Landmarks in French Literature

impossible: it is so close to us that it is bound to be out of focus. And there is an additional difficulty in the extreme richness and variety of their accomplishment. They

and its most remarkable manifes

ed of the past as a picturesque pageant-a thing of contrasts and costumes, an excuse for rhetorical descriptions, without inner significance or a real life of its own. One historian of genius they did indeed produce-MICHELET; and the contrast between his work and that of his successors, TAINE and RENAN, is typical of the new departure. The great history of Michelet, with its strange, convulsive style, its capricious and imaginative treatment of facts, and its undisguised bias, shows us the spectacle of the past in a series of lurid lightning-flashes-a spectacle at once intensely vivid and singularly contort

t the critic's first duty was not to judge, but to understand; and with this object he set himself to explore all the facts which could throw light on the temperament, the outlook, the ideals of his author; he examined his biography, the society in which he lived, the influences of his age; and with the apparatus thus patiently formed he proceeded to act as the interpreter between the author and the public. His Causeries du Lundi-short critical papers originally contributed to a periodical magazine and subsequently published in a long series of volumes-together with his Port Royal-an el

of facts, Flaubert was the true heir of Balzac; while in the scrupulosity of his style and the patient, laborious, and sober treatment of his material he presented a complete contrast to his great predecessor. These latter qualities make Flaubert the pre-eminent representative of his age. The critical sense possessed him more absolutely and with more striking results than all the rest of his contemporaries. His watchfulness over his own work was almost infinite. There has never been a writer who took his art with such a passionate seriousness, who struggled so incessantly towards perfection, and who suffered so acutely from the difficulties, the disappointments, the desperate, furious efforts of an unremitting toil. His style alone cost him boundless labour. He would often spend an entire day over the elaboration and perfection of a single sentence, which, perhaps, would be altogether obliterated before the publication of the book. He worked in an apoplectic fervour over every detail of his craft-e

, profound presentment of the life of the past. In Salammb?, ancient Carthage rises up before us, no crazy vision of a picturesque and disordered imagination, but in all the solidity of truth; coloured, not with the glaring contrasts of r

es an effect of absolutely convincing veracity. The character and the fate of the wretched woman who forms the central figure of the story come upon us, amid the grim tepidity of their surroundings, with extraordinary force. Flaubert's genius does not act in sudden flashes, but b

, irregular vitality was precisely one of his dominating qualities. But in his fiction he suppressed this side of himself in the interests, as he believed, of art. It was his theory that a complete detachment was a necessary condition for all great writing; and he did his best to put this theory into practice. But there was one respect in which he did not succeed in his endeavour. His hatred and scorn of the mass of humanity, his conception of them as a stupid,

t of whom were LECONTE DE LISLE, SULLY PRUDHOMME, and HEREDIA. Their poetry bears the same relation to that of Musset as the history of Renan bears to that of Michelet, and the prose of Flaubert to that of Hugo. It is restrained, impersonal, and polished to the highe

uvre sort

orme au

be

rbre, ony

moulded language invests their visions with a noble fixity, an impressive force. Among the gorgeous descriptive pieces of Leconte de Lisle, the

Parnassiens were detached, he poured into his verse all the gloom of his own character, all the bitterness of his own philosophy, all the agony of his own despair. Some poets-such as Keats and Chénier-in spite of the misfortunes of their lives, seem to distil nothing but happiness and the purest beauty into their poetry; they only come to their true selves amid the sunlight and the flowers. Other writers-such as Swift and Tacitus-rule supreme over the kingdom of darkness and horror, and their finest pages are written in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Writers of this kind are very rarely poets; and it is Baudelaire's great distinction that he was able to combine the hide

