND MIRACLES.--To deal with the theatre of the Middle Ages it +is necessary to go further back. Without considering as drama those pious +performances which the clergy organised or tolerated even in the churches +from the tenth century and probably earlier, there was already a popular +drama in the twelfth century outside the church whereat were performed +veritable dramas drawn from holy writ or legends of saints. This +developed in the thirteenth century, and in the fourteenth and fifteenth +it was prolific in immense dramatic poems which needed several days for +their performance. These were _Mysteries_, as they were termed, or +_Miracles_, wherein comedy and tragedy were interwoven and a great +deed in religious history or sometimes in national history commemorated, +such as the _Mystery of the Siege of Orleans_, by Greban. + +FARCES; FOLLIES; MORALITIES.--The comic theatre also existed. It provided +_farces_, which were really little comedies (the most famous was the +_Farce of the Lawyer Patelin_); _follies_, which are farcical +but good-humoured caricatures of students and clerks; and +_moralities_, which are small serious dramas, interspersed with +comedy, having real personages mingled with allegorical ones. The drama +of the Middle Ages was very living and highly original, coming from the +soil and exactly adapted to the sentiments, passions, and ideas of the +people for whom and, a little later, by whom it was written. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +THE MIDDLE AGES: ENGLAND + +Literature in Latin, in Anglo-Saxon, and in French. The Ancestor of +English Literature: Chaucer. + + +THE THREE LITERATURES.--In England, prior to the Norman invasion, that is +before 1066, England possessed Saxon bards who sang of the prowess of +forbears or contemporaries, and monks who wrote in Latin the lives of +saints or even lay histories. + +From 1066 must be distinguished in England three parallel literatures: +the Latin literature of the cloister, the Anglo-Saxon literature, and the +French literature of the conquerors. + +Latin literature, so far as prose is regarded, was devoted exclusively to +philosophy and history; in verse the subjects are more diversified, +satire more especially flourished. + +The poets of the French tongue wrote more particularly _chansons de +geste_, and those of such songs which form what is termed the _Cycle +of Artus_ are for the most part the work of poets born in England. + +Finally, in the different popular dialects, Saxon, Western English, etc., +epic poems were written in verse, or romances, discourses, homilies, +different religious work in prose. The Normans, ardent, energetic, and +practical, had founded universities whence issued, endowed and equipped, +those who by patriotic sentiment or taste were destined to write in +Anglo-Saxon or in English. + +CHAUCER; GOWER.--The greatest name of the period and the one which +radiates most brilliantly is that of Chaucer in the fourteenth century, +author of _The Canterbury Tales_ and a crowd of other works. He +possessed very varied imagination, sometimes vigorous, sometimes +humorous, an extraordinary sense of reality, much spirit, and a fertility +of mind which made him the ancestor and precursor of Shakespeare. To his +illustrious name must be added that of his friend and pupil Gower, who is +curious because he is representative of the three literatures still in +use in his day, having written his _Speculum Meditatus_ in French, +his _Vox Clamantis_ in Latin, and his _Confessio Amantis_ in +English. So far as I am aware this phenomenon was never repeated. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +THE MIDDLE AGES: GERMANY + +Epic Poems: _Nibelungen_. Popular Poems. Very numerous Lyric Poems. +Drama. + + +FIRST LITERARY WORK.--The most ancient monument of German literature is +the _Song of Hildebrand_, which goes back to an unknown antiquity, +perhaps to the ninth century, and a very beautiful fragment of which has +been preserved by a happy chance. We are entirely ignorant of works +written in German between the _Song of Hildebrand_ and the +_Nibelungen_, except for some religious poems such as the +_Heliand_ in low German and the _Book of the Gospels_ in high +German. + +THE NIBELUNGEN,--The _Nibelungen_ form a vast poem, written probably +in the thirteenth century (or, at that epoch, formed by juxtaposition of +more ancient popular songs). It is a great national monument wherein are +collected the legendary exploits of all the ancestors of the Germans, +Huns, Goths, Burgundians and Franks especially. Portions possess +admirable dramatic qualities. The analogy with the _Iliad_ is +remarkable, and the comparison may be made even from the literary point +of view. + +VARIOUS PRODUCTIONS.--Then come productions less national in type, +imitations of French poems. _Song of Roland_, _Alexander_, songs of +the _Cycle of Arthur_ or of the _Round Table_, imitations of +Latin poems: for instance, the _Aeneid_, etc. Here, too, was spread +the _Story of Renard_, as in France, and even now the question is +unsettled whether the first poem of _Renard_ is French or German. +Religious and satiric poems were abundant in the thirteenth and +fourteenth centuries, but what is highly characteristic is the large +number of lyrical poets (Dietmar of Ast, Kuerenberg, Frederic of Hausen, +the Emperor Henry VI, etc.) produced by the Middle Ages in Germany. This +poetry was generally amorous and melancholy, sometimes full of the +warlike ardour which is found among our own troubadours. The poets who, +as in France, wandered through Germany, from court to court and from +castle to castle, called themselves minnesingers (singers of love). The +one who has remained most famous is Tannhaeuser. A fantastic and touching +legend has formed about his name. + +Germany, like France, possessed a popular drama, less prolific possibly, +but very similar. Among the most ancient popular tragedies now known may +be cited _The Prophets of Christ_ and the _Game of Antichrist_, +which are curious because of the juxtaposition of biblical acts and +contemporaneous events. Later came _The Miracles of the Virgin_, +_The Wise and Foolish Virgins_, dramas more varied, with more +numerous characters, more elaborate mounting, and with the interest +relatively more concentrated. + +COMEDY.--Comedy, as a rule very gross in character, enjoyed wide esteem, +especially in the fourteenth century. What were performed under the title +of _Carnival Games_ were generally nothing but _fables_ in +dialogue, domestic scenes, incidents in the market, interludes at the +cross-roads. Here was the vulgar plebeian joy allowing itself full +licence. The literary activity of Germany in the Middle Ages was at least +equal to that of the three literary western nations. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +THE MIDDLE AGES: ITALY + +Troubadours of Southern Italy. Neapolitan and Sicilian Poets. Dante, +Petrarch, Boccaccio. + + +THE TROUBADOURS.--The Italian literature of the Middle Ages is intimately +associated with the literature of the Troubadours in the south of France. +To express the case more definitely, the literature styled "Provencal," +apart from mere differences of dialect, extended from the Limousine to +the Roman campagna, and French literature existed only in the northern +and central provinces of France, the rest being Provencal-Italian +literature. The Italian Troubadours, by which I mean those born in Italy, +who must at least be cited, are Malaspina, Lanfranc Cicala, Bartolomeo +Ziorgi (of Venice), Bordello (of Mantua), etc. + +NAPLES AND SICILY.--Naples and Sicily, where were founded large +universities, were the seat of a purely Italian literature in the +thirteenth century, thanks to the impetus of the Emperor Frederick II. At +this seat were Peter of Vignes (_Petrus de Vineis_), who passes as +inventor of the sonnet; Ciullo of Alcamo, author of the first known +Italian _canzone_, etc. The influence of Sicily on all Italy was +such that for long in Italy all writing in verse was termed Sicilian. + +BOLOGNA; FLORENCE.--The literary centre then passed, that is in the +thirteenth century, to Bologna and Florence. Among the celebrated Tuscans +of this epoch was Guittone of Arezzo, mentioned by Dante and Petrarch +with more or less consideration; Jacopone of Todi, at once both mystic +and buffoon, in whom it has been sought, in a manner somewhat flattering +to him, to trace a predecessor of Dante; Brunetto Latini, the authentic +master of Dante, who was encyclopaedic, after a fashion, and who +published, first in French, whilst he was in Paris, _The Treasure_, +a compilation of the knowledge of his time, then, in Italian, +_Tesoretto_, a collection of maxims drawn from his previous work, +besides some poetry and translations from Latin. + +The fourteenth century, which for the French, Germans, and English was +the last or even the last century but one of the Middle Ages, was for the +Italians the first of the Renaissance. Two great names dominate this +century: Dante and Petrarch. + +DANTE: _THE DIVINE COMEDY_.--Dante, highly erudite, theologian, +philosopher, profound Latin scholar, not ignorant of Greek, much involved +in the agitations of his age, exiled from his home, Florence, in the +tumult of political discords, proscribed and a wanderer, coming as far as +France, studied at the University of Paris, wrote "songs," that is to +say, lyrical poetry gathered into the volume entitled _The +Canzoniere_, the _Vita Nuova_, which is also a collection of +lyric efforts, though more philosophical, and finally _The Divine +Comedy_, which is a theological epic poem. _The Divine Comedy_ is +composed of three parts: hell, purgatory, and heaven. Hell is composed +of nine circles which contract as they approach the centre of the earth. +There Dante placed the famous culprits of history and his own particular +enemies. The most popular episodes of hell are Ugolino in the tower of +hunger devouring his dead children, Francesca of Rimini relating her +guilty passions and their disastrous consequence, the meeting with +Sordello, the great Lord of Mantua, ever invincibly proud, looking "like +the lion when he reposes." Purgatory is a cone of nine circles which +contract as they rise to heaven. Heaven, finally, is composed of +nine globes superimposed on one another; over each of the first seven +presides a planet, the eighth is the home of the fixed stars, and the +last is pure infinity, home of the Trinity and of the elect. The power of +general imagination and of varied invention always renewed in style, and +the warmth of passion which throws life and heat into each part, have +assured Dante universal admiration. The community of literature +pre-eminently admires the hell; the eclectic have been compelled to +assert and therefore to believe that the paradise is infinitely superior. + +PETRARCH.--Petrarch, a Florentine born in exile, brought up at Avignon, +Carpentras, and Montpellier, during four fifths of his life thought only +of being a great scholar, of writing in Latin, and of obtaining the +repute of an excellent humanist. Hence his innumerable works in Latin. +But when twenty-three he was deeply affected by love for a maiden of +Avignon, and he sang of her living and dead and still triumphant in glory +and eternity, and hence his poems in Italian, the _Rhymes_ and +_Triumphs_. The sensitiveness of Petrarch was admirable; never did +pure love, growing mystical and mingling with divine love, find accents +alike more profound and noble than came from this Platonist refined with +Italian subtlety. Petrarchism became a fashion among the mediocre and a +school among these above the common. In the fifteenth and sixteenth +centuries there were innumerable imitators of Petrarch in Italy, and +later still in France. It is impossible not to instance Lamartine as the +last in date. + +BOCCACCIO: _THE DECAMERON_.--Immediately after these two great men +came Boccaccio, born in Paris but of Italian parentage, who resided at +Naples at the court of King Robert. He was a great admirer of Dante and +Petrarch, and himself wrote several estimable poems, but, in despair no +doubt of attaining the height of his models and also to please the taste +of Mary, daughter of King Robert, he wrote the libertine tales which are +gathered in the collection entitled _The Decameron_ and which +established his fame. He is one of the purest authors, as stylist, of all +Italian literature, and may be regarded as the principle creator of prose +in his own land. + +THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY IN ITALY.--The fifteenth century, less great among +the Italians than the fourteenth, yielded many wise men: Marsiglio +Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, Aurispa, etc. But omission must not be +made of poets such as Ange Politien, refined humanist, graceful lyrist; +and the earliest of dramatic poets of any rank, such as Pulci and +Bojardo. In prose note Pandolfini, master and delineator of domestic +life, as was Xenophon in Greece, and Leonardo da Vinci, the great painter +who left a treatise on his art; nor must it be forgotten that Savonarola +was a remarkably fine orator. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +THE MIDDLE AGES: SPAIN AND PORTUGAL + +Epic Poems: _Romanceros_. Didactic Books, Romances of Chivalry + + +COMMENCEMENTS OF SPANISH LITERATURE.--Known Spanish literature does not +go back beyond the twelfth century. Like that of the French it began with +a _chanson de geste_, and if France has Roland, Spain has the Cid. +The _Poem of the Cid_, or _The Song of the Cid_, dates from the +commencement of the thirteenth century; in rude but expressive language +it narrates the ripe years and old age of the famous captain. + +ALPHONSO X; JOHN MANUEL.--At the close of this century, Alphonso X, King +of Castile, surnamed the Sage or the Wise, versed in all the knowledge of +his time, produced, no doubt with collaborators, the universal chronicle, +history mingled with legends, of all peoples on the earth, and the +_Seven Parts_, a philosophical, moral, and legal encyclopaedia. His +nephew, Don John Manuel, regent of Castile during the minority of +Alphonso XI, a very pure and erudite writer, collated the code of the +kingdom in his _Book of the Child_, and the code of chivalry in his +_Book of the Knight and Squire_, with a series of apologues in the +volume known under the title of _The Count Lucanor_. + +_THE ROMANCERO_.--Of the same period and going back to the commencement +of the thirteenth century, if not earlier, is what is called the +_Romancero_. The _Romancero_ is the collection of all the +national romances, which are more or less short but are never long epic +poems. All the romances relating to a hero form the _Romancero_ of +that personage, and all the _Romanceros_ are called the Spanish +_Romancero_. It is in the _Romancero_ of Rodriguez that we find +the youth of Cid as known to us, or approximately, for it is purified +and spiritualised by ageing and, for example, Chimanes curses Rodriguez +but also asks for him in marriage: "Oh, king ... each day that shines, I +see him that slew my father parading on horseback and loosing his falcon +to my dovecot and with the blood of my doves has he stained my skirts and +he has sent me word he will cut the hem of my robe.... He who slew my +father, give him to me for equal; for he who did me so much harm I am +convinced will do me some good." And the king said: "I have always heard +said and now see that the feminine sex is most extraordinary. Until now +hath she asked of me justice against him and now she doth ask him of me +in marriage. I will do it with a good will. I shall send him a letter, +etc...." + +THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.--The fifteenth century in Spain, as everywhere +else, was destitute of great works. In poetry it was the era of lovesongs +and of the influence of Italian literature, which only later was +decidedly happy. In prose may be found many chronicles extremely valuable +to the historian, and some moral works such as the _Dialogue of the +Happy Life_ of Lucena and, finally, the famous _Amadis des +Gaules_, an ancient chivalric romance of unknown origin, brought to +publicity in that century by Montalvo. + +PORTUGUESE LITERATURE.--Portuguese literature, which is highly +interesting though evolved in too restricted a circle, is, above +all, epic and lyrical. The Portuguese lyrics almost exclusively dealt +with love; the epic poets celebrated a certain number of salient +achievements in national history. It is only in the sixteenth century +that a genuine expansion of Portuguese literature can be noted. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES: FRANCE + +First Portion of Sixteenth Century: Poets: Marot, Saint-Gelais; Prose +Writers: Rabelais, Comines. Second Portion of Sixteenth Century: Poets: +"The Pleiade"; Prose Writers: Amyot, Montaigne. First Portion of +Seventeenth Century: Intellectual and Brilliant Poets: Malherbe, +Corneille. Great Prose Writers: Balzac, Descartes. Second Portion of +Seventeenth Century: Poets: Racine, Moliere, Boileau, La Fontaine; Prose +Writers: Bossuet, Pascal, La Bruyere, Fenelon, etc. + + +THE RENAISSANCE OF LETTERS.--The sixteenth century was for France the +epoch of the Renaissance of letters. What is called the Renaissance of +letters is the result, to each race, of the closest contact of the +educated people with ancient literature, contact which sometimes +strengthened the national vein, sometimes weakened it, according to the +divergent temperaments of these races. + +MAROT; SAINT-GELAIS.--The sixteenth century in France was ushered in by +Marot and Saint-Gelais. Marot was a gracious, fluent, and satiric singer. +He was infinitely witty without venom, or mannerism, or affectation; at +times he attained to a somewhat serious philosophic poesy and also to +eloquence. Saint-Gelais, because he was most emphatically court-poet of +all those who have ever been court-poets, was placed by his +contemporaries above Marot, and literary historians have left him for the +most part in that position. The truth is that his work is worthless. It +would be impossible, however, to rob him of the glory of having brought +the sonnet from Italy, where he long abode in youth. + +COMINES.--In this first half of the sixteenth century must be noted +Comines, the historian of Louis XI, a political historian and a +historical statesman, remarkably subtle in perceiving the characters and +temperaments of prominent individuals, as well as a writer possessing +exactitude and limpidity rare in his generation. + +RABELAIS.--Francis Rabelais, in his two epic romances, _Gargantua_ +and _Pantagruel_, was erudite, capable of a certain philosophic +wisdom which has been greatly exaggerated, but above all was picturesque +to one's heart's content, and possessed the art of telling a tale as well +as any one in the wide world. He has been called "the buffoon Homer," and +the nickname may be legitimately granted to him. + +THE PLEIADE.--The second half of the sixteenth century was in all +respects the more remarkable. In poetry there was the Pleiade: +that is, the true and complete "Renaissance," although Marot had already +been a good workman at its dawn. The Pleiade consisted of Ronsard, Du +Bellay, Pontus of Tyard, Remy Belleau, and others; that is, folk who +wished to give to France in French the equivalent of what the classics +had produced in nobility and beauty. They did not succeed, but they had +the honour of having undertaken the task, and they also, all said and +done, produced some fine things. + +RONSARD; DU BELLAY.--If the truth must be written, Ronsard created an +epic poem which it is impossible to read, and some rather overpowering +odes after the Pindaric manner; but he wrote detached epic pieces which, +though always a trifle artificial, possess real beauty, and some +_odelettes_ which are enchanting in their grace and genuineness of +feeling, as well as sonnets that are in all respects marvellous. Joachim +du Bellay, on his part, wrote sonnets which must be numbered among the +most beautiful in the French tongue--the rest often had agreeable +inspirations. + +DRAMATIC POETS.--Add to their group some dramatic poets who did not yet +grasp what constituted a living tragedy and who, even when they imitated +Euripides, belonged to the school of Seneca, but who knew how to write in +verse, to make a discourse, and, occasionally, a gentle elegy. To mention +only the chief, these were Jodelle, Robert Garnier, and Montchrestien. + +PROSE WRITERS: AMYOT; CALVIN.--In prose, in this second half of the +sixteenth century, there were translators like Amyot, who set forth +Plutarch in a limpid French full of ease and geniality, as well as +somewhat careless. Religious writings such as those of Calvin, in a hard +style and "dreary," as Bossuet expressed it, exhibited vigour, power, and +sobriety. Among political writers was the eloquent La Boetie, the friend +of Montaigne, who in his _Discourse on Voluntary Servitude_ +vindicated the rights of the people against _One_, that is the +monarch. Among authors of _Memoirs_ were Montluc and Brantome, +picturesque in divergent manners, but both inquisitive, well-informed, +very alert and furnishing important contributions to history. + +MORALISTS: DU VAIR.--Finally, there were moralists such as Du Vair, too +long forgotten, and Montaigne. Du Vair was an eloquent orator who +exhibited plenty of courage during the troubles of the League; he left +some fine philosophical treatises: _The Moral Philosophy of the Stoics_, +_On Constancy and Consolation in Public Calamities_, etc. + +MONTAIGNE.--Montaigne, less grave and stoical, a far better writer, and +one of the two or three greatest masters of prose France ever produced, +possessed excellent sense sharpened with wit and enriched with a charming +imagination. According to his humour--now stoic, next epicurean, then +sceptic--always wise and refined and also always the sincere admirer of +greatness of soul and of courage, he is the best of advisers and of +companions through life, and of him more than of anyone else it ought to +be said: "To have found pleasure in him is to have profited by him." The +sole reproach could be that he wrote a little too much of himself, +that is, in entering into personal details that could well have been +spared. + +COMMENCEMENT OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.