French Literature

Origin and Foundations of the French Language

When the Romans became masters of Gaul, they imposed their language on

that country, together with their religion, their laws, their customs, and their

culture. The low Latin, which thus became universal throughout Gaul, was not

slow in undergoing a change while passing through Celtic and Frankish throats,

and in showing traces of climate and of racial genius. From this transformation

rose a new tongue, the Romance, which was destined to gradually evolve itself

into the French. The glossaries of Reichenau and of Cassel contain many

translations of Latin and Germanic words into Romance; they date from the

eighth century. The earliest texts in our possession belong to the ninth century,

and are more valuable from an archeological than from a literary standpoint.

These are the formulas called "Les Serments de Strasbourg" (the oaths

pronounced by the soldiers of Louis the German and of Charles the Bald, A.D.

842); the song or "Prose de Sainte Eulalie", an imitation of a Latin hymn of the

Church (about 880); a portion of a "Homélie sur Jonas" discovered at

Valenciennes, and written in a mixture of Latin and Romance, dating from the

early part of the tenth century; "La Vie de Saint Léger", a bald narrative in verse,

written in the latter part of the tenth century. The metamorphosis, under the

action of influences now no longer traceable, of Low Latin into Romance did not

proceed along the same lines everywhere in Gaul. From the Pyrenees to the

Scheldt it varied with the varying localities, and gave rise to many dialects. These

dialects may be grouped into two principal languages and which usually named

for word used for an affirmative in each: the Romance language of oc in the South

and the Romance language of oïl in the North. The oïl language comprised all the

varieties of speech in use to the north of an imaginary line drawn from the estuary

of the Girande to the Alps, passing through Limousin, Auvergne, and Dauphiny.

In the twelfth century, the speech of the Ile-de-France began to take the lead over

all the others, for the very good reason that it was the speech of the royal

domain. Hereafter the French language possesses its form, and can give birth to

a literature.

In the Middle Ages

Epic Poetry

In France, as everywhere else, literature began with poetry, and that epic. For

many centuries this seems to have been the form natural to the French mind;

and the abundance of the output is striking proof of the breadth and power of the

movement. To comprehend more clearly the great mass of epic works of this

period, we distinguish three subject-matters, or three cycles: the French, or

national cycle; the Breton cycle; the antique cycle.

The origin of the French cycle go back to the first age of Frankish domination.

The Frankish chiefs all kept their singers, who celebrated their exploits in poems

of heroic inspiration. These compositions, called cantilènes, were sung at the

harp, either at their festivals, or at the head of the army before a battle. This

spontaneous growth of epic poetry goes on until the tenth century; but after the

tenth century, the inventive power of the poets -- the trouvères, as they are called

-- is exhausted; they no longer compose new songs, but co-ordinate, above all

amplify, and finally reduce to writing the songs left to them by their

predecessors. By dint of this labour of arrangement and editing they compose

the chansons de geste ("history songs", from the Latin gesta, "things done",

"history"). Comparatively short, these chansons de geste are written in lines of

six syllables which are made into couplets, or laisses, with assonances, or

imperfect rhymes (such, as e.g., perde and superbe). Like the old cantilènes,

they were intended to be sung by the trouvère at feasts or in battle. They are all

connected with real historical episodes which, however, are embellished, and

often disfigured, with popular traditions and the fruits of the poet's own

imagination. The most famous of these chansons de geste, the "Chanson de

Roland", put into writing about the year 1080, and by an unknown author, is the

chef d'oeuvre of this national epic poetry. It admirably reflects the society of the

time. With its scenes of carnage, its loud clash of blades, its heroic barons who

sacrifice their lives for the emperor and die after commending their souls to God,

its miraculous intervention of angels who receive the soul of the brave warrior, the

Chanson de Roland places vividly before the imagination the France of the

eleventh century, warlike, violent, still barbarous, but thoroughly animated by an

ardent faith. The "Chanson de Roland" is the most widely known of the chansons

de geste, but a multitude of them are extant, and they all contain great beauties.