CLU

phase-a phase which, in its essential qualities, has lasted till to-day,

ovels and yet more brilliant short stories, to an almost fiendishly realistic treatment of modern life. A precisely contrary tendency marks the poetry of VERLAINE. While Maupassant completely disengaged prose from every alien element of poetry and imagination, pushing it as far as it could go in the di

shreds of rhythmical regularity, making his verse a perfectly fluid substance, which he could pour at will into the subtle mould of his feeling and his thought. The result justified the means. Verlaine's poetry exhales an exquisite perfume-strange, indistinct, and yet, after the manner of perfume, unforgettable

by France can be paralleled in only one other modern literature-that of England. The record is, indeed, a splendid one which contains, in poetry and drama, the names of Villon, Ronsard, Corneille, Molière, Racine, La Fontaine, Chénier, Lamartine, Hugo, Vigny, Gautier, Baudelaire, Verlaine; and in prose those of Froissart, Rabelais, Montaigne, Pascal, Bossuet, La Rochefoucauld, La Bruyère, Montesquieu, Saint-Simon, Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau, Chateaubriand, Balzac, Flaubert, and Maupassant. And, besides this great richness and variety, another consideration gives a peculiar valu

All these qualities are peculiarly its own, but, beyond and above them, there is another which controls and animates the rest. The one high principle which, through so many generations, has gui

OF AUTHORS AND TH

iddl

, eleventh to thi

Roland, c

twelfth and thir

ROYES, wrote

fth and thirte

ard, thirtee

olete, circa th

RDOUIN,

Constantinop

E DE LOR

Rose (first par

MEUNG,

a Rose (secon

LE, 122

aint Lou

, 1337-ci

ues, 13

N, 14

estamen

ES, 14

es, 14

enais

, 149

, circa

RD, 1

LAY, 1

ration de la Lang

LE, 1

atre,

GNE, 1

s, 15

e of Tr

BE, 15

, 16

570-1631

es, 159

, found

LLE, 1

id,

races,

a, 1

ucte,

L, 16

ovinciales

ion 1670, first com

e of L

RE, 1

uses Ridic

des Femm

ufe,

nthrope

Imaginai

FOUCAULD

mes,

U, 163

res,

étique

E, 16

maque

re,

lie,

AINE, 1

s, 16

T, 162

Funèbres,

Universel

SéVIGNé,

rs, 1

LAFAYETT

sse de Cl

YèRE,

ctères,

teenth

LLE, 16

des Oracl

, 164

istorique et C

N, 165

aque,

UIEU, 1

Persan

des Loi

E (1694

riade,

e, 1

hilosophi

les Moeurs

ide,

e Philosoph

s, etc.,

E, 166

as, 17

UX, 16

arianne,

'Amour et du

IMON, 1

un 1740, firs

OT, 1

pédie,

se, first e

ameau, first

AU, 17

lle Hélo

Social

, first edi

CHAIS,

e de Figa

CET, 1

l'Esprit Hu

ER, 1

-94, first

teenth C

RIAND, 1

a, 1

Christian

tre-Tombe, pu

NE, 179

tions,

, 18

ani,

les d'Aut

me de Pa

timents

emplatio

e des Siè

érables

, 179

ques et Mod

Grandeur Mili

T, 18

de Marian

accio,

its, 1

SAND, 1

ana,

le Cham

AL, 17

et le N

, 1799

e Humaine

ET, 17

ry, 1

eteenth

BEUVE,

s, 18

, 183

Jésus

, 182

RT, 18

Bovar

mb?,

ER, 1

t Camée

AIRE,

rs du Ma

DE LISLE

, 185

DHOMME, 1

, 186

A, 184

ophées

SANT,

NE, 18

GRAPHI

ism of French literature is very large indeed. The foll

e de la Langue et de la Litt

e la Littérature f

'histoire de la Littéra

of French Lite

authors, by the leading modern critics, is that of L

contained in his Causeries du Lundi, Premiers Lundis, Nouveaux Lundis,

ern writers are to be found in La

s complete texts of most of the great writers, with elaborate and scholarly commentaries of the highest value. Cheaper editions of

& Gray) and The Oxford Book of French Verse (Clarendon Press). But it must be remembered that the greater part of what is most chara