--The first half of the +seventeenth century in France was only the corollary of the sixteenth, +though naturally with some distinctive personalities and with one, +practically isolated, effort of reaction against that sixteenth century. +At that period could be found writing men, like Agrippa d'Aubigne, who +were absolutely in the spirit of the previous century; d'Aubigne, +amiable, gracious, and also fairly often witty, which is too frequently +forgotten, was ardent, passionate, a rough and violent fighter more +particularly in his _tragedies_, which are baldly crude satires, +illumined with astonishingly beautiful passages fairly frequent in +recurrence, against the Catholics and their leaders. Others of very +different temperament displayed yet more than the poets of the sixteenth +century that liberty, that fantasy, that disorder which were +characteristic of the times of Ronsard. So far as poets were concerned, +that generation must be regarded as entering on a first romanticism. +Theophilus de Vian, a fine but over-prodigal poet, without ballast, did +not live long enough to grow wise and acquire self-mastery: Cyrano +de Bergerac was a brilliant madman, sometimes sparkling with wit and +imagination, but often dirty and ridiculous. Saint-Amant possessed plenty +of imagination and capacity for exquisite poetical feeling, but he lacked +taste and too often was puerile. Wiser than they, yet themselves verbose, +long-winded, slow, and spun out, Desportes translated into French verse +Italian poetry of the sixteenth century, often with very happy turns of +expression, and Bertaut, melancholy and graceful, lacked brilliance even +if he possessed poetic emotion. + +REGNIER.--Regnier the satirist, pupil of Horace and Juvenal, also assumed +the mental attitude of the sixteenth century owing to his viridity, his +crudity, his lack of avoidance of obscenity, even though he was a true +poet, vigorous, powerful, oratorical, and epigrammatical, as well as a +witty and mordant caricaturist. + +PRECIEUX AND BURLESQUES.--Then succeeded the _precieux_ and the +_burlesques_, who resembled each other, the _precieux_ seeking +wit and believing that all literary art consisted in saying it did not +matter what in a dainty and unexpected fashion; the _burlesques_ +also sought wit but on a lower plane, desiring to be "droll," buffoons, +prone to cock-and-bull stories or crude pranks in thought, style, and +parody. Voiture is the most brilliant representative of the +_preieux_ and Scarron the most prominent of the _burlesques_. + +MALHERBE.--In the midst of this unrestrained literature one man attempted +to impose reason, accuracy of mind, taste, and conciseness. This was +Malherbe, who was also a powerful lyric poet, a stylist with an ear for +melody. His influence was considerable, but forty years after his own +time; for it was the poets of 1660 who were formed of him and proclaimed +themselves his disciples. In his own day he had only Maynard and Racan +as pupils, or rather as partisans, for their work but little resembled +his. + +THE THEATRE.--On the stage the first portion of the seventeenth century, +certainly as far as 1636, was only the corollary of the sixteenth. Hardy, +writing without method or rule, being in addition a very weak poet, +presided in the theatre whilst Mairet, in imitation of the Italians and +in imitation too of the bulk of the dramatists of the sixteenth century, +essayed to establish formal tragedy, but without creating much effect +because his talent was of an inferior description. + +At last Corneille arose and, after feeling his way a little, created +French tragedy; but as this was only in 1636, and as in the course of his +long career he came into the second half of the century, he will be dealt +with a little later. + +PROSE: BALZAC; DESCARTES.--In prose, the first half of the seventeenth +century was fruitful in important works. Cardinal de Perron, who began as +an amiable elegant poetaster, became a great orator and formidable +controversialist. Guez de Balzac, a little lacking in ideas yet an +extremely good writer, though but little detached from preciosity, as +Voltaire observed, imparted harmony to his phrases both in his letters +and in his _Socrates a Christian_. Vaugelas arranged the code of +the language founded on custom. Descartes, with whose philosophic ideas +we have here nothing to do, in his broad, ample periods, well delivered +and powerfully articulated, reproduced the Ciceronian phrase though +without its rather weak grace, and in great measure formed the mould +whence later was to flow the eloquence of Bossuet. The important works of +Descartes are his _Discourses on Method_, his _Meditation_, and +his _Treatise on the Passions_. + +THE GOLDEN AGE: CORNEILLE.--The second half of the seventeenth century is +in all respects the golden age of French literature. Great poets and +great prose writers were then crowded in serried ranks. To begin with the +dramatic poets, who furnished the most vivid glory of the epoch, there +was Corneille, who, from 1636, with _The Cid_, was in full splendour +and who before 1650 had produced his most beautiful works, _Cinna_, _The +Horaces_, _Polyeucte_, continued for twenty-four years after 1650 to +furnish the stage with dramas that often possessed many fine qualities, +among which must be cited _Don Sancho of Aragon_, _Nicomedes_, _Oedipus_, +_Sertorius_, _Sophonisba_, _Titus and Berenice_, _Psyche_ (with Moliere), +_Rodogune Heraclius_, _Pulcheria_. Corneille must be regarded as the +real creator of _all_ the French drama, because he wrote comedies, +tragedies, operas, melodramas. It was therein, apart from his universal +virtuosity, that he more particularly made his mark, and in his best work +he was the delineator of the human will overcoming passions and, as it +were, intoxicated with this victory and his own power, so that he has +become a great advocate of energy and a prominent apostle of duty. + +RACINE.--Racine, altogether different, without being opposed to duty, +loved to depict passions victorious over man and man the victim of his +passions and of the over-powering misfortunes therefrom resulting, thus +furnishing a moral lesson. He was a more penetrating psychologist than +Corneille, although the latter knew the human heart well, and he showed +himself infallibly wise in composition and dramatic disposition, as well +as an absolutely incomparable master of verse. His tragedies, especially +_Andromache_, _Britannicus_, _Berenice_, _Bajazet_, _Phedre_, and +_Athalie_ will always enchant mankind. + +MOLIERE.--Moliere who was admirably gifted to seize the ridiculous with +its causes and consequences, very quick and penetrating in insight, armed +with somewhat narrow but solid common-sense calculated to please the +middle classes of all time, possessed prodigious comic humour, and who +never gave the spectator leisure to reflect or breathe--in short, a great +writer although hasty and careless--created a whole repertoire of comedy +(_The School of Women_, _Don Juan_, _Tartufe_, _The Misanthrope_, +_Learned Ladies_) which left all known comedy far behind, which +eliminated all rivalry in his own time, knew eclipse only in the middle +of the eighteenth century, and for the last hundred and forty years has +proved the delight of Europe. He remains the master of universal comedy. + +BOILEAU.--Boileau was only a man of good sense, of ability, and of +excellent taste, who wrote verse industriously. This was not enough to +constitute a great poet but enough to make him what he was, a diverting +and acute satirist, an agreeable moralist and critic in verse--which his +master Horace had been so often--expert, dexterous, and possessing much +authority. His _Poetic Art_ for long was the tables of the law of +Parnassus, and even now can be read not only with pleasure but even with +profit. + +LA FONTAINE.--La Fontaine was one of the greatest poets of any epoch. He +had a profound sentiment for nature, a fine and penetrating knowledge of +the character of men he depicted under the names of animals; he was free +and fantastic as a philosopher but well instructed and sometimes +profound; he had a gentle and smiling sensibility capable at times of +melancholy and also now and again of a delicious elegiac; above all, he +was endowed with incomparable artistic sense, which rendered him the +safest and most dexterous manipulator of verse, of rhythms, and of +musical sonorities, who appeared in France prior to Victor Hugo. It is +much more difficult to state what he lacked than to enumerate the +multiple and miraculous gifts with which he was endowed. His complete +lack of morality or his ingenuous carelessness in this respect formed the +only subject for regret. + +SECONDARY ABILITY.--Near such great geniuses, it is only possible to +mention those of secondary talent; but no compunction need be felt at +alluding to Segrais, a graceful manufacturer of eclogues, and Benserade, +who rhymed delightfully for masquerades and was capable, on occasions, of +being wittily but also tenderly elegiac. + +GREAT PROSE WRITERS.--The writers in prose of the second half of the +seventeenth century are legion and but few fail to attain greatness. La +Rochefoucauld, in his little volume of _Maxims_, enshrined thoughts +that were often profound in a highly accurate and delicate setting. +Cardinal de Retz narrated his tumultuous career in his _Memoirs_, +which are strangely animated, vivid, and representative of what occurred. +Arnauld and Nicole have explained their rigid Catholicism, which was +Jansenism, in solid and luminous volumes; the latter, more especially, +merits consideration and in his _Moral Essays_ proved an excellent +writer. Mezeray, conscientious, laborious, circumstantial as well as +capable writer, should be reckoned as the earliest French historian. +Bourdaloue, sound logician and good moralist, from his pulpit as a +preacher uttered discourses that were admirable, though too dogmatically +composed, and painted word-pictures that piously satirised the types and +the eccentrics of his day. Malebranche, reconsidering what Descartes had +thought and revitalising his conclusions, arranged in his _Research +after Truth_ a complete system of spiritualist and idealistic +philosophy which he rendered clear, in spite of its depth, +and extremely attractive owing to the merits of his powerful and +facile imagination and of his rich, copious, and elastic style, that +attained the happy mean between conversation and instruction. But five +writers of the highest rank came into the perennial forefront, attracting +and retaining general attention: Pascal, Bossuet, Mme. de Sevigne, +La Bruyere, and Fenelon. + +PASCAL.--Pascal, a scholar and also by scientific education +mathematician, geometrician, physician, turned, not to letters +which he scorned, but to the exposition of those religious ideas which at +the age of thirty-three were precious to him. To defend his friends the +Jansenists against their foes the Jesuits, he wrote _The Provincial +Letters_ (1656), which have often been regarded as the foremost +monument of classic French prose; such is not our view, but they +certainly form a masterpiece of argument, of dialectics, of irony, of +humour, of eloquence, and are throughout couched in a magnificent style. +Dying whilst still young, he left notes on various subjects, more +particularly religion, philosophy, and morality, which have been +collected under the title of _Thoughts_ and are the product of a +great Christian philosopher, of a profound moralist, of a marvellously +concise orator, and also of a poet who lacked neither acute sensitiveness +nor vast and imposing imagination. + +BOSSUET.--Bossuet is universally admitted to be the king of French +orators; all his life he preached with a serious, imposing, vast, +copious, and sonorous eloquence, fed from recollections of Holy Writ and +of the Fathers, being insistent, convincing, and persuasive. His few +funeral orations (on Henrietta of France, Henrietta of England, the +Prince de Conde) are prose poems of glory, grief, and piety. He wrote +against all those he regarded as enemies of true religion (_History +of Variations_, _Quarrels of Quietness_), controversial works sparkling +with irony and exalted eloquence. He traced in his _Universal +History_ the great design in all its stages of God towards humanity +and the world. He knew all the resources of the French language and of +French style, and in his hands they were expanded. Despite his errors, +which were those of his epoch, his date counts in the history of France +as a great date, the date in which the religion to which he belonged +reached its apogee and when the grand style of French prose was in its +zenith. + +MADAME DE SEVIGNE.--Madame de Sevigne only wrote letters to her friends; +but they were so witty, lively, picturesque, admirable in aptly +recounting the anecdotes of her day and in depicting the scenes and +those concerned in them, written in a style so brisk and seductive, +uniting the promise of 1630 with the harvest of 1670, that her work still +remains one of the greatest favourites with people of literary taste. + +She was the friend of M. de la Rochefoucauld, of Cardinal de Retz, and of +that amiable, refined, and gentle Mme. de la Fayette, whose novel, _The +Princess of Cleves_, is still read with interest and emotion. + +LA BRUYERE.--La Bruyere translated and continued Theophrastus; he was a +moralist, or rather a depicter of morals. He described the court, the +town, and (very rarely) the village and the country. He was on the +lookout for fools in order to be their scourge. He painted, or, better +still, he engraved in an incisive way that was sharp, like aqua-fortis. +Almost invariably bitter to an extreme, he sometimes had flashes of quite +unexpected and very singular sensibility which make him beloved. Somewhat +in imitation of La Rochefoucauld, but more particularly in conformity +with his own nature, he developed a brief, concise, brusque style which +became that of the moralist and even of the general author for the next +fifty years, a style which was that of Montesquieu and Voltaire, and +superseded the broad, sustained, balanced, harmonious, and measured style +of the majority of the writers of the eighteenth century. In the field of +ridicule, wherein he sowed copiously, more so even than Moliere, the +comic poets of the eighteenth century came to glean copiously, which did +them less credit (for it is better to observe than to read) than it +conferred on the wise and ingenious author of the _Characters_. + +FENELON.--Fenelon, extremely individual and original, having on every +subject ideas of his own which were sometimes daring, often practical, +always generous and noble, was a preacher like Bossuet; also like +Bossuet, he was a dexterous, skilled, and formidable controversialist, +whilst, for the instruction of the Duke of Burgundy, which had been +confided to him, he became a fabulist, an author of dialogues, in some +degree a romancer or epic poet in prose in his famous _Telemachus_, +overadmired, then overdepreciated, and which, despite weaknesses, remains +replete with strength and dazzling brilliance. Nowadays there is a marked +return to this prince of the Church and of literature, whose brain was +complex and even complicated, but whose heart was quite pure and his +reasoning on a high level. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES: ENGLAND + +Dramatists: Marlowe, Shakespeare. Prose Writers: Sidney, Francis Bacon, +etc. Epic Poet: Milton. Comic Poets. + + +ELIZABETHAN AGE: SPENSER.--In England the Elizabethan Age is the period +extending from the commencement of the reign of Elizabeth to the end of +her successor, James I; that is, from 1558 to 1625. This was the golden +age of English literature: the epoch in which, awakened or excited by the +Renaissance, her genius gave forth all its development in fruits that +were marvellous. + +First, there was Spenser, alike impregnated with the Italian Renaissance +and gifted with the slightly fantastic imagination of his own countrymen, +who wrote eclogues, in his _Shepheard's Calender_, in imitation of +Theocritus and Virgil as well as of the Italians of the sixteenth +century, and who gave charming descriptions in his _Faerie Queene_. + +Next came Sidney, the sonnetist, at once passionate and precious, and +then that highest glory of this glorious period, the dramatic poets. + +THE STAGE: MARLOWE.--As in France, the English stage in the Middle Ages +had been devoted to the performance of mysteries (under the name of +_miracles_), later of moralities. As in France, tragedy, strictly +speaking, was constituted in the sixteenth century. Towards its close +appeared Marlowe, a very great genius, still rugged but with +extraordinary power, more especially lyrical. His great works are +_Doctor Faustus_ and _Edward II_. + +SHAKESPEARE.--Then (at the same time as the rest, for they are of about +the same age, though Marlowe appeared the earlier) came William +Shakespeare, who is perhaps the greatest known dramatic poet. His immense +output, which includes plays carelessly put together and, one may venture +to say, negligibly, also contains many masterpieces: _Othello_, _Romeo +and Juliet_, _Macbeth_, _Hamlet_, _The Taming of the Shrew_, _The Merry +Wives of Windsor_, _As You Like It_, and _The Tempest_. The _types_ and +personages of Shakespeare, which have remained celebrated and are still +daily cited in human intercourse, include Othello, that tragic figure of +jealousy; Romeo and Juliet, the young lovers separated by the feuds of +their families but united in death; Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, the +ambitious criminals; Hamlet, the young man with a great mind and a great +heart but with a feeble will which collapses under too heavy a task and +comes to the verge of insanity; Cordelia, the English Antigone, the +devoted daughter of the proscribed King Lear; Falstaff, glutton, coward, +diverting and gay, a kind of Anglo-Saxon Panurge. A whole dramatic +literature has come from Shakespeare. To France he was introduced by +Voltaire and then scorned by him because he had succeeded only too well +in popularising him; subsequently he was exalted, praised to hyperbole, +and imitated beyond discretion by the romantics. In addition to his +dramatic works, Shakespeare left _Sonnets_, some of which are obscure, +but the majority are perfect. + +BEN JONSON.--Ben Jonson, classical, exact, pretty faithful imitator of +the writers of antiquity, interested in unusual characters and customs, +gifted with a ready and lively imagination in both comedy and tragedy +like Shakespeare, succeeded especially in comedy (_Every Man in his +Humour_, _The Silent Woman_, etc.). Beaumont and Fletcher, who wrote in +collaboration, are full of elevation, of delicacy and grace expressed in +a style which is regarded by their fellow-countrymen as exceptionally +beautiful. + +PROSE WRITERS: LYLY; SIDNEY; BACON; BURTON.--In prose this amazing +period was equally productive. Lyly, who corresponds approximately to the +French Voiture, created _euphemism_: that is, witty preciosity. Sidney, +in his _Arcadia_ furnished a curious example of the chivalric romance. +Further in his _Defence of Poesie_, he founded literary criticism. +Francis Bacon, historian, moralist, philosopher, perhaps collaborator +with Shakespeare, has a place equally allocated to him in a history of +literature as in a history of philosophical ideas. Robert Burton, +moralist or rather _Meditator_, who gave himself the pseudonym of +Democritus Junior because he was consumed with sadness, left a great +work, but one in which there are many quotations, called _The Anatomy of +Melancholy_. There is much analogy between him and the French Senancour. +Sterne, without acknowledgment, profusely pilfered from him. He is +thoroughly English. He did not create melancholy but he greatly +contributed to it and made a specialty of it. Despite his pranks and +whimsicality, he possessed high literary merit. + +POETRY: WALLER.--The English seventeenth century, strictly speaking, +virtually commencing about 1625, was inferior to the sixteenth, that has +just been considered, which is easily explained by the civil wars +distracting England at this period. In poetry, on the one hand, may be +noticed the softened and pleasing Epicureans, of which the most prominent +representative was Waller, a witty man of the world, who dwelt long in +France, and was a friend of Saint-Evremond (who himself spent a portion +of his life in England). Waller made a very fine eulogy of his cousin +Cromwell, later another of Charles II, and was told by the latter, "This +is not so good as that on Cromwell," whereupon he replied, "Sire, you +know that poets always succeed better in fiction than in fact." Here was +a man of much wit. + +HERBERT; HABINGTON.--Also must be remarked the austere and mystical such +as George Herbert, with his _Temple_, a collection of religious and +melancholy poems, and like Habington, sad and gloomy even as far as the +thirst for dissolution, analogous to the modern Schopenhauer: "My God, if +it be Thy supreme decree, if Thou wilt that this moment be the last +wherein I breathe this air, my heart obeys, happy to retire far from the +false favours of the great, from betrayals where the just are preyed +upon...." + +DRAMATIC POETS.--Let the estimable dramatic poets be alluded to. +Davenant, perhaps a son of Shakespeare; Otway, the illustrious author of +_Venice Preserved_ and of many adaptations from the French (_Titus +and Berenice_, the _Tricks of Scapin_, etc.); Dryden, declamatory, +emphatic, but admirably gifted with dramatic genius, author of _The +Virgin Queen_, _All for Love_ (Cleopatra), _Don Sebastian_, was always +hesitating between the influence of Shakespeare and that of the French, +over-inclined, too, to licentious scenes but pathetic and eloquent. + +MILTON.