While some of them, centering upon Charlemagne ("Le Pèlerinage de

Charlemagne", "Aimeri de Narbonne", "Girard de Viane", etc.), celebrate the

union of France under the kingship and conflicts with external enemies, others

are inspired by the struggles maintained by great feudal chiefs against the king

("Ogier le Danois", Renaud de Montauban", "Gèrard de Roussillion"), by the wars

of vassals among themselves, and by historical memories belonging particularly

to this or that province ("Raoul de Cambrai", the "Geste des Lorains", "Auberi le

Bourgoing"). The interesting element in all of them is, chiefly, their faithful

portrayal of the feudal world, its virtues, and its asperities.

From the end of the twelfth century, the success of the chansons de geste is

counterbalanced by that of the Romances of the Breton cycle. Here imagination

roams at large, above all, that kind of imagination which we call fantasy. The

marvellous plays an important part. Manners are less violent, more delicate.

Love, almost absent from the chansons de geste, holds a great place and utters

itself in a style at once respectful and exalted. We find everywhere the impress of

a twofold mysticism, that of chivalry and of religion. In other words, if the

chansons de geste bear the stamp of the Germanic spirit, the Breton romances

are inspired by the Celtic. The central figure is that of King Arthur, a character

borrowed from history, the incarnation of the independence of the Breton race.

Around him are his companions, the knights of the Round Table and Merlin the

wizard. The Breton romances were intended to be read, not to be sung; they

were written, moreover, in prose. In course of time, Chrestien de Troyes, a poet

rather facile and prolific than truly talented, put them into rhymed verse. Between

1160 and 1180 he wrote "Perceval le Gallois", "Le Chevalier au lion", "Lancelot

en la charrette", "Cligès", "Eric et Enide". In these romances Launcelot is the

type of l'amour courtois -- the "gentle love" which every knight must bear his lady.

As for the antique cycle, it is no more than a work of imitation. The clerics,

observing the success of epic and narrative poetry, conceived the idea of

throwing into the same form the traditions of antiquity. The "Roman d'Alexandre"

and the "Roman de Troie", both written in the second half of the twelfth century,

and amusing for their anachronisms and their baroque conceits, are, on the other

hand, long, diffuse and mediocre.

Lyric Poetry

In these primitive periods of history the lines of division between various types of

literature are not well defined. From the cantiléne there sprang in turn the lyric

poetry of the North. In these rough-hewn romances, the poet relates four or five

couplets of varied rhythm, but all ending with the same refrain, an adventure of

war or of love; they are called chansons de toile (spinning songs) or chansons de

danse, because women sang them either as they spun and chatted or as they

danced rondes. Love nearly always plays the chief part in them -- the love,

successful or crossed, of a young girl for a beau chevalier, or perhaps a love

crushed by the death of the beloved -- such are the themes of the principal

chansons de toile that have come down to us, "Belle Bremboure", "Belle Idoine",

"Belle Aiglantine", "Belle Doette". But it was in Provence that lyric verse was to

reach its fullest development. Subtle, learned, and somewhat artificial, Provençal

poetry had for its only theme love -- an idealized and quintessential love -- l'amour

courtois. On this common theme, the troubadours embroidered variations of the

utmost richness; the form which they employed, a very complex one, had given

rise to manifold combinations of rhythms. The men of the North were dazzled

when they came to know Provençal poetry. Strangely enough, it did not spread

directly from province to province within the borders of France, but by way of the

Orient, from the Holy Land, during the Crusades, where Southern and Northern

lords met each other. Soon a whole group of poets of the oïl tongue in the North

and East -- Conon de Béthune, Grace Brulé, Blondel de Nesles, and especially

Thiébaut, Count of Champagne -- set to work to imitate the Provençal

compositions.