N

the Fre

op,

totl

, Matt

t Nicolete

n, Ja

99-1850), 160-164, 16

e Humaine

arles (1821-67

urs du

ierre (1

Historique et

d. of Pierre Auguste C

e de Figa

lairvaux (10

s (1636-1711),

oétiq

Espr

gbrok

gne (1627-1704), 85-8

sur les M

Universel

s sur l'Ev

s Funèb

ne, Duc

Sir Th

uis Leclerc, Comte

5, 137,

an (1698-

e of Rus

ante

de Rolan

s de Ge

Jean (159

René, Vicomte de (1768

Christian

yrs,

d'Outre-T

(1762-94), 14

gues

Troyes (12th

mbus

lippe de (144

ires

e Bonnot de Mably

rquis de (174

l'Esprit

reve

enjamin (18

phe,

icus,

(1606-84), 36-41,

, 36,

na,

orace

euct

Abbé (160

ean le Rond

, 8,

4), 35, 116, 118, 131,

de Rameau

igieus

den

Joachim (

quités d

ustration de la L

let, Mme

, Mme. (16

xandra (18

pédie,

aux,

n?ois (1651-

maqu

821-80), 35, 168-171

et Pécuc

Bovar

mmb?

rd le Bovyer de (

des Ora

cis

the Grea

(c. 1337-c. 1410

iques

le, (1811-72), 1

Camées,

Thom

ra (c. 1570-c.

aude Adrien (

-Maria de (18

aron d' (1

er,

7, 148, 149-155, 158, 159

atimen

templat

les d'Aut

ni, 1

e des Siè

rables,

s et Les

Davi

, Hen

ienne (1532

patr

n, Sam

, Sire de (1224

aint Lou

John, 1

ise (c. 1

(1645-96), 87, 88-

actères

Choderlos de

Dangere

me. de (1634

s de Clève

(1621-95), 11, 53, 79

onse (1790-1869

Lac

d, Duc de (1613

e, Charles Mari

in-René (166

Blas

, Joh

me de (fl. 13th

de la R

IX,

s XI

s XI

41, 45-93, 94-95,

s XV

, Mart

avell

s de (1555-1628),

e (1688-1763),

'Amour et du

Maria

Christo

an Fran?ois (

ent (1496-1

y de (1850-93)

e (c. 1250-13

n de la

es (1798-1874

, 62,

iste Poquelin] (1622-73), 35

uan,

des Fe

mes Sav

e Imagin

thrope,

uses Ridic

fe, 6

yquem de (1533-92),

e Raimond

e (1689-1755), 96-10

a Grandeur et la Déc

des Lois,

ersanes,

(1810-57), 148,

zacci

Nuit

ens, Les

623-62), 41-44, 1

inciales, 41

ées,

Les, 111-115,

La, 22-

bal

Alexan

icolas (1

Les, 33-

bbé (1697-17

caut, 157

c. 1494-c. 1553), 24

53, 55, 56, 64-79, 85, 87, 93, 1

omaq

aze

ce, 68

nnicu

re,

laide

st (1823-92

dinal de (1585

Bretons

de Ren

e la Ro

e de (1524-85)

an?ia

es

(1712-78), 112, 131-139

ons, 133

rat Soc

le Hélo?s

arles-Augustin (

es du L

Royal

e (1675-1755), 105

s, 105-

Amandine Lucile Aurore D

s le Ch

au Dia

te Fade

Sir Wal

eleine de (1

me. de (16

5, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71,

(1709-6

ocle

Marie-Henri Beyle] (

euse de P

et Le N

ené Fran?ois Arman

Jonat

tus,

nri (1828

ritus

bert Jacques (1

aul (1844-9

les, 45

e (1797-1863),

de Sams

du Berg

se,

es Oliv

t du L

Grandeur Mi

eoffroi de (c. 1

de Constanti

431-1463 or after),

Testam

Testam

il,

1778), 35, 100-103, 105, 110, 119-131, 13

e, 11

de, 1

ponden

u Docteur

Philosophiq

omte de Boula

les Moeu

et l'Empereur

nriad

ilosophiqu

Charles

met,

ope

, 119

, Antoi

rth, Wi