--Quite apart arose Milton, the imperishable author of _Paradise +Lost_, the type and model of the religious epic permeated, in fact, with +profound and ardent religious feeling, but also possessing very +remarkable grandeur and philosophical breadth. Milton became a second +Bible to the people to whom the Bible was the inevitable and essential +daily study. To _Paradise Lost_, Milton added the inferior _Paradise +Regained_ and the poem of _Samson_. Apart from his great religious poems, +Milton wrote Latin poems (especially in his youth) which are extremely +agreeable, and also works in prose, generally in relation to polemical +politics, which came from a vigorous and exalted mind. Milton, from the +aspect of his prodigious productiveness and his varied life, divided +between literature and the intellectual battles of his times, is +comparable to Voltaire, reservation being made for his high moral +character, wherein no comparison can be entertained with the French +satirist. He did himself full justice. Having become blind, he wrote: + + + "Cyriack, this three years' day these eyes, though clear, + To outward view, of blemish or of spot, + Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot; + Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear + Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year, + Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not + Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot + Of heart or hope, but still bear up and steer + Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask? + The conscience, friend, to have lost them overplied + In Liberty's defence, my noble task, + Of which all Europe rings from side to side. + This thought might lead me through the world's vain mask + Content, though blind, had I no better guide." + + +NOTABLE PROSE WRITERS.--In prose must be noted, on the austere side, +George Fox, founder of the sect of Quakers, impassioned and powerful +popular orator, author of the _Book of Martyrs_; John Bunyan, an +obstinate ascetic, author of _Grace Abounding_, a kind of edifying +autobiography, and of _The Pilgrim's Progress_, which became one of the +volumes of edification and of spiritual edification to the emigrant +founders of the United States of America; on the side of the Libertines, +Wycherley, who, thoroughly perceiving the moral lowness, fairly well +concealed, which lies at the source of Moliere, carried this Gallic vein +to an extreme in shameless imitations of _The School for Women_ +and _The Misanthrope_ (_The Country Wife_ and _The Plain Dealer_); +delightful Congreve, a far more amusing companion--witty, spiritual, +sardonic, writing excellently, knowing how to create a type and charming +his contemporaries whilst not failing to write for posterity in his +_Old Bachelor_, _Love for Love_, and _Way of the World_. + +NEWTON; LOCKE.--It must not be forgotten that at this epoch Newton and +Locke, the one belonging more to the history of science and the other to +the history of philosophy, both wrote in a manner entirely commensurate +with their genius. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES: GERMANY + +Luther, Zwingli, Albert Duerer, Leibnitz, Gottsched + + +NO RENAISSANCE.--The great originality of Germany from the literary point +of view--perhaps, too, from others--is that she _had no renaissance_, no +contact, at all events close, with classic antiquity. Her temperament +was no doubt hostile; the Reformation, that is, the impassioned adoption +of a primitive unadulterated Christianity conservative and directly +opposed to antiquity whether pagan or philosophical, added to the +repugnance. However that may be, the fact remains: Germany enjoyed no +renaissance. + +LUTHER.--Also in the sixteenth century in Germany, as in France in the +fourteenth century, there was only popular poetry, and all the prose is +German, all reformist, all moralising, and has little or practically no +echo of antiquity. Luther, by his translation of the Bible into the +vulgar tongue, by his _prefaces_ to each book of the Bible, in his +polemical writings (_The Papacy and its Members_, _The Papacy Elevated at +Rome by the Devil_, etc.), by his _Sermons and Letters_, gave to Teutonic +thought a direction which long endured, and to Teutonic prose a solidity, +purity, sobriety, and vigour which exercised an immense influence on +human minds. + +THE REFORMERS.--Following Luther, Zwingli, Hutten, Eberling, Melanchthon +(but in Latin), Erasmus (most frequently in Latin but sometimes in +French) spread the new doctrine or doctrines in relation thereto. + +ERASMUS; ALBERT DUeRER; GOTTSCHED.--An exception must be made about +Erasmus in what has just been observed. With a very unfettered mind, +often as much in opposition to the side of Luther as to the side of Rome, +and also prone to attack the pure humanists who styled themselves +Ciceronians, Erasmus was a humanist, an impassioned student of ancient +letters, so that he has one foot in the Renaissance and one in reform, +and withal possessed a very original brain, and was, from every aspect, +"ultra-modern." + +Albert Duerer must also be cited: mathematician, architect, painter, yet +belonging to our subject by his _four books on the human proportion_ +wherein he shows, in chastened and precise style, that he himself is +nothing less than the earliest founder of Teutonic aestheticism. + +The seventeenth century--extending it, as is reasonable enough, up to the +region of 1730--is almost exclusively the era of French influence and a +little, if desired, of Italian influence. The critic Gottsched (_Poetic +Art, Grammar, Eloquence_) maintained the excellence of French literature +and the necessity of drawing inspiration from it with an energy of +conviction which drew on him the hatred of the succeeding generation. + +LEIBNITZ.--German poetry of his period, possessing neither originality +nor power, could only interest the erudite and the searchers. The domain +of prose is more enthralling. Leibnitz, who wrote in Latin and French, +and even in German, is pre-eminently the great thinker he is reputed +to be; but though he never possessed nor even pretended to possess +originality in style, he is nevertheless highly esteemed for the purity, +limpidity, and facility of his language. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES: ITALY + +Poets: Ariosto, Tasso, Guarini, Folengo, Marini, etc. Prose Writers: +Machiavelli, Guicciardini, Davila. + + +THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.--Italy, after Dante and Petrarch, possessed +literary strength and much literary glory in the sixteenth century. +She produced an admirable pleiad of poets and prose writers of high +merit. These were Ariosto, Tasso, Berni, Sannazaro, Machiavelli, +Bandello, Guicciardini. Below them were a hundred distinguished writers, +among which must be cited Aretino, Folengo, Bembo, Baldi, Tansillo, +Dolce, Benvenuto Cellini, Hannibal Caro, and Guarini. + +ARIOSTO.--Ariosto wrote _Orlando Furioso_, which is not the epic in +parody, as has been too often observed, but the gay and joyous epopee of +Orlando and his companions. The principal characters are Orlando, +Charlemagne, Renaud, Agramant, Ferragus, Angelica, Bradamante, Marphisa. +The tone is extremely varied and the author is in turns joyous, +satirical, pathetic, melancholy, and even tragical. Ariosto is the +superlative poet of fantastic imagination combined with a foundation of +good sense, reason, and benevolence. Goethe has said of him very aptly: +"From a cloud of gold wisdom sometimes thunders sublime sentences, whilst +to a harmonious lute, folly seems to riot in savage digressions yet all +the while maintains a perfect measure." Ariosto was well read in the +classics, but fundamentally his master was Homer. + +TASSO.--Torquato Tasso, whose life was characterised by a thousand trials +and who was long the victim of a mental malady, wrote a poem on the +crusade of Godfrey de Bouillon. The poem is full of the supernatural; +the chief characters are Renaud, Tancred, the enchantress Armida, +Clorinda. The inspiration of Tasso is specially mystic and lyrical; +his facility for description is delicious. The repute of _Jerusalem +Delivered_ in the seventeenth century was immense, and all the +literatures of Europe have innumerable references to the personages and +episodes of the poem. In Italy there were fervid partisans of the +superiority of Tasso over Ariosto or of Ariosto over Tasso, and many +duels on the subject, the most bellicose being, as always happens, +between those who had read neither. + +BERNI.--Berni, like Ariosto, was half burlesque in the diverting portions +of his works. He wrote satires which were often virulent, paradoxes such +as the eulogy of the plague and of famine, and an _Amorous Orlando_ +which is quite agreeable. The Bernesque type, that is, the humoristic, +was created by him and bears his name. + +SANNAZARO.--Sannazaro wrote both in Latin and Italian. His chief claim to +fame lies in his _Arcadia_, an idyllic poem of bucolic sentiment, +destined to evoke thousands of imitations. He also produced eclogues and +sonnets in Italian which give sufficient grounds for regarding him as one +of the chief masters of that language. + +MACHIAVELLI.--Great thinker, great politician, great moral philosopher, +Machiavelli possessed one of the most powerful minds ever known. He wrote +_The Prince_, _Discourses upon Livius_, an _Art of War_, diplomatic +letters and reports, for he was at one time secretary to the Florentine +Republic, a _History of Florence_, a comedy (_The Mandrake_), +romances and tales. _The Prince_ is a treatise of the art of acquiring +and preserving power by all possible means and more particularly by +intelligent and discreet crime. Machiavelli emphasised the separation, at +times relative, at times absolute, which exists between politics and +morals. His _Discourses upon Livius_ are full of sense, penetration, and +profundity; his light works show a singular dexterity of thought united +to a fundamental grossness which it would be impossible to misunderstand +or excuse. + +BANDELLO.--Bandello is the author of novels in the vein of those of +Boccaccio or of Brantome. His voluntary or spontaneous originality +consists in mixing licentious tales with sentences and maxims which are +most austere and moral. He also wrote elegiac odes that were highly +esteemed. His very pure style is considered in Italy to be strictly +classical. + +GUICCIARDINI.--Guicciardini wrote with infinite patience, severe +conscientiousness, and imperturbable frigidity in a style that was +pure, though somewhat prolix, that _History of Florence_, virtually a +history of Italy, which from its first appearance was hailed as a classic +and has remained one. His history is altogether that of a statesman; he +passed his life among prominent public affairs, being Governor of Modena, +Parma, and Bologna, a diplomatist involved in the most important +negotiations; this historian is himself a historical personage. + +FOLENGO.--Folengo wrote a macaronic poem: that is to say, one in which +Latin and Italian were mixed, called _Coccacius_ (which must be +remembered because when translated into French it became the earliest +model for Rabelais), as well as _Orlandini_ (childhood of Orlando), which +is amusing. Other serious works did not merit serious consideration. + +ARETINO.--Aretino was a satirist and a poet so fundamentally licentious +that he has remained the type of infamous author. He wrote comedies +(_The Courtesan_, _The Marshal_, _The Philosopher_, _The Hypocrite_), +intimate letters that are extremely interesting for the study of the +customs of his day, religious and edifying books, replete with talent if +not with sincerity, as well as an innumerable mass of satires, pamphlets, +statements, diatribes which caused all the princes of his day to tremble, +and through making them tremble also brought gold into the coffers of +Aretino; he had raised blackmail to the height of a literary department. + +BEMBO; BALDI.--Cardinal Bembo, a devout Ciceronian to the verge of +fanaticism, wrote more especially in Latin, but left Italian poems of +much elegance and charm; he ranks among the most brilliant +representatives of the Italian Renaissance. + +Baldi, a very widely versed scholar, sought relaxation from his erudition +in writing _eclogues_, _moral poems_, and a very curious didactic poem on +_navigation_. + +TANSILLO; DOLCE.--Tansillo, a very fertile poet, composed a rather +licentious poem entitled _The Vintager_, and a religious poem called +_The Tears of St. Peter_ (which the younger Malherbe thought so beautiful +that he partially translated it), _The Rustic Prophet_ and _The +Nurse_, wherein he showed himself the pupil of Tasso, comedies, a +bucolic drama, etc. + +Dolce, not less prolific, produced five epic poems of which the best is +_The Childhood of Orlando_, many comedies, for the most part imitations +of Plautus, tragedies after Euripides and Seneca, and then one which +seems to have been original and was the celebrated _Mariamna_, so often +imitated in French. He was also an indefatigable translator of Horace, +Cicero, Philostrates, etc. + +BENVENUTO CELLINI.--The great sculptor and chaser, Benvenuto Cellini, +belongs to literary history because of his _Treatise on Goldsmithing and +Sculpture_ and his admirable _Memoirs_, which are certainly in part +fictitious, but are a literary work of the foremost rank. + +HANNIBAL CARO; GUARINI.--Hannibal Caro, by his _poems_, his +_letters_, his literary criticism, his comedy, _The Beggars_, and his +metrical translation of the _Aeneid_, acquired high rank in the judgment +both of Italy and Europe. + +Guarini, the friend of Tasso, whom he helped in the labour of revising +and correcting _Jerusalem Delivered_, was unquestionably his pupil. Tasso +having written a bucolic poem, _Aminta_, Guarini wrote a bucolic poem, +_The Faithful Shepherd_, which has been one of the greatest literary +successes ever known. It was a kind of irregular drama mingled with +songs and dances, highly varied, poetic, pathetic sometimes in a rather +insipid way. All the _pastorals_, whether French or Italian, and later +the opera itself, can be traced to Guarini, or at least the taste for the +eclogue may be derived from the dramas Guarini originated. This was a man +whose influence has been considerable not only on literature, but also on +manners, customs, and morals. + +DECADENCE OF LITERATURE.--In the seventeenth century Italian literature +indisputably was in decadence. In verse more especially, but also in +prose, it was the period of ability without depth and even without +foundation, of elegant and affected verbiage or burlesque lacking alike +in power, thought, and passion. Marini loomed large with his _Adonis_, an +ingenious mythological epic, sometimes brilliant but also lame, sometimes +full of points, but also with trifles. Great as was his reputation in +Italy, it was perhaps surpassed in France, where he was welcomed and +flattered by Marie de' Medici and hyperbolically praised by Voiture, +Balzac, Scudery, etc. + +SALVATOR ROSA; TASSONI; MAFFEI.--The great painter Salvator Rosa devoted +himself hardly less to literature; he left lyrical poems and particularly +satires which are far from lacking spirit, though often destitute of +taste. Satiric, too, was the paradoxical Tassoni, who scoffed at +Petrarch, and who in his _Thoughts_, long prior to J.J. Rousseau, was the +first, perhaps (but who knows?), to maintain that literature is highly +prejudicial to society and humanity, and who achieved fame by his _Rape +of the Bucket_: that is, by a burlesque poem on the quarrel between +the Bolognese and the inhabitants of Modena about a bucket. + +Maffei (intruding somewhat on the eighteenth century), good scholar and +respected historian, produced in 1714 his _Merope_, which was an +excellent tragedy, as Voltaire well knew and also testified. + +HISTORIANS AND CRITICS.--In prose there are none to point out in the +eighteenth century in Italy except historians and critics. Among +the historians must be noted Davila, who spent his youth in France near +Catherine de' Medici, served in the French armies, and on his return to +Padua devoted his old age to history. He wrote a _History of the Civil +Wars in France_ which was highly esteemed, and which Fenelon recollected +when writing his _Letter on the Pursuits of the French Academy_. The +foregoing are what must be mentioned as notable manifestations of +literary activity in Italy during the seventeenth century, but let it +not be forgotten that the scientific activity of the period was +magnificent, and that it was the century of Galileo, of Torricelli; of +the _four_ Cassini, as well as of so many others who were praised, as +they deserved to be, in the _Eulogies of the Learned_ of Fontenelle. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES: SPAIN AND PORTUGAL + +Poets: Quevedo, Gongora, Lope de Vega, Ercilla, Calderon, Rojas, etc. +Prose Writers: Montemayor, Cervantes, etc. Portugal: De Camoens, etc. The +Stage. + + +POETRY: QUEVERO; GONGORA.--The sixteenth century and the first half at +least of the seventeenth century were the golden age of both Spanish and +Portuguese literature. In poetry Quevedo is the first to be noticed, and +he is also notable in prose. Born at Madrid, but compelled by the +consequences of his youthful follies to take refuge in Sicily, then back +in Spain and either at the height of his fortune near the Duke of +Olivares or else pursued, imprisoned, and tortured by that minister, he +possessed facility and force which were alike extraordinary. His poems, +which are most satirical, revealed a glow and a freshness that were very +remarkable. + +Gongora, like Lyly in England and Marini in Italy, enjoyed the fame of +founding a bad school. It was _Gongorism:_ that is, the art of writing +not to make oneself read, which could only suit lawyers, orators, +critics, and scientists, but the art of writing to cause one's idea only +to be discovered after many efforts, or even so as to prevent its being +discovered at all. _Gongorism_ belongs to every epoch, and in each epoch +is the means of scaring away the crowd, of obtaining a small band of +enthusiastic admirers, and of being able to scorn the suffrage of the +multitude. Gongora, both in Spain and in France, found devoted admirers +and imitators. + +LOPE DE VEGA.--Lope de Vega was one of the greatest of the world's poets, +although he was intelligible. Prodigiously fertile, which is not +necessarily a sign of mediocrity, he published some romances in prose +(_Dorothea Arcadia_), some novels, epic or historic poems (_Circe, +_Shepherds of Bethlehem_, Jerusalem Conquered_, _The Beauty of Angelica_, +_The Pilgrim in his Land_, _The White Rose_, _The Tragic Crown_, of which +Mary Stuart is the heroine, _The Laurel of Apollo_, etc.), burlesque and +satirical poems, and dramatic poems the number of which exceed eighteen +hundred. In this mass of production may be discerned comedies of manners, +comedies of intrigue, pastorals, historical comedies (with characters +whose names are known in history), classical and religious tragedies, +mythological, philosophical, and hagiological comedies. Despite these +distinctions, which are useful as a guide in this throng, all the +dramatic work of Lope de Vega is that of imagination which seems to owe +little to practical observation and is valuable through happy invention, +dexterous composition, and the charming fertility and variety of ideas in +the details. The dramatic work of Lope de Vega (as yet incompletely +published and which probably never will be published in its entirety) was +a vast mine wherein quarried not only all the dramatic authors but all +the romancists and novelists of Europe. This prodigious producer, who +wrote millions of verses, is the Homer of Spain and more fertile than +Homer, whilst also a Homer as to whose existence there is no doubt. + +ERCILLA.--Alonso de Ercilla created a peculiar species, that of +memorialist epic poems. He was a man concerned in important events, who +took daily notes and subsequently, or even concurrently, put them into +verse. Thus Ercilla made his _Araucana_: that is, the poem of the +expedition against the Araucanians in Chili, or rather he thus wrote the +first (and best) of the three parts; later, desirous of rising to epic +heights, he had resort to the contrivances and conventional traditional +ornaments of this type of work and became dull, without entirely losing +all his skill. "This poem is more savage than the nations which form its +theme," said Voltaire in a pretty phrase which was somewhat hyperbolical. +The _Araucana_ is agreeably savage in its first part without being +ferocious and fastidiously civilised in the sequels without being +contemptible. + +MENDOZA.--Hurtado de Mendoza must be regarded--that proud, gloomy, +bellicose and haughty minister of Charles V--because he was the earliest +of the picaresque romancists. The picaresque method consisted in +delineating the habits of outcasts, bohemians, spongers, swindlers, and +vagrants. It lasted for about three quarters of a century. To this class +belonged _Guzmar of Alfargue_, by Mateo Aleman; _Marco of Obregon_, by +Espinel; _The Devil on Two Sticks_, by Guevara; and somewhat, in France, +the _Gil Bias_ of Le Sage. Now the prototype of all these was _The +Lazarillo of Tormes_, by Hurtado de Mendoza. + +GUEVARA.--A moment's heed must be paid to the amiable Antonio de Guevara, +an insinuating moralist whose _Familiar Letters_ and _Dial of Princes_, +though rather affectedly grave, contain interesting passages which +commend the author to readers. He is more particularly interesting to +Frenchmen because it was from him La Fontaine borrowed his _Countrymen +of the Danube_, attributing it to Marcus Aurelius (which led to much +confusion), because the principal personage in _The Dial of Princes_ is +one Marcus Aurelius, who is discreetly intended for Charles V. In spite +of what Taine wrote, though his criticisms in detail were accurate, +La Fontaine followed pretty closely the fine and highly original wording +of Guevara. + +THE ROMANCE.