Bourgeoise and Satirical Literature

The epic and the lyric were essentially aristocratic; they addressed themselves

to an audience of barons that represented almost exclusively the manners and

feelings of the upper classes in the feudal world. At the beginning of the

thirteenth century, and after the liberation of the communes, the bourgeoisie

makes its appearance, and from that moment dates the origin and rise of a

bourgeois literature. It begins with the fabliaux, little tales told in line of eight

syllables, pleasant stories intended only to amuse. The characters they

introduce are people of humble or middling station -- tradesmen, artisans, and

their women-folk -- who are put through all sorts of ridiculous adventures; their

vices and oddities are ridiculed smartly and with some degree of malice -- too

often, also with coarseness and indecency. These fabliaux are animated by the

Gallic spirit of irony and banter, in contrast to the heroic or "gentle" (courtois),

spirit which inspires the epic and lyric works. Bourgeoise and villagers find here a

realistic picture of their existence and their manners, but freely caricatured so as

to provoke laughter.

Combine the spirit of the fabliaux with memories of the chanson de geste, and

we have the "Roman de Renart", a vast collection, formed early in the thirteenth

century, of stories in verse thrown together without sequence or connection. This

work which, it is believed, was proceeded by another now lost, contains 30,000

lines. Enlarged by successive editions, the "Roman de Renart" is the work not

only of several authors, but of a whole country and a whole epoch. What gives it

unity, in spite of the diversity and incongruity of the stories of which it is made

up, is that in all parts, the same hero appears again and again -- Renart, the fox.

The action round about Renart is carried on by many other characters, such as

Ysengrin, the wolf, Noble, the lion, Chantecler, the cock, pseudo-animals that

mingle with their bearing and instincts as animals traits and feelings borrowed

from humanity. Under pretext of relating an intrigue bristling with complications,

in which Ysengin and Renart are pitted against each other, the "Roman", a kind

of parody of the chansons de geste, ridicules the nobles, feudal society, and

feudal institutions.

Didactic Poetry

Nobles and bourgeois, the two classes which, in the literature of the Middle

Ages, speak with two accents so dissimilar, have one point of resemblance: the

one class is as ignorant as the other. Only the clerics had any hold upon

science -- the little science that those times possessed. It had long remained

shut up in Latin books composed in imitation of ancient models, but, beginning in

the thirteenth century, the clerics conceived the idea of bringing the contents of

these works within the domain of the vulgar tongue. This was the origin of

didactic literature, in which the most important work is "Roman de la Rose", an

immense encyclopedic work produced by two authors with tendencies and

mentalities in absolute mutual opposition, collaborating at an interval of forty

years. The first 4000 lines of the "Roman de la Rose" were written about the year

1236 by Guillame de Lorris, a charming versifier endowed with every attractive

quality. In the design of Guillame de Lorris, the work is another "Art of Love"; the

author proposes to describe in it love and the effects of love, and to indicate the

way of success for a lover. He personifies all the phases of love and varieties of

love and the other sentiments which attend it, and makes them so many

allegorical figures. Jealousy, Sadness, Reason, Fair Response (Bel-Accueil) --

such are the abstractions to which Lorris lends a tenuous embodiment. With

Jean de Meung, who wrote the continuation of the "Roman de la Rose", about

1275, the inspiration changes completely. Love is not longer the only subject. In

a number of prolix discourses, aggregating 22,000 lines in length, the latter

author not only contrives to bring in a multitude of notions on physics and

philosophy, but enters into a very severe criticism of contemporary social

organization.

Prose and the Chroniclers

Prose separates itself from poetry but slowly; when the epic outpouring is

exhausted history appears to takes its place. It is the great movement of the

Crusades that gives the impulse. Villehardouin, in his "Histoire de la Conquête de

Constantinople" (1207) relates the events which he witnessed as a participant in

the fourth crusade; he knows how to see and how to tell, with restraint and

vigour, what he has seen and done. His chronicle is not, strictly speaking,

history, but rather memoirs. Joinville attaches more importance to the moral

element; the charm of his "Histoire de St. Louis" (1309) is in the bonhomie, at

once frank and deliberate, with which he sets forth the king's virtues and recounts

his "chevaleries".

The great representative of history in the Middle Ages is Froissart (1337-1410); in

him we have to deal with a veritable writer. Just when the feudal world was

entering upon its period of decadence, and the chivalry of France had been

decimated at Crécy and Agincourt, feudalism and chivalry find in Froissart their

most marvelous portrayer. His work, "Choniques de France, d'Angleterre,

d'Espagne, de Bretagne, Gascogne, de Flandre et autres lieux" is the story of all

the splendid feats of arms in the Hundred Years' War. Pitched battles, assaults,

mere skirmishes, isolated raids, deeds of chivalric daring, single combats -- he

describes them with picturesque effect and a distinction of style new in our

literature. An aristocratic writer, he is above all attracted by the brilliant aspects

of society -- wealth, gallantry, chivalry. He scorns the bourgeois and the common

people, and considers it quite natural that they should pay the cost of war. In his

work is nothing to recall the gloominess of the period; he has seen in it nothing

but exploits and heroic adventure.

Froissart knew how to depict the outward semblance of an epoch. Philippe de

Commynes, on the other hand, the historian of Louis XI, is a connoisseur of

souls; his viewpoint is from within. A minister of Louis XI and then of Charles VIII,

he is versed in affairs. He is much given, moreover, to analysis of character and

the unravelling of events which have a political bearing. He goes backs from

effects to causes and is already rising to the conception of the general laws

which govern history. One must not look for either brilliancy or relief in his style;

but he has clearness, precision, solidity.

The Drama

The fifteenth century would make but a sorry figure in the history of French

literature had it not been that in this epoch there developed and flourished a

literary form which had been inchoate during the preceding centuries. Entirely

original in foundation and style, that drama owes nothing to antiquity. It was the

Church,. the great power of those ages, which gave birth to it. For the masses in

the middle ages, the Church was the home where, united in the same thoughts,

and the same consoling hopes, they spent that part of their lives which was the

best, and so the longest offices of the church were the most beloved by the

people. Conformable with this feeling, the clergy interpolated in the offices

representations of certain events in religious history. Such was the liturgical

drama, which was presented more especially at the feasts of Christmas ("Les

Pasteurs", "L'Epoux", "Les Prophetés") and Easter ("La Passion", "La

Résurrection", "Les Pèlerins"). At first the liturgical drama was not more than a

translation of Bible into action and dialogue, but little by little it changed as it

developed. The text became longer, verse took the place of prose, the vernacular

supplanted Latin. The drama at the same time was tending to make for itself an

independent existence and to come forth from the Church.

In the fourteenth century there appeared "Les Miracles de Notre-Dame", a stage

presentment of a marvelous event brought about by the intervention of the

Blessed Virgin. Thus was the drama making its way toward its completer form,

that of the mysteries. A mystery is the exposition in dialogue of an historical

incident taken from Holy Scripture or from the lives of the saints. Mysteries may

be grouped, according to their subjects, in three cycles: the Old Testament cycle

("Le Mystére du Viel Testament", in 50,000 lines), the New Testament cycle,

("La Passion", composed by Arnoul Greban and presented in 1450), the cycle of

the saints ("Les Actes des Apôtres") by Arnoul and Simon Greban). Metrically,

the mystery is written in lines of eight syllables; the lyric passages were

supposed to be sung. A prologue serves the purpose of stating the theme and

bespeaking silence of the audience. The piece itself is divided into days, each

day occupying as many lines as could be recited at one séance, and the whole

ends with an invitation to prayer: "Chatons Te Deum laudamus".

The dramatic system of the mysteries contains certain thoroughly characteristics

elements. First of all, the constant recourse to the marvellous: God, the Blessed

Virgin, and the Saints intervene in the action; later on abstract characters --

Justice and Peace, Truth, Mercy -- are added. Then the mingling of the tragic and

the comic: side by side with scenes intended to excite deep emotion, the

authors of mysteries present others which are mere buffoonery, and sometimes

of the coarsest kind. This comic element is borrowed from scenes of modern life:

for anachronism is rampant in the mysteries, contemporary questions are

discussed, Christ and the saints are depicted as people of the fifteenth century.

Lastly, not only does the action wander without restraint from place to place, but

occasionally it goes on in several different places at the same time. If the

conception was original and interesting, the execution of it, unfortunately, was

very mediocre. The authors of mysteries were not artists; they knew nothing of

character-drawing; their characters are all of a piece, without individual traits.