--The Spanish romance was at its zenith in the sixteenth and +seventeenth centuries. It had a legion of authors, but here the principal +only can be mentioned. Montemayor, who lived at the close of the +sixteenth century and led an adventurous existence, wrote the _Diana in +Love_, which became celebrated in every country under the title of +"_Diana_ of Montemayor." It is a mythological, bucolic, and magical +romance, entirely lacking in order, being wholly fantastical, sometimes +cruelly dull, sometimes graceful, affecting, seductive, and pathetic, +always ridiculously romantic. Its vogue was considerable in Spain, +France, and Italy. The _Astrea_ of Honore d'Urfe proceeds in part from +it, but is more sensible and more restrained. + +QUEVEDO.--Here Quevedo is again found, now as prose writer and in this no +worse than as poet. He was prolific in romances or satirical fantasies, +in social reveries wherein contemporary society is not spared and Juvenal +is often suggested. Finally, he put forth all his powers, which were +considerable, in his great romance, _Don Pablo of Segovia_, which, twenty +years ago, would have been called naturalist. Quevedo obviously was an +observer, possessed psychological penetration or, at least, the wisdom of +the moralist; but above all, his imagination was curiously original, he +invented, on an apparently true foundation, adventures which were almost +probable and were diverting, burlesque, or possessed a bitter flavour. +His was one of the most original brains in Spain, which has abounded in +mental originalities. + +CERVANTES.--Montesquieu has said of the Spaniards: "They have only one +good book, the one which mocks at all the others." Nothing could be more +witty nor more unjust; but it is true that the greatest Spanish book is +that in which the author does mock at many other Spanish books. Cervantes +wrote his _Don Quixote_ to ridicule the romances of chivalry which in his +land were a craze among the townsfolk and smaller aristocratic +landowners, but he wrote in no spirit of animosity and even reserved for +his comic hero, that is, for his victim, a discreet sympathy which he +made his reader share. A hero of chivalry himself, warrior with +indomitable courage, thrice wounded at the battle of Lepanto, where he +lost an arm, seven years in captivity in Algiers, on his return to Spain +he became involved in adventures which again consigned him to prison +before he at length attained success, if not fortune, with _Don Quixote_. +_Don Quixote_ is a realistic romance traversed by a frenzied idealist: +here are the manners of the populace, of innkeepers, muleteers, +galley-slaves, monks, petty traders, peasants, and amid them passes a man +who views the entire world as a romance and who believes he finds romance +at every turn of his road. This perpetual contrast is, first, effective +and supremely artistic in itself, then is of a reality superior to that +of any realism, since it is the complete life of humanity which is thus +painted and penetrated to its very foundations and shown in all its +aspects. There are two portions to this romance, and they are constantly +near each other and, as it were, interlaced; namely, the episodes and the +conversations. The episodes, comic incidents, humorous or sentimental +adventures are of infinite variety and display incredible imagination; +the conversations between Don Quixote and his faithful Sancho represent +the two tendencies of the human mind to recognise on the one side, the +goodness, generosity, devotion, the spirit of sacrifice, and the +illusions; on the other side, common sense, the sense of reality, the +sense of the just mean and, as it were, the proverbial reason, without +malice or bitterness. This masterpiece is perhaps the one for which +would have had to be invented the epithet of _inexhaustible_. + +Apart from his immortal romance, Cervantes wrote novels, romances, +sonnets, and also tried the drama, at which he did not succeed. The whole +world, literally, was infatuated with _Don Quixote_, and, despite all +changes of taste, it has never ceased to excite the admiration of all who +read. + +THE DRAMA: FERDINAND DE ROJAS.--The drama, even apart from Lope de Vega, +of whom we have written, was most brilliant in Spain during these two +centuries. The Spanish stage was very characteristic, very original among +all drama in that, more than the ancient drama, more than in the plays of +Shakespeare himself, it was essentially lyrical, or, to express the fact +more clearly, it was based on a continual mixture of the lyric and the +dramatic; also it nearly always laid stress on the sentiment and the +susceptibility of honour, "the point of honour," as it was called, and +upon its laws, which were severe, tyrannical, and even cruel. These two +principal characteristics gave it a distinct aspect differing from all +the other European theatres. Without going back to the confused origins +and without expressing much interest in the Spanish drama until the +religious dramas of the _autos sacramentales_(which continued their +career until the seventeenth century), it is necessary, first, to note, +at the close of the fifteenth century, the celebrated _Celestine_ of +Ferdinand de Rojas, a spirited work, unmeasured, enormous, unequal, at +times profoundly licentious, at times attaining a great height of moral +exaltation, and also at times farcical and at others deeply pathetic. +_Celestine_ was translated several times in various languages, and +especially in Italy and France was as much appreciated as in Spain. + +CALDERON.--In the seventeenth century (after Lope de Vega) came Calderon. +Almost as prolific as Lope, author of at least two hundred plays, some +authorities say a thousand, Calderon was first prodigiously inventive, +then he was dogmatic, moralising, almost a preacher. Whether in his +religious plays, in his love dramas, in his cap and sword tragedies, even +in his comedies and highly complicated intrigues, the great sentiments +of the Spanish soul--honour, faith, the inviolability of the oath, +loyalty, fidelity, the spirit of great adventures--broaden, animate +and elevate the whole work. With Calderon the titles are always +indicative of the subject. His most celebrated plays are: _In this Life +All Is Truth and Falsehood_, _Life is a Dream_, _The Devotion to the +Cross_, _The Lady before All_, _The Mayor of Zamalea_, _Love after +Death_, _The Physician of his Own Honour_. + +ALARCON.--Alarcon comes nearer to us owing to his regular and almost +classic compositions. Nevertheless he was a man of imagination and humour +with an adequate dramatic force. His tragedies must be mentioned: _What +Is Worth Much Costs Much_, _Cruelty through Honour_, _The Master of +Stars_; his comedies, _The Examination of Husbands_, and that charming +_The Truth Suspected_, from which Corneille derived _The Liar_. + +TIRSO DE MOLINA.--Tirso de Molina was another prodigy of dramatic +literature, and his fellow-countrymen assert that he wrote three hundred +dramas, of which sixty-five are in existence. All Spanish dramatists +were unequal, he more especially; he passed from grossness to sublimity +with surprising facility and ease. He particularly delighted in +ingeniously complicated intrigue, in surprises, and in unexpected +theatrical touches. Yet _The Condemned in Doubt_ is a sort of moral +epopee, adapted to the stage, possessing real beauty and not without +depth. His most celebrated drama, in so far as it has aroused direct or +indirect imitations, and owing to the type he was the first to suggest, +was _The Jester of Seville_: that is, Don Juan. All European literatures, +utilising Don Juan, became tributaries to Tirso de Molina. + +FRANCIS DE ROJAS; CASTRO; DIAMANTE.--Francis de Rojas, who must not be +confused with Ferdinand de Rojas, author of _Celestine_, though +possessing less spirit than his predecessors, is nevertheless a +distinguished dramatic poet. The French of the seventeenth century freely +pilfered from him. Thomas Corneille borrowed a goodly portion of his +_Bertrand de Cigarral_, Scarron a large part of his _Jodelet_, Le Sage an +episode in _Gil Blas_. If only for their connection with the French +drama, William de Castro and Diamante must be noticed. William de Castro +wrote a play, _The Exploits of the Cid in Youth_, which Corneille knew +and which he imitated in his celebrated tragedy, adding incomparable +beauty. Diamante in his turn imitated Corneille very closely in _The Son +who Avenges his Father_. Voltaire, mistaken in dates, believed Corneille +had imitated Diamante. + +PORTUGUESE WRITERS.--In Portugal the sixteenth century was the golden +age. Poets, dramatists, historians, and moralists were extremely +numerous; several possessed genius and many displayed great talent. Among +lyrical poets were Bernardin Ribeiro, Christoval Falcam, Diogo Bernardes, +Andrade Caminha, Alvarez do Oriente, Rodriguez Lobo. Ribeiro wrote +eclogues half in narrative or dialogue, half lyrical. He also produced a +romance intersected with tales (Le Sage in his _Gil Blas_ thus wrote, as +is known, and in this only imitated the Spaniards), entitled _The +Innocent Girl_, which often evinces great refinement. + +Christoval Falcam was also bucolic, but his eclogues often ran to nine +hundred verses. He also wrote _Voltas_, which are lyric poems suitable +for setting to music. Diogo Bernardes also wrote eclogues and letters +collected under the title of the _Lyma_. The Lyma is a river. To +Bernardes the Lyma was what the Lignon was to D'Urfe in his _Astrea_. + +Caminha, a court poet decidedly analogous to the French Saint-Gelais, +possessed dexterity and happy phraseology. Eclogues, elegiacs, epitaphs, +and epistles were the ordinary occupations of his muse. + +Alvarez do Oriente has left a great romanesque work, a medley of prose +and verse entitled _Portugal Transformed_ (_Lusitania transformanda_), +which is extremely picturesque apart from its idylls and lyrical poems. + +Lobo was highly prolific. He was author of pastoral romances, medleys of +verse and prose (_The Strange Shepherd_, _The Spring_, _Disenchantment_), +a great epic poem (_The Court at the Village_), in prose conversations +on moral and literary questions which have remained classic in Portugal, +as well as romances and eclogues. + +EPIC POETS.--The most notable epic poets were Corte-Real, Manzinho, +Pereira de Castro, Francisco de Saa e Menezes, Dona de la Lacerda, and, +finally, the great Camoens. Corte-Real, a writer of the highest talent, +was author of an epic which we would style a romance in verse, although +founded on fact, upon _The Shipwreck of Sepulveda_ and her husband +Lianor. The varied and picturesque narrative is often pathetic. It would +be more so, to us at least, were it not for the incessant intervention of +pagan deities. + +Francisco de Saa e Menezes sang of the great Albuquerque and of _Malaca +Conquered_. He mingled amorous and romantic tales with narratives and +descriptions of battles. He possessed the sense of local colour and +brilliant imagination; he has been accused of undue negligence with +regard to correction. + +Dona de la Lacerda, professor of Latin literature to the children of +Philip III, although born at Porto, wrote nearly always in Spanish. The +_Spain Delivered_ (from the Moors), an epic poem, is her chief work; she +also composed comedies and various poems in Spanish. On rare occasions +she wrote in Portuguese prose. + +CAMOENS.--The glory of these sound poets is effaced by that of Camoens. +Exiled in early youth for a reason analogous to the one which occasioned +the banishment of Ovid, a soldier who lost an eye at Ceuta, wandering in +India, shipwrecked and, according to tradition, only saving his poem +which he held in one hand whilst swimming with the other, he returned to +Portugal after sixteen years of exile, assisting at the struggles, +decline, and subjection of his country, dying (1579) at the moment when +for a time Portugal ceased to have a political existence. He wrote _The +Lusiad_ (that is the Portuguese), which was the history of Vasco da Gama +and of his expedition to India. The description of Africa, the Cape of +Tempests (the Cape of Good Hope), with the giant Adamaston opposing the +passage, and the description of India were the foundation of the +narrative. Episodes narrated by individuals, as in Virgil and as in the +Spanish romance, formed an internal supplement, and thus was narrated +almost all the history of Portugal, and so it came to pass that the love +of Inez de Castro and of Don Pedro formed part of the story of Vasco da +Gama. Camoens was a powerful narrator, a magnificent orator in verse, +and, above all, a very great painter. He evinced curious taste, even as +compared with his contemporaries, such as the continual commingling of +mythological divinities with Christian truths: for instance, a prayer +addressed by Vasco to Jesus Christ was granted by Venus. It may also be +observed that the poem lacked unity and was only a succession of poems. +But, as Voltaire said, "The art of relating details, by the pleasure +it affords, can make up for all the rest; and that proves the work to be +full of great beauties, since for two hundred years it has formed the +delight of a clever race who must be well aware of its faults." + +DRAMATISTS.--The principal Portuguese dramatists were Saa de Miranda, +Antonio Ferreira, Gil Vicente. Saa de Miranda was a philosophical poet +or, to express it more correctly, a poet with ideas; he broke with +the eternal idylls, eclogues, bucolics, and pastorals of his predecessors +without declining to furnish excellent examples, but more often aiming +elsewhere and higher. He also reformed the versification, introducing +metres employed in other languages, but hitherto unused in his tongue. He +wrote odes, epistles after the manner of Horace, sonnets, lyric poems in +Latin, and epic compositions. In all this portion of his work he may be +compared to Ronsard. Finally, he wrote two comedies in prose--_The +Strangers_ and _The Villalpandios_ (the _Villalpandios_ are Spanish +soldiers, who have a recognised position in comedy). His mind was one of +the most elevated and best stored with classic literature that Portugal +ever produced. + +FERREIRA.--Ferreira, who wrote lyric poems, elegiac poems, and especially +epistles, by which he gained for himself the name of the Portuguese +Horace, was more particularly a dramatist. He created _Farcas_, which +must not be regarded as farces, but as dramatic poems in which the +profane and religious are interwoven; he wrote _The Bristo_, a popular +comedy; _The Jealous One_, which was perhaps the earliest comedy of +character ever produced in Europe, and finally, a tragedy, _Inez de +Castro_, the national tragedy, a tragedy so orthodox and regular in form +that the author felt bound to introduce a chorus in the classic manner; +it is charged with pathos and handled with much art. + +GIL VICENTE.--Gil Vicente, a prolific poet who wrote forty-two dramatic +pieces, two thirds in Spanish and the rest in Portuguese, touched every +branch of theatrical literature; he produced religious plays (_autos_), +tragedies, romantic dramas, comedies, and farces. His chief works are +_The Sibyl Cassandra_, _The Widow_, _Amadis de Gaule_, _The Temple of +Apollo_, _The Boat of Hell_. His comedies possess a vivacity that is +Italian rather than Portuguese. Tradition has it that Erasmus learnt +Portuguese for the sole purpose of reading the comedies of Gil Vicente. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES: FRANCE + +Of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: Fontenelle, Bayle. Of the +Eighteenth: Poets: La Motte, Jean Baptiste Rousseau, Voltaire, etc. Prose +Writers: Montesquieu, Voltaire, Buffon, Jean Jacques Rousseau, etc. Of +the Nineteenth Century: Poets: Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Musset, Vigny, +etc.; Prose Writers: Chateaubriand, Michelet, George Sand, Merimee, +Renan, etc. + + +FONTENELLE.--The eighteenth century, which was announced, and announced +with great precision, by La Bruyere, was inaugurated by his enemy +Fontenelle. Fontenelle, nephew of Corneille, began with despicable +trifles, eclogues, operas, stilted tragedies, letters of a dandy, so he +might be justly regarded as an inferior Voiture. Very soon, because he +possessed the passion of the eighteenth century for science and +free-thought, he showed himself to be a serious man, and because he had +wit he showed himself an amusing serious man, which is rare. His +_Dialogues of the Dead_ were very humorous and, at the same time, in many +passages profound; he wrote his _Discourses on the Plurality of_ +(Habitable) _Worlds_; then because he was perpetual secretary of the +Academy of Sciences, came his charming and often astonishing _Eulogies of +Sages_, which ought to be regarded as the best existent history of +science in the seventeenth century and in the eighteenth up to 1740. + +BAYLE.--Bayle, a Frenchman who lived in Holland on account of religion, a +journalist and lexicographer, in his _News of the Republic of Letters_ +and in his immense _Dictionary_, gave proof of broad erudition about all +earthly questions, especially philosophical and religious, guiding his +readers to absolute scepticism. Fontenelle and Bayle are the two heralds +who opened the procession of the eighteenth century. Successively must +now be examined first the poets and then the prose writers of the first +half of that era. + +LA MOTTE.--La Motte, as celebrated in his own time as he is forgotten in +ours, was lyricist, fabulist, dramatic orator, epical even after a +certain fashion. He wrote odes that were deadly cold, fables that were +often quite witty but affected and laboured, comedies sufficiently +mediocre, of which _The Magnificent Lover_ was the most remarkable, +and a tragedy, _Inez de Castro_, which was excellent and enjoyed one of +the greatest successes of the French stage. Finally, becoming the +partisan of the modernists against the classicists, he abridged the +_Iliad_ of Homer into a dozen books as frigid as his own lyric poems. He +had parodoxical ideas in literature, and, being a poet, or believing +himself one, he considered that verse enervated thought and that +sentiments should only be written in prose. It was against these +tendencies that Voltaire so vigorously reacted. + +J.B. ROUSSEAU; POMPIGNAN.--Beside La Motte, being more gifted as a poet, +Jean Baptiste Rousseau was conspicuous. He wrote lyrical poems which were +cold as lyrics but were well composed and, sometimes at least, attained a +certain degree of eloquence. From Malherbe to Lamartine, lyrical poetry +was almost completely neglected by French poets, or at least very badly +treated. Jean Baptiste Rousseau had the advantage of being nearly +solitary and for approximately century was regarded as the greatest +national lyrical poet. + +Le Franc de Pompignan has endured much ridicule, not the least being for +a certain naive vanity perceptible directly he passed from the south to +the north of France; but he had some knowledge; he was acquainted with +Hebrew, then a sufficiently rare accomplishment, and he was an assiduous +student of classic literature. His tragedy, _Dido_, succeeded; his +_Sacred Songs_ enjoyed popularity, no matter what Voltaire might say, +and deserved their success; in his odes, which were too often cold, he +rarely succeeded--only once triumphantly, in his ode on the death of Jean +Baptiste Rousseau. + +THE _HENRIADE_.--So far as poets, strictly speaking, were concerned, the +foregoing are all that have to be indicated in the first half of the +eighteenth century, except the ingenious and frigid _Henriade_ of +Voltaire. + +DRAMATIC POETS.--To counterbalance, the dramatic poets are numerous and +not without merit. Let us recall _Inez de Castro_ by De la Motte. +Campistron, the feeble pupil of Racine (and, moreover, there could be no +pupil of Racine, so original was the latter, so closely was his genius +associated with his mind), perpetrated numerous tragedies and operas +which enjoyed the success obtained by all imitative works: that is, a +success which arouses no discussion, and which today appears to be the +climax of tediousness. + +CREBILLON.--Crebillon followed, vigorous, energetic, violently shaking +the nerves, master of horror and of terrors, not lacking some analogy +with Shakespeare, but without delicacy or depth, never even giving a +thought to being psychological or a moralist, writing badly and to a +certain extent meriting the epithet of "the barbarian" bestowed on him +by Voltaire. + +The latter was infatuated with the drama, having the feeling for +beautiful themes and for new and original topics, adapting them to +the stage with sufficient aptitude, delighting, in addition, in pomp, +mimicry, and decorativeness, and causing tragedy to lean towards +opera, which in his day was no bad thing; but weak in execution, never +creating characters because he could not escape from himself, as moderate +in psychology and morality as Crebillon himself and replacing analysis of +passion by these and philosophical commonplaces. He left tragic dramas +which until about 1815 enjoyed success, but which then fell into a +disregard from which there is no probability they will ever emerge. + +COMIC POETS.--The comic poets of this period were highly agreeable. The +most notable were Destouches, Regnard, La Chaussee. Destouches was the +very type of the comic writers of the eighteenth century already alluded +to, who took a portrait by La Bruyere and turned it into a comedy, and +that is what was called a comedy of character. Thus he wrote _The +Braggart_, _The Irresolute_, _The Ungrateful_, _The Backbiter_, _The +Spendthrift_, etc. Sometimes he took pains to be a trifle more original, +as in _The False Agnes_, _The Married Philosopher_; sometimes he borrowed +a subject from a foreign literature and adapted it fairly dexterously for +the Gallic stage, as in _The Impertinent Inquisitive_, taken from _Don +Quixote_ and _The Night Drum_, borrowed from an English author. His +versification was dexterous and correct without possessing other merit. + +REGNARD.--Regnard, on the contrary, was an original genius, though +frequently imitative of Moliere. He possessed the comic spirit, gaiety, +animation, the sense of drollery, and a prodigious capacity for humorous +verse of great flexibility and incredible ease, highly superior in point +of form to that of Boileau and even of Moliere, for he suggests a Scarron +perfected by Moliere himself and by the Italian poets. Still alive and +probably imperishable are such works as _The Gamester_, _The Universal +Legatee_, _The Unexpected Return_. + +THE DRAMA: LA CHAUSSEE.--La Chaussee possessed a vein of the popular +novel, the serial, as we should say, and at the same time a taste for the +stage. The result was he created a new species, which in itself is no +small achievement. He created _the drama_: that is, the stage-play +wherein common people, and no longer kings and princes, affect us by +their misfortunes. This has been called by all possible names; when it +is a comedy it is described as a tearful comedy; when a tragedy, as a +dramatic tragedy. This is the drama we have known in France for a hundred +and fifty years; such as it already existed in the sixteenth century +under the title of the morality play, such as Corneille, who foresaw +everything, anticipated and predicted in his preface to _Don Sancho_: "I +would rather say, sir, that tragedy should excite pity and fear, and that +in its essentials, since there is necessity for definition. Now if it be +true that this latter feeling is only excited in us when we see those +like ourselves suffer, and that their misfortunes put us in fear of +similar calamities, is it not also true that we can be more strongly +moved by disasters arriving to people of our own rank, having resemblance +to ourselves, than by the picture of the overthrow from their thrones of +the greatest monarchs, who can have no relation to us except in so far as +we are susceptible to the passions that overwhelmed them, which is not +always the case?" This domestic tragedy La Chaussee wrote in verse, which +is not against French rules, and which has been done by dramatists a +hundred and twenty years later; but it is probably an error, being even +more unlikely that citizens would express themselves in metre than that +kings and heroes should give utterance with a certain solemnity which +entails rhythm. Thus he wrote _The Fashionable Prejudice_, _The School of +Friends_, _Melanide_, very pathetic, _The School of Mothers_, etc. It +must be stated that he wrote his plays in verse somewhat systematically; +he had made his first appearance in literature by a defence of +versification against the doctrines of La Motte. + +PIRON.--According to the old system, but in original verse, Piron, after +having met with scant success in tragedy, wrote the delicious +_Metromania_ which, with _The Turcaret_ of Le Sage, _The Bad Man_ of +Gresset, the masterpieces of Marivaux and the two great comedies +of Beaumarchais rank among the seven or eight superior comedies produced +in the eighteenth century. + +GREAT PROSE WRITERS: MONTESQUIEU.--In prose, writers, and even great +writers, were abundant at this period. Immediately after Fontenelle and +Bayle appeared Montesquieu, sharp, malicious, satirical, already +profound, in _The Persian Letters_, a great political philosopher and +master of jurisprudence in _The Spirit of Laws_, a great philosophical +historian in _The Grandeur and Decadence of the Romans_. The influence of +Montesquieu on Voltaire, no matter what the latter may have said; on +Rousseau, however silent the latter may have been about it; on Mably, on +Raynal, on the encyclopaedists, on a large portion of the men in the +French Revolution, on the greatest minds of the nineteenth century, has +been profound and difficult to measure. As writer he was concise, +collected, and striking, seeking the motive and often finding it, seeking +the formula and invariably finding it--Tacitus mingled with Sallust. + +LE SAGE; SAINT-SIMON.--In considering Le Sage and Saint-Simon, it is not, +perhaps, the one who is instinctively thought of as a novelist who really +was the greater romancer. They each wrote at the same time as +Montesquieu. Saint-Simon narrated the age of Louis XIV as an eyewitness, +both with spirit and with a feeling for the picturesque that were alike +inimitable, expressed in a highly characteristic fashion, which was often +incorrect, always incredibly vigorous, energetic, and masterful. Le Sage, +in the best of all French styles, that of the purest seventeenth century, +narrated Spanish stories in which he mingled many observations made in +Paris, and set the model for the realistic novel in his admirable _Gil +Blas_. As a dramatist he will be dealt with later. + +MARIVAUX; PREVOST.--Marivaux also essayed the realistic novel in his very +curious _Marianne_, full of types drawn from contemporary life and drawn +with an art which was less condensed but as exact as that of La Bruyere, +and in his _Perverted Peasant_ with an art which was more gross, but +still highly interesting. + +The Abbe Prevost, much inferior, much overpraised, generally insipid in +his novels of adventure, once found a good theme, _Manon Lescaut_, and, +though writing as badly as was his wont, evoked tears which, it may be +said, still flow. + +HISTORY: DRAMA.--In history Voltaire furnished a model of vivid, rapid, +truly epic narration in his _History of Charles XII_, and an example, at +least, of exact documentation and of contemporaneous history studied with +zeal and passion in his _Philosophical Letters on England_. On the stage, +in prose there were the pretty, witty, and biting light comedies of +Dancourt, De Brueys and Palaprat, and Dufresny, then the delicious drama, +at once fantastic and perceptive, romantic and psychological, of +Marivaux, who, in _The Legacy_, _The False Confidences_, _The Test_, +_The Game of Love and of Shame_, showed himself no less than the true +heir of Racine and the only one France has ever had. + +VOLTAIRE.--In the second portion of the eighteenth century, Voltaire +reigned. He multiplied historical studies (_Century of Louis XIV_), +philosophies (_Philosophical Dictionary_), dramas (_Zaire_, _Merope_, +_Alzire_ [before 1750], _Rome Saved_, _The Chinese Orphan_, _Tancred_, +_Guebres_, _Scythia_, _Irene_), comedies (_Nanine_, _The Prude_), +romances(_Tales and Novels_), judicial exquisitions (the Calas, Labarre, +and Sirven cases), and articles, pamphlets, and fugitive papers on +all conceivable subjects. + +THE PHILOSOPHERS.--But the second generation of philosophers was now +reached. There was Diderot, philosophical romancer (_The Nun_, _James the +Fatalist_), art critic(_Salons_), polygraphist (collaboration in the +Encyclopaedia); there was Jean Jacques Rousseau, philosophic novelist in +_The New Heloise_, publicist in his discourse against _Literature and the +Arts and Origin of Inequality_, schoolmaster in his _Emilius_, severe +moralist in his _Letters to M. d'Alembert on the Spectacles_, +half-romancer, charming, impassioned, and passion-inspiring in the +autobiography which he called his Confessions; there was Duclos, +interesting though rather tame in his _Considerations on the Manners of +this Century_; there was Grimm, an acute and subtle critic of the highest +intelligence in his _Correspondence_; then Condillac, precise, +systematic, restrained, but infinitely clear in the best of diction in +his _Treatise on the Sensations_; finally Turgot, the philosophical +economist, in his _Treatise on the Formation and Distribution of +Wealth_. + +BUFFON; MARMONTEL; DELILLE.--Philosophy, meditation on great problems, +filled almost all the literary horizon, while scientific literature +embraced a score of illustrious representatives, of which the most +impressive was Buffon, with his _Natural History_. Nevertheless, in +absolute literature there were also names to cite: Marmontel gave his +_Moral Tales_, his _Belisarius_, his _Incas_, and his _Elements of +Literature_. + +Delille, with his translation in verse of the _Georgics_ of Virgil, +commenced a noble poetic career which he pursued until the nineteenth +century; Gilbert wrote some mordant satires which recalled Boileau, and +some farewells to life which are among the best lyrics; Saint +Lambert sang of _The Seasons_ with felicity, and Roucher treated the same +theme with more vivid sensibility. + +THE STAGE.--On the stage, a little before 1750. Gresset gave his +_Wicked Man_, which was witty and in such felicitous metre that it +carried the tradition of great comedy in verse; Diderot, theorist and +creator of the drama in prose, followed La Chaussee, and produced _The +Father of a Family_, _The Natural Son_, and _Is He Good, Is He Bad_? being +the portrait of himself. Innumerable dramas by the fertile Mercier and a +score of others followed, including Beaumarchais, himself a devotee of +the drama, but only able to succeed in comedy, wherein he gave his two +charming works, _The Barber of Seville_ and _The Marriage of Figaro_. + +ANDRE CHENIER.--Almost on the verge of the Revolution, quite unexpectedly +there emerged a really great poet, Andre Chenier, marvellously gifted in +every way. As the poet of love he recalled Catullus and Tibullus; in +political lyricism he suggested d'Aubigny, though with more fervour; as +elegiac poet he possessed a grace that was truly Grecian; as the poet of +nature he employed the large manner of Lucretius; in polemical prose he +was remarkably eloquent. Struck down whilst quite young amid the turmoil +of the Revolution, he bequeathed immortal fragments. No doubt he would +have been the greatest French poet between Racine and Lamartine. + +BERNARDIN DE SAINT-PIERRE.--In prose, his contemporary, Bernardin de +Saint-Pierre, primarily was a man of genius, since he wrote that immortal +idyllic romance, _Paul and Virginia_; subsequently he became a gracious +and amiable pupil of Jean Jacques Rousseau, being smitten with the +sentiment of nature in his _Harmonies of Nature_; finally he attained +a great importance in literary history as the creator of exotic +literature through the descriptions he wrote of many lands: Asia, +African isles traversed and studied by him, Russia, and Germany. + +THE REVOLUTIONARY ORATORS.--During the revolutionary period may be +pointed out the great orators of the Assembly: Mirabeau, Barnave, Danton, +Vergniaud, Robespierre; the ill-starred authors of national songs: +Marie Joseph Chenier; the author of the _Marseillaise_, Rouget de Lisle, +who only succeeded on the day that he wrote it. And so we reach the +nineteenth century. + +THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.--At the commencement of a century which was so +brilliant from the literary aspect, James Delille was despotic: his +earlier efforts have already been attended to. A skilled versifier, but +without fire or many ideas, he made cultured translations from Virgil and +Milton, wrote perennially descriptive poems, such as _The Man in the +Fields_, _The Gardens_, etc., and a witty satirical poem on +_Conversation_, which, in our opinion, was the best thing he wrote. + +GREAT POETS: LAMARTINE.--Great poets were to come. Aroused, without +doubt, by the poetic genius of the prose writer Chateaubriand, the first +generation of the romantics was formed by Lamartine, Victor Hugo, and +Alfred de Vigny. Romanticism was the preponderance of imagination and +sensibility over reason and observation. Lamartine rebathed poetry in its +ancient and eternal sources: love, religion, and the sentiment of nature. +In his _Meditations_, his _Harmonies_, and his _Contemplations_, he +reawoke feelings long slumbering, and profoundly moved the hearts of men. +In _Jocelyn_ he widened his scope, and, emerging from himself, narrated, +as he imagined it, the story of the soul of a priest during the +Revolution, and subsequently in the obscurity of a rural parish; in +_The Fall of an Angel_ he reverted to the life of primaeval man as he +conceived it to be when humanity was still barbarous. Apart from his +poetic works, he wrote _The History of the Girondins_, which is a +romanesque history of almost the whole of the Revolution, some novels, +some autobiographic episodes, and a few discourses on literature. + +VICTOR HUGO.--Victor Hugo, though less sensitive than Lamartine but more +imaginative, began with lyrical poems which were somewhat reminiscent of +the classical manner, then went on to pictures of the East, thence to +meditations on what happened to himself, and on all subjects (_Autumn +Leaves_, _Lights and Shades_); next, in full possession of his genius, he +dwelt on great philosophical meditations in his _Contemplations_, and in +_The Legend of the Centuries_ gave that epic fragment which is a picture +of history. His was one of the most powerful imaginations that the world +has ever seen, as well as a _creator of style_, who made a style for +himself all in vision and colour, and also in melody and orchestration. +Although in prose he lacked one part of his resources, he utilised +the rest magnificently, and _Notre Dame_ and _The Miserable_ are works +which excite admiration, at least in parts. Later, he will be dealt with +as a dramatist. + +ALFRED DE VIGNY.--Alfred de Vigny was the most philosophical of these +three great poets, though inferior to the other two in creative +imaginativeness. He meditated deeply on the existence of evil on earth, +on the misfortunes of man, and the sadness of life, and his most +despairing songs, which were also his most beautiful, left a profound +echo in the hearts of his contemporaries. Some of his poems, such as +_The Bottle in the Sea_, _The Shepherd's House_, _The Fury of Samson_, +are among the finest works of French literature. + +MUSSET; THEOPHILE GAUTIER.--The second generation of romanticism, which +appeared about 1830, possessed Alfred de Musset and Theophile Gautier as +chief representatives. They bore little mutual resemblance, be it said, +the former only knowing how to sing about himself, his pleasures, his +illusions, his angers, and, above all, his sorrows, always with sincerity +and in accents that invariably charmed and sometimes lacerated; the +latter, supremely artist, always seeking the fair exterior and delighting +in reproducing it as though he were a painter, a sculptor, or a musician, +and excellent and dexterous in these "transpositions of art," whether +they were in verse or prose. + +THE PROSE WRITERS: CHATEAUBRIAND.--The French prose writers of this first +half of the nineteenth century were emphatically poets, as had also +already been Jean Jacques Rousseau and even Buffon. Imagination, +sensibility, and the sentiment for nature were the mistresses of their +faculties. Chateaubriand was the promoter of all the literary movement +of the nineteenth century, alike in prose and poetry. He was a literary +theorist, an epic poet in prose, traveller, polemist, orator. His great +literary theory was in _The Genius of Christianity_, and consisted in +supporting that all true poetic beauties lay in Christianity. His epic +poems in prose are _The Natchez_, a picture of the customs of American +Indians, _The Martyrs_, a panorama of the struggle of paganism at its +close and of Christianity at its beginning; his travels were _The Voyage +in America_ and _The Itinerary from Paris to Jerusalem_. Member of the +parliamentary assemblies, ambassador and minister, he wrote and spoke in +the most brilliant and impassioned manner on the subjects that he took +up. Finally, falling back on himself, as he had never ceased to do more +or less all through his career, he left, in his marvellous _Memoirs from +Beyond the Tomb_, a posthumous work which is, perhaps, his masterpiece. +His infinitely supple and variegated style formed a continuous artistic +miracle, so harmonious and musical was it more musical even than that of +Jean Jacques Rousseau. + +MME. DE STAEL.--At the same time, though she died long before him, Mme. +de Stael, by her curious and interesting, though never affecting, novels, +_Delphine_ and _Corinne_, by her dissertations on various serious +subjects, by her work on Germany, which initiated the French into the +habits and literature of neighbours they were ill acquainted with, also +directed the minds of men into new paths, and she was prodigal of ideas +which she had almost always borrowed, but which she thoroughly +understood, profoundly reconsidered, and to which she imparted an +appearance of originality even in the eyes of those who had given them to +her. + +THE HISTORIANS.--Even the historians of this first half of the century +were poets: Augustin Thierry, who reconstituted scientifically but +imaginatively _The Merovingian Era_; Michelet, pupil of Vico, who saw in +history the development of an immense poem and cast over his account of +the Middle Ages the fire and feverishness of his ardent imagination and +tremulous sensitiveness. Guizot and Thiers can be left apart, for they +were statesmen by education and, although capable of passion, sought the +one to rationally generalise and "discipline history," as was said, the +other solely to capture facts accurately and to set them out clearly in +orderly fashion. + +THE PHILOSOPHERS.--The philosophers were not sheltered from this +contagion, and if Cousin and his eclectic school loved to attach +themselves to the seventeenth century both in mind and style, Lamennais, +first in his _Essay on Indifference_, then in his _Study of a +Philosophy_ and in his _Words of a Believer_, impassioned, impetuous, and +febrile, underwent the influence of romanticism, but also gave to the +romantics the greater portion of the ideas they put in verse. + +THE NOVEL.--As for the novel, it was only natural that it should be +deeply affected by the spirit of the new school. George Sand wrote +lyrical novels, if the phrase may be used--and, as I think, it is here +the accurate expression--entitled _Indiana_, _Valentine_, _Mauprat_, and +especially _Lelia_. She was to impart wisdom later on. + +It even happened that a mind born to see reality in an admirably accurate +manner, saw it so only by reason of the times, or at least partly due to +the times, associated it with a magnifying but deforming imagination +converting it into a literary megalomania; and this was the case of +Honore de Balzac. + +NON-ROMANTIC LITERATURE.--Nevertheless, as was only natural, throughout +the whole of the romantic epoch there was an entire literature which did +not submit to its influence, and simply carried on the tradition of +the eighteenth century. In poetry there was the witty, malicious, and +very often highly exalted Beranger, whose songs are almost always +excellent songs and sometimes are odes; and there was also the able and +dexterous but frigid Casimir Delavigne. In prose there was Benjamin +Constant, supremely oratorical and a very luminous orator, also +a religious philosopher in his work _On Religions_, and a novelist in his +admirable _Adolphus_, which was semi-autobiographical. + +Classical also were Joseph de Maistre, in his political considerations +(_Evenings in St. Petersburg_), and, in fiction, Merimee, accurate, +precise, trenchant, and cultured; finally in criticism, Sainte-Beuve, who +began, it is true, by being the theorist and literary counsellor of +romanticism, but who was soon freed from the spell, almost from 1830, and +became author of _Port Royal_. Though possessing a wide and receptive +mind because he was personified intelligence, he was decisively classical +in his preferences, sentiments, ideas, and even in his style. + +Stendhal, pure product of the eighteenth century, and even exaggerating +the spirit of that century in the dryness of his soul and of his style, a +pure materialist writing with precision and with natural yet intentional +nakedness, possessed valuable gifts of observation, and in his famous +novel, _Red and Black_, in the first part of the _Chartreuse of Parma_, +and in his _Memoirs of a Tourist_, knew how to draw characters with +exactness, sobriety, and power, and to set them in reliefs that were +remarkably rare. + +THE STAGE.--The drama was very brilliant during this first half of the +nineteenth century. The struggle was lively for thirty or thirty-five +years between the classicists and the romanticists; the classics +defending their citadel, the French stage, much more by their polemics in +the newspapers than by the unimportant works which they brought to the +_Comedie francaise_, the romantics here producing nearly all the plays of +Hugo (_Hernani_, _Marion de Lorme_, _Ruy Blas_, _The Burghers_, etc.), +and the works of Vigny(_Othello_, _Marshal d'Ancre_), as well as the +dramas of Dumas (_Henry III and his Court_, etc.). Between the two +schools, both of which were on the stage nearer to the modern than to the +antique, the dexterous Casimir Delavigne, with almost invariable success, +gave _Marino Faliero_, _Louis XI_, _The Children of Edward_, _Don Juan of +Austria_, and _Princess Aurelia_, which was pretty, but without +impassioned interest. + +A veritable dramatic genius, although destitute of style, of elevation of +thought and of ideas, but a prodigious constructor of well-made plays, +was Eugene Scribe, who, by his dramas and comedies, as well as the +libretti of operas, was the chief purveyor to the French stage between +1830 and 1860. + +ROMANTICISM AND REALISM.--So far as pure literature was concerned, the +second half of the nineteenth century was divided between enfeebled but +persistent romanticism and realism. Theophile Gautier, in 1853, gave his +_Enamels and Cameos_, his best poetic work, and later (1862) his +_Captain Fracasse_. Hugo wrote his _Miserables_, the second and third +_Legends of the Centuries_, _Songs of the Streets and the Woods_, etc. + +A third romantic generation, of which Theodore de Banville was the most +brilliant representative, and which proceeded far more from Gautier than +from Hugo or De Musset, pushed verbal and rhythmic virtuosity to the +limit and perhaps beyond. Then great or highly distinguished poets +appeared. + +FAMOUS POETS.