Above all, the style is deplorable, and but seldom escapes platitude and

solecism. The fifteenth was, as a whole, the great century of mysteries; they

were then in perfect harmony with the ideas and sentiments of the period. In the

next century, with the change in those ideas and sentiments, they were to enter

upon their decadence and to disappear.

Did comedy too, in its turn, come forth from the Church? Can we connect it with

the burlesque offices of the "Feast of Fools" and the "Feast of the Ass"? --

Beyond doubt we cannot. But in the fourteenth century, joyous bands of

comrades organized themselves for their own common amusement -- the

"Basoche", a society of lawyers, and the "Sots" or the "Enfants sans souci". It

was by these societies that comic pieces were composed and played throughout

the fifteenth century. Farces, moralities, and follies (soties) were the kinds of

compositions which they cultivated. The farce was a comic piece the aim of

which was to amuse; although it did not issue all complete from the fabliau, the

farce bore a strong analogy to that form, and, as the themes were identical, the

farce was often nothing more than a fabliau in action. The best specimen of the

type is "La Farce d'Avocat Pathelin" (1470) which presents a duel of wits

between an advocate and a cloth-merchant, the one as thorough a rascal as the

other. The morality, a comic piece with moral aims, is far inferior to the farce.

Essentially pedantic, it constantly employs allegory, personifying the

sentiments, defects, and good qualities of men, and sets them in opposition to

each other on the stage. As for the folly (sotie), which may be called a dramatic

pamphlet or squib, and belongs to the satiric drama, it was the special work of

the "Enfants sans souci" and lasted but a short while.

The true literary distinction of the fifteenth century is to have given France a great

poet -- not the elegant, cold, Charles d'Orléans, but that "child of poor and mean

extraction" (de povre et petite extrace), that "mauvais garçon" who was François

Villon. Insubordinate scholar, haunter of taverns, guilty of theft and even of

assassinations, the marvel is that he should have been able to evoke his grave

and lofty poetry from that life of infamy. His chief collection, "Le Grand

Testament" (1489) is dominated by that thought of death which, for the first time

in France, finds its expression in the "Ballade des Dames du Temps jadis". Thus

did the Christian Middle Ages utter through Villon what had been their essential

preoccupation.

The Renaissance and the Reformation

When the sixteenth century opens, literature in France may be regarded as

exhausted and moribund. What had been lacking in the Middle Ages was the

enthusiasm for form, the worship of art, combined with a language sufficiently

supple and opulent. The Renaissance was about to bestow these gifts; it was to

communicate the sense of beauty to the writers of that age by setting before

them as models the great masterpieces of antiquity. Reversion to antiquity -- this

is the characteristics which dominates all the literature of the sixteenth century.

The movement did not attain its effect directly, but through Italy, and as a sequel

to the wars of Charles VIII. "The first contact with Italy" says Brunetière, "was in

truth a kind of revelation for us French. In the midst of the feudal barbarism of

which the fifteenth century still bore the stamp, Italy presented the spectacle of

an old civilization. She awed the foreigner by the ancient authority of her religion

and all the pomp of wealth and of the arts. Add to this the allurement of her

climate and her manners. Italy of the Renaissance, invaded, devastated,

trampled under foot by the men of the North, suddenly, like the Greece of yore,

took possession of the rude conquerors. They conceived the idea of another life,

more free, more ornate -- in a word, more 'human' -- than that which they had

been leading for five or six centuries; a confused feeling of the power of beauty

twined itself into the souls of gendarmes and lansquenets, and it was then that

the breath of the Renaissance, coming over the mountains with the armies of

Charles VIII, of Louis XII, and of Francis I, completed in less than fifty years the

dissipation of what little still survived of the medieval tradition."