--Leconte de Lisle, philosophical poet, attracted by Indian +literature, by pessimism, by the taste for nothingness, and the thirst +for death, forcing admiration by his sculptural form and majestic rhythm; +Sully-Prudhomme, another philosopher, especially psychological, +manipulating the lyrical elegy with much art and, above all, infusing +into it a grave, sad, and profound sensibility which would have awakened +the affection and earned the respect of Catullus, Tibullus, and +Lucretius; Francis Coppee, the poet of the joys and sorrows of the lowly, +a dexterous versifier too, and possessed of a sincerity so candid as to +make the reader forget that there is art in it; Baudelaire, inquisitive +about rare and at times artificial sensations, possessing a laborious +style, but sometimes managing to produce a deep impression either morbid +or lugubrious, considered by an entire school which is still extant as +one of the greatest poets within the whole range of French literature; +Verlaine, extremely unequal, often detestable and contemptible, but +suddenly charming and touching or revealing a religious feeling that +suggests a clerk of the Middle Ages; Catulle Mendes, purely romantic, +wholly virtuoso, but an astonishingly dexterous versifier. To these poets +some highly curious literary dandies set themselves in opposition, being +desirous of renovating the poetic art by ascribing more value to the +sound of words than to their meaning, striving to make a music of poesy +and, in a general way--which is their chief characteristic--being +difficult to understand. They gave themselves the name of symbolists, and +accepted that of decadents; they regarded Stephen Mallarme either as +their chief or as a friend who did them honour. This school has been +dignified by no masterpieces and will probably ere long be forgotten. + +REALISTIC LITERATURE.--Confronting all this literature, which had a +romantic origin even when it affected scorn of the men of 1830, was +developed an entire realistic literature composed almost exclusively of +writers in prose, but of prose imbued with poetry written by some who had +read the romantics and who would not have achieved what they did had +romanticism not already existed, a fact which they themselves have +not denied, and which is now almost universally accepted. Flaubert, whose +masterpiece, _Madame Bovary_, is dated 1857, was very precisely divided +between the two schools; he possessed the taste for breadth of eloquence, +for the adventurous, and for Oriental colouring, and also the taste for +the common, vulgar, well visualised, thoroughly assimilated truth, +tersely portrayed in all its significance. But as he has succeeded +better, at least in the eyes of his contemporaries, as a realist than as +a man with imagination, he passes into history as the founder of realism +always conditionally upon considering Balzac as possessing much of the +vigorous realism which provided the impulse and furnished models. + +NATURALISM.--From the realism of Flaubert was born the naturalism of +Zola, which is the same thing more grossly expressed. Also by his +energetic, violent, and tenacious talent, as well as by a weighty though +powerful imagination, he exercised over his contemporaries a kind of +fascination which it would be puerile to regard as an infatuation for +which there was no cause. + +More refined and even extremely delicate, though himself also fond of the +small characteristic fact; possessed, too, with a graceful and gracious +sensibility, Alphonse Daudet often charmed and always interested us in +his novels, which are the pictorial anecdotes of the Parisian world at +the close of the second Empire and the opening of the third Republic. + +The brothers De Goncourt also enjoyed notable success, being themselves +absorbed in the exceptional deed and the exceptional character whilst +possessing a laboured style which is sometimes seductive because of its +unlooked-for effects. + +THE POSITIVISTS.--Two great men filled with their renown an epoch already +so brilliant; namely, Renan and Taine, both equally historians and +philosophers. Renan composed _The History of the Children of Israel_ and +_The Origins of Christianity_, as well as various works of general +philosophy, of which the most celebrated is entitled _Philosophical +Dialogues_. Taine wrote the history of _The Origins of Contemporary +France_: that is, the history of the French Revolution, and sundry +philosophical works of which the principal are _On Intelligence_ and +_The French Philosophers of the Eighteenth Century_. Both were +"positivists," that is to say, elevating Auguste Comte, who has his place +in the history of philosophy, but not here, because he was not a good +writer; both were positivists, but Renan possessed a lively and profound +sense of the grandeur and the moral beauty of Christianity, Taine being +imbued with more philosophic strictness. Renan, with infinite flexibility +of intelligence, applied himself to understand thoroughly and always +(with some excess) to bring home to us the great figures of the Bible, +the Gospels, and the early Christians, as well as their foes down to the +time of Marcus Aurelius. Further, he affirmed science to possess +_unique_ value in his _Future of Science_; elsewhere, under the +similitude of "dreams," he indulged in conceptions, hypotheses, and +metaphysical imaginations which were voluntarily rash and infinitely +seductive. As always happens, he possessed the style of his mind, supple, +sinuous, undulating, astonishingly plastic, insatiable, and charming, +evoking the comment, "That is admirably done and it is impossible to know +with what it is done." + +TAINE.--Taine, more rigid, accumulating documents and methodically +arranging them in a method that refuses to be concealed, advances in a +rectilineal order, step by step, and with a measured gait, to a solid +truth which he did not wish to be either evasive or complex. Highly +pessimistic and a little affecting to be so, just as Renan was optimistic +and much affected being so, he believed in the evil origin of man and of +the necessity for him to be drastically curbed if he is to remain +inoffensive. He has written a history of the Revolution wherein he has +refused admiration and respect for the crimes then committed, which is +why posterity now begins to be very severe upon him. His learned style is +wholly artificial, coloured without his being a colourist, composed of +metaphors prolonged with difficulty, yet remaining singularly imposing +and powerful. He was a curious philosopher, an upright, severe, and +rather systematic historian, solid and laboriously original as a +writer. + +BRUNETIERE.--Brunetiere, of the great French thinkers before our +contemporaneous epoch, was critic, literary historian, philosopher, +theologian, and orator. As critic, he defended classic tradition against +bold innovations, and, especially, moral literature against licentious or +gross literature; as a literary historian he renovated literary history +by the introduction of the curious, audacious, and fruitful theory of +evolution, and his _Manual of the History of French Literature_ was a +masterpiece; as philosopher he imparted clearness and precision into the +system of Auguste Comte, whose disciple he was; as theologian, exceeding +Comte and utilising him, he added weight to Catholicism in France by +finding new and decisive "reasons for belief"; as orator he raised his +marvellously eloquent tones in France, Switzerland, and America, making +more than a hundred "fighting speeches." Since the death of Renan and +Taine, he has been the sole director of French thought, which he +continues to guide by his books and by the diffusion of his thought among +the most vigorous, serious, and meditative minds of the day. + +THE CONTEMPORANEOUS DRAMA.--The drama, since 1850, has been almost +exclusively written in prose. Emil Augier, however, composed some +comedies and dramas in verse and in verse particularly suited to the +stage; but the major portion of his work is in prose, whilst Alexander +Dumas and Sardou have written exclusively in prose. Augier and Dumas came +from Balzac, and remained profoundly realistic, which was particularly +suitable to authors of comedy. They studied the manners of the second +Empire and depicted them wittily; they studied the social questions which +agitated educated minds at this time and drew useful inspiration. Augier +leant towards good middle-class common-sense, which did not prevent him +from having plenty of wit. Dumas was more addicted to paradox and +possessed as much ability as his rival. Victorien Sardou, as dexterous a +dramatic constructor as Scribe, and who sometimes rose above this, +dragged his easy tolerance from the grand historic drama to the comedy of +manners, to light comedy and to insignificant comedy with prodigious +facility and inexhaustible fertility. + +The most admired living authors, whom we shall be content only to name +because they are living, are poets: Edmond Rostand, author of +_Loiterings_; Edmond Haraucourt, author of _The Naked Soul_ and _The Hope +of the World_; Jean Aicard, author of _Miette el Nore_; Jean Richepin, +author of _Cesarine_, _Caresses_, _Blasphemies_, etc.; in fiction, Paul +Bourget, Marcel Prevost, Rene Bazin, Bordeaux, Boylesve, Henri de +Regnier; in history, Ernest Lavisse, Aulard, Seignobos, D'Haussonville; +in philosophy, Boutroux, Bergson, Theodule Ribot, Fouillee, Izoulet; in +the drama, Paul Hervieu, Lavedan, Bataille, Brieux, Porto-Riche, +Bernstein, Wolff, Tristan Bernard, Edmond Rostand, author of _Cyrano de +Bergerac_ and of _The Aiglon_; as orators, Alexander Ribot, De Mun +Poincare, Jaures, etc. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES: ENGLAND + +Poets of the Eighteenth Century: Pope, Young, MacPherson, etc.: Prose +Writers of the Eighteenth Century: Daniel Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, +Swift, Sterne, David Hume. Poets of the Nineteenth Century: Byron, +Shelley, the Lake Poets: Prose Writers of the Nineteenth Century: Walter +Scott, Macaulay, Dickens, Carlyle. + + +THE REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE: POETS.--As in France, the eighteenth century +(the age of Queen Anne) was in England richer in prose than in poetry. As +poets, however, must be indicated Thomson, descriptive and dramatic, +whose profound feeling for nature was not without influence over French +writers of the same century; Pope, descriptive writer, translator, +moralist, elegiast, very intelligent and highly polished, whose _Essay on +Criticism_ and _Essay on Man_ were remarkably utilised by Voltaire; +Edward Young, whose _Night Thoughts_ enjoyed the same prodigious +success in France as in England, and who contributed in no small measure +to darken and render gloomy both literatures; MacPherson, who invented +_Ossian_, that is, pretended poems of the Middle Ages, a magnificent +genius, be it said, who exercised considerable influence over the +romanticism of both lands; Chatterton, who trod the same road, but with +less success, yet was valued almost equally by the French romantic poets, +and to them he has owed at least the consolidation of his immortality; +Cowper, elegiac and fantastic, with a highly humorous vein; Crabbe, a +very close observer of popular customs and an ingenious novelist in +verse, quite analogous to the Dutch painters; Burns, a peasant-poet, +sensitive and impassioned, yet at the same time a careful artist +moved by local customs, the manifestations of which he saw displayed +before his eyes. + +PROSE WRITERS.--The masters of prose (some being also true poets) were +innumerable. Daniel Defoe, journalist, satirist, pamphleteer, was the +author of the immortal _Robinson Crusoe_; Addison, justly adored by +Voltaire, author of a sound tragedy, _Cato_, is supremely a scholar, the +acute, sensible, and extremely thoughtful editor of _The Spectator_; +Richardson, the idol of Diderot and of Jean Jacques Rousseau, enjoyed a +European success with his sentimental and virtuous novels, _Pamela_, +_Clarissa Harlowe_, and _Sir Charles Grandison_. As a critic and as a +personality, Dr. Johnson has no parallel in any age or land. His +_Dictionary_ is famous despite its faults, and _Rasselas_, which he +wrote to pay for his mother's funeral, can still be read. + +Fielding, who began by being only the parodist of Richardson, in +_Joseph Andrews_, ended by becoming an astounding realistic novelist, the +worthy predecessor of Thackeray and Dickens in his extraordinary _Tom +Jones_. The amiable Goldsmith, more akin to Richardson, wrote that +idyllic novel _The Vicar of Wakefield_, the charm of which was still felt +throughout Europe only fifty years ago. Laurence Sterne, the most +accurate representative of English _humour_, capable of emotion more +especially ironical, jester, mystificator, has both amused and disquieted +several generations with his _Sentimental Journey_ and his fantastical, +disconcerting and enchanting _Tristram Shandy_. Swift, horribly bitter, a +corrosive and cruel satirist, sadly scoffed at all the society of his +time in _Gulliver's Travels_, in _Drapier's Letters_, in his _Proposal to +Prevent the Children of the Poor Being a Burden_, in a mass of other +small works wherein the most infuriated wrath is sustained under the form +of calm and glacial irony. + +HISTORY.--History was expressed in England in the eighteenth century by +David Hume, who chronicled the progress of the English race from the +Middle Ages until the eighteenth century; by Robertson, who similarly +handled the Scotch and who narrated the reign of Charles V; and by +Gibbon, so habitually familiar with the French society of his time, who +followed the Romans from the first Caesars to Marcus Aurelius, then more +closely from Marcus Aurelius to the epoch of Constantine, and finally +the Byzantine Empire up to the period of the Renaissance. The imposing +erudition, the rather pompous but highly distinguished style of the +author, without counting his animosity to Christianity, caused him to +enjoy a great success, especially in France. The work of Gibbon is +regarded as the finest example of history written by an Englishman. + +THE STAGE.--The stage in England in the eighteenth century sank far below +its importance in the seventeenth century; yet who does not know _She +Stoops to Conquer_ of Goldsmith, and that sparkling and lively comedy, +_The School for Scandal_, by Sheridan? Note, as an incomparable +journalist, the famous and mysterious Junius, who, from 1769 to 1772, +waged such terrible war on the minister Grafton. + +THE LAKE POETS.--In the nineteenth century appeared those poets so +familiar to the French romanticists, or else the latter pretended +they were, who were termed the lake poets, because they were lovers of +the countryside; these were Southey, Coleridge, and Wordsworth. Southey +was an epic and elegiac poet, whilst he was also descriptive; Coleridge, +philosopher, metaphysician, a little nebulous and disordered, had very +fine outbursts and some lamentable falls. Wordsworth was a most +distinguished lyricist. Lord Byron did not acquire honour by so roughly +handling Southey and Wordsworth. + +THE ROMANTIC EPOCH.--The two greatest English poets of the romantic +period were Lord Byron and Shelley; the former the admirable poet of +disenchantment and of despair, gifted with a noble epic genius, creating +and vitalising characters which, it must be confessed, differed very +little from one another, but an exalted figure with a grand manner and, +except Shakespeare, the only English poet who exercised genuine influence +over French literature; the latter an idealistic poet of the most suave +delicacy, aerial and heavenly, despite a private life of the utmost +disorder and even guilt, he is one of the most perfect poets that ever +lived; a great tragedian, too, in his _Cenci_, quite unknown in France +until the middle of the nineteenth century, but since then the object of +a sort of adoration among the larger number of Gallic poets and lovers +of poetry. + +Keats was as romantic as Shelley and Byron, both in spite of and because +of his desperate efforts to assimilate the Grecian spirit. He dreamt of +its heroes and its ancient myths, but there is in him little that is +Grecian except the choice of subjects, and it is not in his grand poem, +_Endymion_, nor even in that fine fragment, _Hyperion_, that can be found +the real melancholy, sensitive, and modern poet, but in his last short +poems, _The Skylark_, _On a Greek Vase_, _Autumn_, which, by the +exquisite perfection of their form and the harmonious richness of the +style, take rank among the most beautiful songs of English lyrism. + +Nearer to us came Tennyson, possessing varied inspiration, epical, +lyrical, elegiac poet, always exalted and pure, approaching the +classical, and himself already a classic. + +Swinburne, almost exclusively lyrical, a dexterous and enchanting +versifier, inspired by the ancient Greeks, generally evinced a highly +original poetic temperament, and Dante Rossetti, imbued with mediaeval +inspiration, possessed a powerful and slightly giddy imagination. Far +less known on the Continent, where critics may feel surprise at her +necessary inclusion here, is his sister, Christina Rossetti. Her +qualities as a poet are a touching and individual grace, much delicate +spontaneity, a pure and often profound emotion, and an instinct as a +stylist which is almost infallible. The Brownings form a celebrated +couple, and about them Carlyle, on hearing of their marriage, observed +that he hoped they would understand each other. Elizabeth Barrett +Browning, translator of Aeschylus of Theocritus, gave proof in her +original poetry of a vigour, of a vividness, and of a vigorous exuberance +of similes that often recalled the Elizabethans, but marred her work by +declamatory rhetoric and by a tormented and often obscure style. Robert +Browning was yet more difficult, owing to his overpowering taste for +subtlety and the bizarre--nay, even the grotesque. Almost ignored, or at +least unappreciated by his contemporaries, he has since taken an exalted +place in English admiration, which he owes to the depth, originality, and +extreme richness of his ideas, all the more, perhaps, because they lend +themselves to a number of differing interpretations. + +THE NOVELISTS.--In prose the century began with the historical novelist, +Sir Walter Scott, full of lore and knowledge, reconstructor and +astonishing _reviver_ of past times, more especially the Middle Ages, +imbuing all his characters with life, and even in some measure vitalising +the objects he evoked. None more than he, not even Byron, has enjoyed +such continuous appreciation with both French romantic poets and also the +French reading public. The English novel, recreated by this great master, +was worthily continued by Dickens, both sentimentalist and humourist, a +jesting, though genial, delineator of the English middle class, and an +accurate and sympathetic portrayer of the poor; by Thackeray, supreme +railer and satirist, terrible to egoists, hypocrites, and snobs; by the +prolific and entertaining Bulwer-Lytton, by the grave, philosophical, +and sensible George Eliot, by Charlotte Bronte, author of the affecting +_Jane Eyre_, etc., and her sister Emily, whose _Wuthering Heights_ has +been almost extravagantly admired. + +Four other great prose writers presenting startling divergences from one +another cannot be omitted. Belonging to the first half of the nineteenth +century, Charles Lamb earned wide popularity by his _Tales from +Shakespeare_ and _Poetry for Children_, written in collaboration with his +sister Mary; but he was specially remarkable for his famed _Essays of +Elia_, wherein he affords evidence of possessing an almost paradoxical +mixture of delicate sensibility and humour, as well as of accurate and +also fantastic observation. Newman, at first an English clergyman but +subsequently a cardinal, after conversion to the Catholic Church, appears +to me hardly eligible in a history of literature in which Lamennais has +no place. As a literary man, his famous sermons at Oxford and the Tracts +exercised much influence, and provoked such impassioned and prodigious +revival of old doctrines and of an antiquated spirit in religion; then +the _Apologia Pro Vita Sua_, _Callista_, and the _History of Arianism_, +revealed him as a master of eloquence. + +Ruskin, as art critic, in his bold volumes illumined with remarkable +beauty of styles, _Modern Painters_, _The Seven Lamps of +Architecture_, and _The Stones of Venice_, formulated the creed and the +school of pre-Raphaelitism. At the time of the religious revival at +Oxford, he preached a servile imitation of antiquity by the path of the +Renaissance, appealing to national and mediaeval inspiration, not without +_naivete_ and archaism, none the less evident because he was sincere and +mordant. George Meredith, who died only in 1910, was a prolific and often +involved novelist (the Browning of prose), with a passion for metaphors +and a too freely expressed eclectic scorn for the multitude. Withal, he +had a profound knowledge of life and of the human soul; impregnated with +humour, he was creator of unforgettable types of character, and no +pre-occupation of his epoch was foreign to his mind, whilst his vigorous +realism always obstinately refused to turn from contemporaneous themes, +or to gratify the needs and aspirations which it was possible to satisfy. +His epitaph might well be that he understood the women of his time, a +rare phenomenon. + +HISTORY.--History could show two writers of absolute +superiority--Macaulay (_History of England since James II_), an +omnivorous reader and very brilliant writer, and Carlyle, the English +Michelet, feverish, passionate, incongruous, and disconcerting, who dealt +with history as might a very powerful lyrical poet. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES: GERMANY + +Poets of the Eighteenth Century: Klopstock, Lessing, Wieland; Prose +Writers of the Eighteenth Century: Herder, Kant. Poets of the Nineteenth +Century: Goethe, Schiller, Koerner. + + +THE AGE OF FREDERICK THE GREAT.--In the literature of Germany the +eighteenth century, sometimes designated under the title of the age of +Frederick the Great, forms a Renaissance or, if preferred, an awakening +after a fairly prolonged slumber. This awakening was assisted by a +quarrel, sufficiently unimportant in itself, but which proved fertile, +between Gottsched, the German Boileau, and Bodmer, the energetic +vindicator of the rights of the imagination. In the train of Bodmer came +Haller, like him a Swiss; then suddenly Klopstock appeared. _The +Messiah_ of Klopstock is an epic poem; it is the history of Jesus Christ +from Cana to the Resurrection, with a crowd of episodes dexterously +attached to the action. The profound religious sentiment, the grandeur of +the setting, the beauty of the scenes, the purity and nobility of the +sermon, the Biblical colour so skilfully spread over the whole +composition, cause this vast poem, which was perhaps unduly praised on +its first appearance, to be one of the finest products of the human mind, +even when all reservations are made. German literature revived. As for +Gottsched, he was vanquished. + +THE POETS.--Then came Lavater, Buerger, Lessing, Wieland. Lavater, a Swiss +like Haller, is remembered for his scientific labours, but was also a +meritorious poet, and his naive and moving _Swiss Hymns_ have remained +national songs; Buerger was a great poet, lyrical, impassioned, personal, +original, vibrating; Wieland, the Voltaire of Germany, although he began +by being the friend of Klopstock, witty, facile, light, and graceful, +whose _Oberon_ and _Agathon_ preserve the gift of growing old +felicitously, is one of the most delightful minds that Germany produced. +Napoleon did him the honour of desiring to converse with him as with +Goethe. + +LESSING.--Lessing, personally, was a great author, and owing to the +influence he exercised over his fellow-countrymen, he holds one of the +noblest positions in the history of German literature. He was a critic, +and in his _Dramaturgie of Hamburg_ and elsewhere, with all his strength, +and often unjustly, he combated French literature to arrest the +ascendency which, according to his indolent opinion, it exercised over +the Germans; and in his _Laocooen_, with admirable lucidity, he made a +kind of classification of the arts. As author, properly speaking, he +wrote _Fables_ which to our taste are dry and cold; he made several +dramatic efforts none of which were masterpieces, the best being _Minna +von Barnhelm_ and _Emilia Galotti_, and a philosophical poem in dialogue +(for it could hardly be termed drama), _Nathan the Sage_, which +possessed great moral and literary beauties. + +HERDER.--Herder was the Vico of Germany. Here was the historical +philosopher, or rather the thoughtful philosopher on history. He did +everything: literary criticism, works of erudition, translations, even +personal poems, but his great work was _Ideas on the Philosophy of the +History of Mankind_. This was the theory of progress in all its breadth +and majesty, supported by arguments that are at least spacious and +imposing. From Michelet to Quinet, on to Renan, every French author who +has at all regarded the unity of the destinies of the human race has +drawn inspiration from him. His broad, measured, and highly coloured +style is on the level of the subject and conforms to it. Even in an +exclusively literary history Kant must not be forgotten, because when he +set himself to compose a moral dissertation, as, for example, the one +upon lying, he took high rank as a writer. + +THE GLORIOUS EPOCH.--Thus is reached the end of the eighteenth close on +the beginning of the nineteenth century. In this intermediary epoch shone +the most glorious hour of Teutonic literature. Simultaneously Iffland, +Kotzebue, Koerner, Schiller, and Goethe were to the fore. This formed a +great constellation. Iffland, actor, manager, and author, friend and +protector of Schiller, wrote numerous dramas, the principal of which were +_The Criminal through Ambition_, _The Pupil_, _The Hunters_, _The +Lawyers_, _The Friends of the House_. He was realistic without being +gloomy. He resembled the French Sedaine. Kotzebue, who was the friend of +Catherine of Russia, subsequently disgraced by her, possessed a highly +irritable and quarrelsome disposition, and was finally killed in 1819 +as a reactionary by a Liberal student, did not fall far short of genius. +He wrote a number of dramas and comedies. Those still read with pleasure +are _Misanthropy and Repentance_, _Hugo Grotius_, _The Calumniator_, and +_The Small German Town_, which has remained a classic. + +KOeRNER.--Koerner, the "Tyrtaeus of Germany," was simultaneously a brave +soldier and a great lyrical poet who was killed on the battlefield of +Gadebusch, wrote lyrical poems, dramas, comedies, farces, and, above all, +_The Lyre and Sword_, war-songs imbued with splendid spirit. + +SCHILLER.--Schiller is a vast genius, historian, lyrical poet, dramatic +poet, critic, and in all these different fields he showed himself to be +profoundly original. He wrote _The Thirty Years' War_; odes, ballads, +dithyrambic poems, such as _The Clock_, so universally celebrated; +dissertations of philosophic criticism, such as _The God of Greece_ and +_The Artists_; finally, a whole repertory of drama (the only point on +which it is possible to show that he surpasses Goethe), in which may be +remarked his first audacious and anarchical work, _The Brigands_, then +the _Conjuration of Fieso_, _Intrigue and Love_, _Don Carlos_, +_Wallenstein_ (a trilogy composed of _The Camp of Wallenstein_, _The +Piccolomini_, _The Death of Wallenstein_), _Mary Stuart_, _The Betrothed +of Messina_, _The Maid of Orleans_, _William Tell_. By his example +primarily, and by his instruction subsequently (_Twelve Letters on Don +Carlos_, _Letters on Aesthetic Education_, _The Sublime_, etc.), he +exercised over literature and over German thought an influence at least +equal, and I believe superior, to that of Goethe. He was united to Goethe +by the ties of a profound and undeviating friendship. He died whilst +still young, in 1805, twenty-seven years before his illustrious friend. + +GOETHE.--Goethe, whom posterity can only put in the same rank as Homer, +is even more universal genius, and has approached yet closer to absolute +beauty. Of Franco-German education, he subsequently studied at Strasburg, +commencing, whilst still almost a student, with the imperishable +_Werther_, to which it may be said that a whole literature is devoted +and, parenthetically, a literature diametrically opposed to what Goethe +subsequently became. Then a journey through Italy, which revealed Goethe +to himself, made him a man who never ceased to desire to combine classic +beauty and Teutonic ways of thinking, and who was often magnificently +successful. To put it in another way, Goethe in his own land is a +Renaissance in himself, and the Renaissance which Germany had not known +in either the sixteenth or seventeenth century came as the gift of +Goethe. Immediately after his return from Italy he wrote _Tasso_ (of +classic inspiration), _Wilhelm Meister_ (of Teutonic inspiration), +_Iphigenia_ (classical), _Egmont_ (Teutonic), etc. Then came _Hermann and +Dorothea_, which was absolutely classic in the simplicity of its plan and +purity of lyric verse, but essentially modern in its picture of German +customs; _The Roman Elegies_, _The Elective Affinities_, _Poetry and +Truth_ (autobiography mingled with romance), _The Western Eastern Divan_, +lyrical poems, and finally, the two parts of _Faust_. In the first part +of _Faust_, Goethe was, and desired to be, entirely German; in the +second, through many reveries more or less relative to the theme, he more +particularly desires to depict the union of the German spirit with that +of classical genius, which formed his own life, and led to _intelligent +action_, which also was a portion of his existence. And for beauty, +drama, pathos, ease, phantasy, and fertility in varied invention, nothing +has ever surpassed if anything has even equalled the two parts of _Faust_ +regarded as a single poem. + +Apart from his literary labours, Goethe occupied himself with the +administration of the little duchy of Weimar, and in scientific research, +notably on plants, animals, and the lines in which he displayed marked +originality. He died in 1832, having been born in 1749. His literary +career extends over, approximately, sixty years, equal to that of Victor +Hugo, and almost equal to that of Voltaire. + +THE CONTEMPORANEOUS PERIOD.--After the death of Goethe, Germany could not +maintain the same height. Once more was she glorified in poetry by Henry +Heine, an extremely original witty traveller, in his _Pictures of +Travel_, elegiac and deeply lyrical, affecting and delightful at the same +time in _The Intermezzo_; by the Austrian school, Zedlitz, Gruen, and the +melancholy and deep-thinking Lenau; in prose, above all, by the +philosophers, Fichte, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Hartmann, and lastly +Nietzsche--at once philosopher, moralist (after his own manner), and +poet, with an astonishing imagination; by the historians Niebuhr (before +1830), Treitschke, Mommsen, etc. Germany seems to have drooped, so far as +literature is concerned, despite some happy exceptions (especially in the +drama: Hauptmann, Sudermann), since her military triumphs of 1870 and the +consequent industrial activity. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES: ITALY + +Poets: Metastasio, Goldoni, Alfieri, Monti, Leopardi. Prose Writers: +Silvio Pellico, Fogazzaro, etc. + + +LITERARY AWAKENING.--After a long decadence, Italy, less overwhelmed +politically than previously, reawoke about 1750. Once more poets came +forward: Metastasio, author of tragedies and operas; Goldoni, a very +witty and gay comic poet; Alfieri who revived Italian tragedy, which had +been languishing and silent since Maffei, and who, like Voltaire in +France, and with greater success, established a philosophical and +political tribune; Foscolo, sufficiently feeble in tragedy but very +touching and eloquent in _The Tombs_, inspired by Young's _Night +Thoughts_ and _The Letters of Jacob Ortis_, an interesting novelist and +eloquently impassioned patriot; Monti, versatile and master of all +recantations according to his own interests, but a very pure writer and +not without brilliance in his highly diversified poems. + +EMINENT PROSE WRITERS.--Italy could show eminent prose writers, such as +those jurisprudent philanthropists Filangieri and Beccaria; critics and +literary historians like Tiraboschi. + +NINETEENTH CENTURY.--In the nineteenth century may first be found among +poets that great poet, the unhappy Leopardi, the bard of suffering, of +sorrow, and of despair; Carducci, a brilliant orator, imbued with +vigorous passions; Manzoni, lyricist, dramatist, vibrating with patriotic +enthusiasm, affecting in his novel _The Betrothal_, which became popular +in every country in Europe. In prose, Silvio Pellico equally moved Europe +to tears by his book _My Prisons_, wherein he narrated the experiences of +his nine years of captivity at the hands of Austria, and found his +agreeable tragedy of _Francesca da Rimini_ welcomed with flattering +appreciation. Philosophy was specially represented by Gioberti, author of +_The Treatise on the Supernatural_, and journalism by Giordani, eloquent, +at times with grace and ease, and at others with harshness and violence. + +THE MODERNS.--As these words were written came the news of the death of +the illustrious novelist Fogazzaro. Gabriel d'Annunzio, poet and +ultra-romantic novelist, and Mathilde Serao, an original novelist, pursue +their illustrious careers. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES: SPAIN + +The Drama still Brilliant: Moratin. Historians and Philosophers, +Novelists, Orators. + + +THE DRAMA. Since the middle of the seventeenth century, approximately, +Spain has exercised less literary influence than in the preceding +centuries. Nevertheless Spanish literature was not extinct; it was in the +drama more especially that it was manifest. Candamo, Canizares, and +Zamora all illumined the stage. Candamo devoted himself to the historical +drama; his masterpiece in this type was _The Slave in Golden Chains_; +Canizares, powerful satirist, displayed the comic spirit in his comedies +of character; Zamora manipulated the comedy of intrigue with remarkable +dexterity. Then came Vincente de la Huerta, skilful in combining the type +of French tragedy with something of the ancient dramatic national genius; +then Leandro Moratin (called Moratin the Younger to distinguish him from +his father Nicholas), very imitative, no doubt, of Moliere, but in +himself highly gifted, and of whose works can still be read with pleasure +_The Old Man and the Young Girl_, _The New Comedy on the Coffee_, _The +Female Hypocrite_, etc. He also wrote lyrical poems and sonnets. He lived +long in France, where he became impregnated with Gallic classical +literature. + +PROSE.--Stronger and more brilliant at that period than the poetry, the +prose was represented by Father Florez, author of _Ecclesiastical Spain_; +by the Marquis de San Phillipo, author of the _War of Succession in +Spain_; by Antonio de Solis, author of _The Conquest of Mexico_. In +fiction there was the interesting Father Isla, a Jesuit, who gave a +clever imitation of the _Don Quixote_ of Cervantes in his _History of the +Preacher Friar Gerund_. He was well read and patriotic. He was convinced +that Le Sage had taken all his _Gil Blas_ from various Spanish authors, +and he published a translation of his novel under the title: _The +Adventures of Gil Blas of Santiago, stolen from Spain and adopted in +France by M. Le Sage, restored to their country and native tongue by +a jealous Spaniard who will not endure being laughed at_. Another Jesuit +(and it may be noticed that Spanish Jesuits of the seventeenth century +often displayed a very liberal and modern mind), Father Feijoo, wrote a +kind of philosophical dictionary entitled _Universal Dramatic Criticism_, +a review of human opinions which was satirical, humorous, and often +extremely able. The historian Antonio de Solis, who was also a reasonably +capable dramatist, produced a _History of the Conquest of South America +Known under the name of New Spain_, in a chartered style that was very +elegant and even too elegant. Jovellanos wrote much in various styles. +Among others he wrote one fine tragedy, _Pelagia_; a comedy presenting +clever contrasts, entitled _The Honorable Criminal_; a mass of studies on +the past of Spain, economic treatises, satires, and pamphlets. Engaged in +all the historical and political vicissitudes of his country, he expired +miserably in 1811, after having been alternately in exile and at the head +of affairs. + +ROMANTICISM.--In the nineteenth century Spanish romanticism was brought +back in dignified poetic style by Angel Saavedra, Jose Zorilla, Ventura +de la Vega, Ramon Campoamor, Espronceda. The latter especially counts +among the great literary Spaniards, for he was poet and novelist, who +wrote _The Student of Salamanca_ (Don Juan), _The Devil World_ (a kind of +Faust), lyrical poems, and an historical novel, _Sancho Saldano_. + +THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.--In drama, _Quintana_ also produced a _Pelagia_; +the Duke of Rivas a _Don Alvaro_, which enjoyed an immediate success; +Zorilla a _Don Juan_ entirely novel in conception; Martinez de la Rose +tragedies, some in the classic vein, others with modern intrigue and +comedies; Gutierrez, by his _Foundling_, attracted the attention of +librettists of French operas; Breton de los Herreros wrote sparkling +comedies, the multiplicity of which suggest Scribe. In prose, Fernan +Caballero was a fertile novelist and an attentive and accurate painter of +manner. Trueba (who was also an elegant poet) was an affecting idyllic +novelist. Emilio Castelar, the Lamartine of Spain as he was called by +Edmond About, was a splendid orator, thrown by the chances of political +life for one hour at the head of national affairs, who raised himself to +the highest rank in the admiration of his contemporaries by his novels: +for instance, _The Sister of Charity_ and his works on philosophical +history and the history of art, _Civilisation in the First Centuries of +Christianity_, _The Life of Byron_, _Souvenirs of Italy_, etc. In our +day, there have been numerous distinguished authors (and for us, at +least, out of the crowd stands forth the dramatist Jose Echegaray), who +carry on the glorious tradition of Spanish literature. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +RUSSIAN LITERATURE + +Middle Ages. Some Epic Narratives. Renaissance in the Seventeenth +Century. Literature Imitative of the West in the Eighteenth Century. +Original Literature in the Nineteenth Century. + + +THE MIDDLE AGES.--Russia possessed a literature even in the Middle Ages. +In the eleventh century the metropolitan Hilarion wrote a discourse on +the Old and the New Testament. In the twelfth century, the _Chronicle_ +that is said to be by _Nestor_ is the first historical monument of +Russia. At the same period Vladimir Monomaque, Prince of Kief, who +devoted his life to fighting with all his neighbours, left his son an +autobiographic _instruction_, which is very interesting for the light it +throws on the events and, especially, on the customs of his day. At the +same time the hegumen (abbot) Daniel left an account of his pilgrimage to +the Holy Land. In the thirteenth century (probably) another Daniel, +Daniel the prisoner, wrote from his distant place of exile to his prince +a supplicatory letter, which is astonishing because in it is found a +remarkable and wholly unexpected degree of literary talent. In the +thirteenth or fourteenth century two epic pieces, _The Lay of the Battle +of Igor_ and _The Zadonstchina_, of which it is uncertain which imitated +the other, alike present vigorous and vivid accounts of battles. In the +fifteenth or sixteenth century there is a didactic work, _The Domostroi_, +which is a moral treatise, a handbook of domestic economy, a manual of +gardening, and a cookery book, etc. The Tzar Ivan the Terrible (sixteenth +century) was a dexterous diplomatist and a precise, nervous, and ironical +writer. He left highly curious letters. + +RENAISSANCE.--Kutochikine (seventeenth century), who was minister in his +own land, then disgraced and exiled in Sweden, wrote an extremely +interesting book on the habits of his contemporaries. The "Renaissance," +if it may be so termed, that is, the contact between the Russian spirit +and Western genius, occurred in the eighteenth century. Prince Kantemir, +Russian ambassador in London, who knew Montesquieu, Maupertuis, the Abbe +Guasco, etc., wrote satires in the manner of Horace and of Boileau. +Trediakowski took on himself to compose a very tedious _Telemachidus_, +but he knew how to unravel the laws of Russian metre and to write odes +which at least were indicative of the right direction. + +LOMONOSOV.--Lomonosov is regarded as the real father of Russian +literature, as the Peter the Great of literature--a great man withal, +engineer, chemist, professor, grammarian. Regarding him solely as a +literary man, he made felicitous essays in tragedy, lyrical poetry, epic +poetry, polished the Russian versification, established its grammar, and +imparted a powerful impulse in a multitude of directions. + +CREATION OF THE DRAMA.--Soumarokoff founded the Russian drama. He was +manager of the first theatre opened in St. Petersburg (1756). In the +French vein he wrote tragedies, comedies, fables, satires, and epigrams. +He corresponded with Voltaire. The latter wrote to him in 1769: "Sir, +your letter and your works are a great proof that genius and taste +pertain to all lands. Those who said that poetry and music belonged only +to temperate climates were deeply in error. If climate were so potent, +Greece would still produce Platos and Anacreons, just as she produces the +same fruits and flowers; Italy would have Horaces, Virgils, Ariostos, and +Tassos.... The sovereigns who love the arts change the climates; they +cause roses to bud in the midst of snows. That is what your incomparable +monarch has done. I could believe that the letters with which she has +honoured me came from Versailles and yours from one of my colleagues in +the Academy.... Over me you possess one prodigious advantage: I do not +know a word of your language and you are completely master of +mine.... Yes, I regard Racine as the best of our tragic poets.... He is +the only one who has treated love tragically; for before him Corneille +had only expressed that passion well in _The Cid_, and _The Cid_ is not +his. Love is ridiculous or insipid in nearly all his other works. I think +as you do about Quinault; he is a great man in his own way. He would not +have written the _Art of Poetry_, but Boileau would not have written +_Armida_. I entirely agree with what you write about Moliere and of the +tearful comedy which, to the national disgrace, has succeeded to the only +real comic type brought to perfection by the inimitable Moliere. Since +Regnard, who was endowed with a truly comic genius and who alone came +near Moliere, we have only had monstrosities.... That, sir, is the +profession of faith you have asked of me." This letter is quoted, despite +its errors, because it forms, as it were, _a preface to Russian +literature_, and also a patent of nobility granted to this literature. + +CATHERINE II.--The Empress wrote _in Russian_ advice as to the education +of her grandson, very piquant comedies, and review articles. Von Vizin, a +comic author, was the first to look around and to depict the custom of +his country, which means that he was the earliest humorous national +writer. The classic works of Von Vizin were _The Brigadier_ and _The +Minor_. Whilst pictures of contemporaneous manners, they were also +pleadings in favour of a reformed Russia against the Russia that existed +before Peter the Great, which still in part subsisted, as was only +natural. He made a journey to France and it will be seen from his +correspondence that he brought back a highly flattering impression. + +RADISTCHEF.--Radistchef was the first Russian political writer. Under +the pretext of a _Voyage from Petersburg to Moscow_, he attacked serfdom, +absolute government, even religion, for which he was condemned to death +and exiled to Siberia. He was pardoned later on by Paul I, but soon after +committed suicide. He was verbose, but often really eloquent. + +ORATORS AND POETS.--The preacher Platon, whose real name was Levchine, +was an orator full of sincerity, unction, and sometimes of real power. He +was religious tutor to the hereditary Grand Duke, son of Catherine II. +Another preacher, and his successor at the siege of Moscow, Vinogradsky, +was likewise a really great orator. It was he who, after the French +retreat from Russia, delivered the funeral oration on the soldiers killed +at Borodino. Ozerov was a classical tragedy writer after the manner of +Voltaire, and somewhat hampered thereby. Batiouchkov, although he lived +right into the middle of the nineteenth century, is already a classic. He +venerated and imitated the writers of antiquity; he was a devout admirer +of Tibullus, and wrote elegies which are quite exquisite. Krylov was a +fabulist: a dexterous delineator of animals and a delicate humourist. +Frenchmen and Italians have been alike fascinated by him, and his works +have often been translated; until the middle of the nineteenth century he +enjoyed European popularity. + +THE GOLDEN AGE: PUSHKIN.--The true Russian nineteenth century and its +golden age must be dated from Pushkin. He wrote from his earliest youth. +He was an epic poet, novelist, and historian. His principal poems were +_Ruslan and Liudmila_, _Eugene Onegin_, _Poltava_; his most remarkable +historical essay was _The Revolt of Pugachev_. He possessed a fertile and +vigorous imagination, which he developed by continual and enthusiastic +study of Byron. He did not live long enough either for his own fame or +for the welfare of Russian literature, being killed in a duel at the age +of thirty-eight. Merimee translated much by Pushkin. The French lyric +stage has mounted one of his most delicate inspirations, _La Rousalka_ +(the water nymph). He was quite conscious of his own genius and, freely +imitating the _Exegi monumentum_ of Horace, as will be seen, he wrote: "I +have raised to myself a monument which no human hand has constructed.... +I shall not entirely perish ... the sound of my name shall permeate +through vast Russia.... For long I shall be dear to my race because my +lyre has uttered good sentiments, because, in a brutal age, I have +vaunted liberty and preached love for the down-trodden. Oh, my Muse, heed +the commands of God, fear not offence, claim no crown; receive with equal +indifference eulogy and calumny, but never dispute with fools." + +LERMONTOV.--Lermontov was not inferior to his friend Pushkin, whom he +closely resembled. Like him he drew inspiration from the romantic poets +of the West. He loved the East, and his short, glorious suggestions came +to him from the Caucasus. Among his finest poetic works may be cited _The +Novice Ismael Bey_, _The Demon_, _The Song of the Tzar Ivan_. He wrote a +novel, perhaps autobiographical, entitled _A Hero of Our Own Time_, the +hero of which is painted in highly Byronic colours. + +GOGOL.--Russian taste was already veering to the epic novel or epopee in +prose, of which Gogol was the most illustrious representative until +Tolstoy. He was highly gifted. In him the feeling for Nature was acutely +active, and recalling his descriptions of the plains of the Crimea, its +rivers and steppes, he must be regarded as the Rousseau and Chateaubriand +of Russia. Further, he was a close student of village habits, and a +painter in astonishing hues. He eminently possessed the sense of epic +grandeur, and added a sarcastic vein of delightful irony. His _Taras +Bulba_, _King of the Dwarfs_, _History of a Fool_, and _Dead Souls_, have +the force of arresting realism, his _Revisor_ (inspector of finances) is +a caustic comedy which has been a classic not only in Russia but in +France, where it was introduced in translation by Merimee. + +TURGENEV.--Turgenev, less epical than Gogol, was also studious of local +habits and dexterous in describing them. He began with exquisite +_Huntsman's Tales_ impregnated with truth and precision, as well as +intimate and picturesque details; then he extended his scope and wrote +novels, but never at great length, and therefore suited to the exigencies +or habits of Western Europe (such as _Smoke_). He had selected Paris as +his abode, and he mixed with the greatest thinkers of the day: Taine, +Flaubert, Edmond About. In the eyes of his fellow-countrymen he became +ultimately too Western and too Parisian. His was a delicate, sensitive +soul, prone to melancholy and perpetually dreaming. He had a cult of form +in which he went so far as to make it a sort of scruple and superstition. + +TOLSTOY.--Tolstoy, so recently dead, was a great epic poet in prose, a +very powerful and affecting novelist, and in some measure an apostle. He +began with _Boyhood Adolescence and Youth_, in itself very curious and +particularly valuable because of the idea it conveys of the life of the +lords of the Russian soil, and for its explanation of the formation of +the soul and genius of Tolstoy; then came _The Cossacks_, full of +magnificent descriptions of the Caucasus and of interesting scenes of +military and rural life; subsequently that masterpiece of Tolstoy's, _War +and Peace_, narratives dealing with the war of Napoleon with Russia and +of the subsequent period of peaceful and healthy rural life. It is +impossible to adequately admire the power of narration and descriptive +force, the fertility of incidents, characterisations, and dramatic +moments, the art or rather the gift of portraiture, and finally, the +grandeur and moral elevation, in fact, all the qualities, not one of +which he appeared to lack, of which Tolstoy gave proof and which he +displayed in this immense history of the Russian soul at the commencement +of the nineteenth century; for it is thus that it is meet to qualify this +noble creation. The only analogy is with _Les Miserables_ of Victor Hugo, +and it must be admitted that despite its incomparable merits, the French +work is the more unequal. _Anna Karenina_ is only a novel in the vein of +French novels, but very profound and remarkable for its analysis of +character and also impassioned and affecting, besides having considerable +moral range. _The Kreutzer Sonata_ is a romance rather than a novel, but +cruelly beautiful because it exposes with singular clairvoyance the +misery of a soul impotent for happiness. _Resurrection_ shows that +mournful and impassioned pity felt by Tolstoy for the humble and the +"fallen," to use the phrase of Pushkin; it realises a lofty dramatic +beauty. Tolstoy, in a thousand pamphlets or brief works, preached to his +own people and to mankind the strict morality of Christ, charity, +renunciation, peace at all price, without taking into account the +necessities of social life; and he denounced, as had Jean Jacques +Rousseau, the culpability of art and literature, being resigned to +recognising his own works as condemnable. His was the soul of an exalted +poet and a lofty poetical mind; from a poet must not be demanded +practical common sense or that feeling for reality which is demanded, +often unavailingly, from a statesman. + +DOSTOEVSKY.--Dostoevsky, with a tragic genius as great as that of +Tolstoy, may be said to have been more restricted because he exclusively +delineated the unhappy, the miserable, and those defeated in life. He +knew them personally because, after being arrested in 1849 at the age of +fifty for the crime of belonging to a secret society, he spent years in +the convict prisons of Siberia. Those miseries he describes in the most +exact terms and with heart-rending eloquence in _Buried Alive: Ten Years +in Siberia_, and in the remarkable novel entitled _Crime and Punishment_. +He has lent invaluable aid in the propagation of two sentiments which +have created some stir in the West and which, assuredly, we desire to +foster: namely, "the religion of human suffering" and the cult of +"expiation." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +POLISH LITERATURE + +At an Early Date Western Influence sufficiently Potent. Sixteenth Century +Brilliant; Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries highly Cultured; +Nineteenth Century Notably Original. + + +WESTERN INFLUENCE--Widely different from Russian literature, much more +Western, based more on Greek and Latin culture, Polish literature holds +high rank in the histories of European literature. Christians from the +tenth century, the Poles knew from this epoch religious songs written by +monks, in the vulgar tongue. To this is due the possession of the +_Bogarodzica_, a religious and bellicose song dedicated to the Virgin +mother of God, which is even now comprehensible, so little has the Polish +language changed. All through the Middle Ages, literary historians can +only find chronicles written sometimes in Latin, sometimes in the native +language. Under the influence of the universities, and also of the +parliamentary rule, the language acquired alike more consistency and more +authority in the fifteenth century, whilst the sixteenth was the golden +literary epoch of the Poles. There were poets, and even great poets, as +well as orators and historians. Such was Kochanowski, very much a +Western, who lived some time in Italy, also seven years in France, and +was a friend of Ronsard. His writings were epical, lyrical, tragical, +satirical, and especially elegiacal. He is a classic in Poland. +Grochowski left a volume of diversified poems, hymns on various texts of +Thomas a Kempis, _The Nights_ of Thorn, etc. Martin Bielski, who was an +historian too, but in Latin, left two political satires on the condition +of Poland, and his son Joachim wrote a history of his native land in +Polish. + +SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES.--Though somewhat less brilliant +than the preceding, the period of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries +is not unfavourable to Poland. Then may be enumerated the satirical +Opalinski, the lyrical Kochanowski, the dramatist Bogulawski, manager of +the theatre at Warsaw, who not only translated plays from the French, +English, and Spanish, but himself wrote several comedies, of which _The +Lover, Author, and Servant_ has remained the most celebrated. Rzewuski +was a dramatic author with such national plays as _Wladislas at Varna_ +and _Zolkewishi_, and comedies as _The Vexations_ and _The Capricious_, +and he also was historian, orator, literary critic, and theorist. + +Potocki was a literary and theoretical critic and founder of a sort of +Polish academy (society for the perfection of the tongue and of style). +Prince Czartoryski showed himself an excellent moralist in his _Letters +to Doswiadryski_. Niemcewicz extended his great literary talent into a +mass of diversified efforts. He wrote odes held in esteem, tragedies, +comedies, fables, and tales, historical novels, and he translated the +poems of Pope and the _Athalie_ of Racine. + +LITERARY RENAISSANCE.--Losing her national independence, Poland +experienced a veritable literary renaissance, which offered but slender +compensation. She applied herself to explore her origins, to regain the +ancient spirit, and to live nationally in her literature. Hence her great +works of patriotic erudition. Czacki with his _Laws of Poland and of +Lithuania_, Kollontay with his _Essay on the Heredity of the Throne of +Poland_, and his _Letters of an Anonymous to Stanislas Malachowski_, +etc., Bentkowski with his _History of Polish Literature_ and his +_Introduction to General Literature_, etc. Thence came the revival of +imaginative literature, Felinski, on the one hand translator of +Crebillon, Delille and Alfieri on the other, he was the personally +distinguished author of the drama _Barbe Radzivill_; Bernatowicz, author +of highly remarkable historical novels, among which _Poiata_ gives a +picture of the triumph of Christianity in Lithuania in the fourteenth +century; Karpinski, dramatist, author of _Judith_, a tragedy; +_Alcestis_, an opera; _Cens_, a comedy, etc.; Mickiewicz, scholar, poet, +and novelist, who, exiled from his own land, was professor of literature +at Lausanne, then in Paris, at the College of France, extremely popular +in France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, the friend of Goethe, +Lamennais, Cousin, Michelet, and of all the French youth. He was the +author of fine poems, of a great historical novel, _Conrade +Vattenrod_, of _The People and the Polish Pilgrims_, of a _Lesson on the +Slav States_. + +MODERN EPOCH.--At the time of writing, Poland continues to be a literary +nation well worthy of attention. She presents an example to the races +which incur the risk of perishing as nations because of their political +incapacity; by preserving their tongue and by sanctifying it with a +worthy literature they guard their country and, like the Greeks and +Italians, hope to reconquer it some day through the sudden turns of +fortune shown in history. + + + + +INDEX OF NAMES CITED + + + A + + About + Addison + Aeschines + Aeschylus + Aesop + Aicard + Alarcon + Alcasus + Alcamo, Ciullo of + Aleman + Alexander + Alfieri + Alphonso X + Alphonso XI + Alvarez + Ambrose, St. + Amyot + Anacreon + Anaxagoras + Andocides + Anne, Queen + Annunzio, Gabriel d' + Antiphon + Antonina + Antonius Diogenes + Apollonius + Appian + Apuleius + Aratus + Arcadius + Archilochus + Aretino + Ariosto + Aristophanes + Aristotle + Arnauld + Arrian + Asclepiades + Athanasius, St. + Attius + Aubigne, Agrippa d' + Augier + Augustine, St. + Augustus + Aulard + Aurispa + Ausonius + Avienus + + B + + Babrius + Bacon, Francis + Baldi + Balzac, G. de + Balzac, H. de + Bandello + Banville, T. de + Barnave + Barthari + Basil, S. + Bataille + Batiouchkov + Baudelaire + Bayle + Bazin + Beaumarchais + Beaumont + Beccaria + Belisarius + Bellay, Joachim du + Belleau + Bembo + Benserade + Bentkowski + Beranger + Bergerac, Cyrano de + Bergson + Bernard, Tristan + Bernardes + Bernatowicz + Berni + Bernstein + Bertaut + Bielski, Joachim + Bielski, Martin + Bion + Boccaccio + Bodmer + Boetie, La + Bogulawski + Boileau + Bojardo + Bordeaux + Bordello + Bossuet + Bourdaloue + Bourget + Boutroux + Boylesve + Brantome + Brieux + Bronte, C. + Bronte, E. + Browning, E. B. + Browning, Robert + Brueys, de + Brunetiere + Brunetto + Buddha + Buffon + Bulwer-Lytton + Bunyan + Buerger + Burgundy, Duke of + Burns + Burton, Robert + Byron + + C + + Caballero + Caesar, Julius + Calderon + Callimachus + Callinos + Calvin + Caminha + Camoens + Campistron + Campoamor + Candamo + Canizares + Carducci + Carlyle + Caro + Cassini + Cassius + Castelar + Castro + Catherine of Russia + Cato + Catullus + Cellini, Benvenuto + Cephalon + Cervantes + Charles of Orleans + Charles II + Charles V + Chateaubriand + Chatterton + Chaucer + Chenier, Andre + Chenier, Marie-Joseph + Chrysippus + Chrysostom + Cicero + Claudian + Cleanthes + Coleridge + Comines + Commodian + Comnenus + Comte + Condillac + Congreve + Constant + Copernicus + Coppee + Corneille + Corte-Real + Cousin + Cowper + Crabbe + Cratinos + Crebillon + Cromwell + Cyprian, St. + Czacki + Czartoryski + + D + + Dancourt + Daniel (the abbot) + Daniel (the prisoner) + Dante + Danton + Daudet + Davenant + Davila + Defoe + Delavigne + Delille + Demosthenes + Descartes + Desportes + Destouches + Diamante + Dickens + Diderot + Dietmar + Diogenes + Dolce + Dostoevsky + Dryden + Duclos + Dufresny + Dumas, (_pere_) + Dumas, (_fils_) + Duerer + + E + + Eberling + Echegaray + Eliot, George + Elisabeth + Ennius + Epictetus + Epicurus + Erasmus + Ercilla + Espinel + Espronceda + Eudoxia + Eupolis + Euripides + Eusebius + Eustathius + Evemerus + + F + + Falcam + Fayette, Mme. de la + Feijoo + Felinski + Fenelon + Ferreira + Fichte + Ficino + Fielding + Filangieri + Flaubert + Fletcher + Florez + Fogazzaro + Folengo + Fontenelle + Foscolo + Fouillee + Fox + Frederick II + Froissart + + G + + Galen + Galileo + Garnier + Gautier + Gellius Aulus + Gerson + Gibbon + Gilbert + Gil Vicente + Gioberti + Giordani + Goethe + Gogol + Goldoni + Goldsmith + Goncourt, de + Gongora + Gorgias + Gottsched + Gower + Gregory, St. + Gresset + Grimm + Grochowski + Gruen + Guarini + Guasco + Guevara + Guicciardini + Guittone + Guizot + Gutierrez + Guyot + + H + + Habington + Haller + Haraucourt + Hartmann + Hauptmann + Haussonville, d' + Hecataeus of Abdera + Hegel + Heine + Heliodorus + Henry VI + Heraclitus + Herbert + Herder + Herodian + Herodotus + Herreros + Hervieu + Hesiod + Hilarion + Hilarius, St. + Hildebrand + Hippocrates + Homer + Horace + Huerta + Hugo, Victor + Hugo of Berzi + Hume + Hutten + Hyperides + + I + + Iffland + Isla + Isocrates + Ivan + Izoulet + + J + + Jacopone + James I + Jaures + Jerome, St. + Jodelle + Johnson, Dr + Joinville + Jonson, Ben + Joseph of Byzantium + Jovellanos + Julian the Apostate + Junius + Justinian + Juvenal + Juvencus + + K + + Kalidas + Kant + Kantemir + Karpinski + Keats + Kempis, T. a + Klopstock + Kochanowski + Kollontay + Koerner + Kotzebue + Krylov + Kuerenberg + Kutochikine + + L + + Laberius + La Bruyere + Lacerda + La Chaussee + Lactantius + La Fontaine + Lamartine + Lamb, C + Lamennais + La Motte + Lanfranc + La Rochefoucauld + Lascaris + Lavater + Lavedan + Lavisse + Leconte de Lisle + Leibnitz + Lenau + Leonardo da Vinci + Leonidas + Leopardi + Lermontov + Le Sage + Lessing + Libanius + Livius + Livy + Lobo + Locke + Lomonosov + Longus + Lope de Vega + Lorris, William of + Louis, St + Louis XI + Lucena + Lucian + Lucilius + Lucretius + Luther + Lycophron + Lyly + Lysias + + M + + Mably + Macaulay + Machiavelli + MacPherson + Maffei + Mairet + Maistre, Joseph de + Malaspina + Malebranche + Malherbe + Mallarme + Manuel, John + Manzinho + Manzoni + Marcus Aurelius + Marini + Marivaux + Marlowe + Marmontel + Marot + Martial + Martinez, Rose de la + Mary, Princess + Maynard + Medici, Catherine de' + Medici, Marie de' + Melanchthon + Meleager + Menander + Mendes + Mendoza + Mercier + Meredith + Merimee + Metastasio + Meung, John de + Mezeray + Michelet + Mickiewicz + Milton + Mirabeau + Moliere + Mommsen + Monomaque + Montaigne + Montalvo + Montchrestien + Montemayor + Montesquieu + Monti + Montluc + Moratin, Leandro + Moratin, Nicholas + Moschus + Mun, de + Musseus + Musset, A. de + + N + + Naevius + Napoleon + Nepos + Nerva + Newman + Newton + Nicole + Niebuhr + Niemcewicz + Nietzsche + Nonnus + + O + + Olivares + Opalinski + Oppian + Otway + Ovid + Ozerov + + P + + Pacuvius + Palaprat + Pandolfini + Pascal + Paulinus, St. + Paul I + Pellico + Pereira + Pericles + Perron + Perseus + Peter the Great + Petrarch + Petronius + Philetas + Philip III + Philostrates + Pico della Mirandola + Pindar + Piron + Pisistratus + Planudes + Plato + Platon + Plautus + Pliny the Elder + Pliny the Younger + Plutarch + Politien + Polybius + Pompignan + Pomponius + Pontus + Pope + Porto-Riche + Potocki + Prevost, Abbe + Prevost, Marcel. + Procopius + Propertius + Protagoras + Prudentius + Ptolemy + Publius Syrus + Pulci + Pushkin + + Q + + Quevedo + Quinet + Quintana + Quintilian + Quintus + Quintus Curtius + + R + + Rabelais + Racan + Racine + Radistchef + Raynal + Regnard + Regnier, H. de + Regnier, M. + Renan + Retz, Cardinal de + Ribeiro + Ribot, A. + Ribot, T. + Richardson + Richepin + Rivas + Robert + Robertson + Robespierre + Rojas + Ronsard + Rosa + Rosa, Salvator + Rossetti, Christina + Rossetti, Dante + Rostand + Roucher + Rouget de Lisle + Rousseau, J. B. + Rousseau, J. J. + Ruskin + Rutilius + Rzewuski + + S + + Saa de Miranda + Saa e Menezes + Saavedra + Saint-Amant + Saint-Evremond + Saint-Gelais + Saint-Lambert + Saint-Pierre, Bernardin de + Saint-Simon + Sainte-Beuve + Sakyamuni + Sallust + Sand, George + San Phillipo + Sannazaro + Sappho + Sardou + Savonarola + Scarron + Sceve, Maurice + Schiller + Schopenhauer + Scipio + Scott + Scribe + Scudery + Sedaine + Segrais + Seignobos + Senancour + Seneca the Philosopher + Seneca the Tragic + Serao + Sevigne + Sextus Empiricus + Shakespeare + Shelley + Sheridan + Sidney + Silius Italicus + Simonides + Socrates + Solis + Sophocles + Soumarokoff + Southey + Spenser + Stael, Mme. de + Statius + Stendhal + Sterne + Sudermann + Sully-Prudhomme + Swift + Swinburne + + T + + Tacitus + Taine + Tannhaeuser + Tansillo + Tasso + Tassoni + Tennyson + Terence + Tertullian + Thackeray + Thales + Theocritus + Theodora + Theophrastus + Thespis + Thibaut + Thierry + Thiers + Thomson + Thorn + Thucydides + Tibullus + Tiraboschi + Tirso de Molina + Tolstoy + Torricelli + Trajan + Trediakowski + Treitschke + Trueba + Turgenev + Turgot + Tyrtaeus + + U + + Urfe, Honore d' + + V + + Vair, du + Valerius Flaccus + Valmiki + Varro + Vaugelas + Ventura de la Vega + Vergniaud + Verlaine + Vian, Theophilus de + Vico + Vignes, Peter of + Vigny, Alfred de + Villehardouin + Villon + Vinogradsky + Virgil + Vizin, von + Voiture + Voltaire + + W + + Waller + Wieland + Wolff + Wordsworth + Wycherley + + X + + Xenophon + + Y + + Young + + Z + + Zamora + Zedlitz + Zeno + Ziorgi + Zola + Zorilla + Zwingli + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Initiation into Literature, by Emile Faguet + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INITIATION INTO LITERATURE *** + +***** This file should be named 8555.txt or 8555.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/5/5/8555/ + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Marlo Dianne, Charles Franks and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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