If the language very quickly undergoes the modification brought about by this new

spirit, it is only little by little that the various forms of literature allow themselves

to be penetrated by it. Such is the case with poetry. The principal poet of the

earlier half of the sixteenth century, Clément Marot (1497-1544), belongs, by his

inspiration, to both the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Of the Middle Ages he

has first of all his scholastic education and also an uncontrolled passion for

allegories and for bizarre and complicated versification. In the best of his

"Epîtres" he sacrifices to the worst of the faults held in honour by the fifteenth

century: the taste for alliteration, for playing upon words, and for childish trick of

rhyme. On another side the influence of the Renaissance reveals itself in his

work in many imitations of the Latins, Virgil, Catullus, Ovid. The "Epîtres", his

masterpiece are, besides, in a style of composition borrowed from the Latin. A

court poet, attached to the personal suite of Margaurite de Valois, herself a

humanist and a patroness of humanists, no man was more favorably situated for

the effect of that influence. Marot is, in other respects, a very original poet; his

"Epîtres" mark the appearance of a quality almost new in French literature -- wit.

The art of saying things prettily, of telling a story cleverly, of winning pardon for

his mockeries by mocking at himself, was Marot's.

Graeco-Latin imitation is really only an accidental feature of the work of Marot.

With the poets who succeed him it becomes the very origin of their inspiration.

For the poets who later formed the group called "La Pléiade", Joachim du Bellay

furnished a programme in the "Deffence et Illustration de la langue française"

(1549). To eschew the superannuated formulæ and the "condiments" (épiceries)

of the Middle Ages, to imitate without reserve anything that has come down to us

from antiquity, to enrich the language by every means practicable -- by borrowing

from Greek, from Latin, from the vocabulary of the handicrafts -- these are the

principles which this author lays down in his work. And these are the principles

which the chief of the "Pléiade", Pierre de Ronsard (1524-85), applies. Ronsard's

ambition is to exercise his wits in all the styles of composition in which the

Greeks and Romans excelled. After their example he composed odes, an epic

work (the "Franciade", in which he aspires to do for France what Virgil, with the

Æneid, did for Rome), and some eclogues. If he has utterly failed in his epic

attempt, and if his abuse of erudition renders his odes very difficult to read, it

must nevertheless be said that these works sparkle with beauties of the first

order. Ronsard was not only, as was said long ago of him, the marvelous

workmen of little pieces, of sonnets and tiny odes; in brilliancy of imagination, in

the gift for inventing new rhymes, he is one of the greatest poets known to

French literature. Side by side with him Du Bellay, in his "Regrets", inaugurated

la poésie intime, the lyricism of confidences, and Jodelle gave to the world

"Cléopâtre" (1552), the first, in point of date, of the tragedies imitated from the

antique, thus opening the way for Robert Garnier and Montchrestien.

At the same time that the Renaissance was bringing us the feeling for art, the

Reformation was giving currency to new ideas and tendencies. The two

inspirations commingled rendered possible the work of the two masters of

sixteenth-century prose, Rabelais and Montaigne. In that prodigious nursery tale,

in which he scatters buffoneries and indecencies by the handful, it would be a

mistake to think that the author of "Gargantua" hides a thought and a symbol

under every line of text. All the same it is true that one must break the bone to

find the "subtantific marrow". Rabelais has a hatred of the Middle Ages, of its

scholasticism and its asceticism. For his part he does not mistrust human

nature; he believes it to be good, and wants people to follow its law, which is

instinct. His ideal is the abbey of Thelema, where the rule runs: Do as you

please (Fais ce que tu volundras). "Nature is my gentle guide" says Montaigne

on his part. This is one of the ideas which circulate in his essays, the first book

of which appeared in 1580. In this sort of disjointed confession, Montaigne

speaks above all of himself, his life, his tastes, his habits, his favorite reading. As

he goes along, he expounds his philosophy, which is a kind of skepticism, if you

will, but applying exclusively to the things which belong to reason, for with

Montaigne the Christian faith remains intact. What makes Montaigne an original

writer, and makes his place in French literature one of capital importance, is his

having been the first to introduce into that literature, by his minute study of his

own Ego, that psychological and moral study of man which was to form the

foundation of great works in the next century.

In a general way the Reformation produced a profound impression on the writers

of the sixteenth century, giving them a freedom of movement and of thought

unknown to their predecessors of the Middle Ages. On the other hand,

multiplying theological discussions, controversies, and fierce polemics between

Catholics and Protestants -- dividing France into two parties -- it gave birth to a

whole literature of conflict. We will confine ourselves to mention of Calvin and his

"Institution de la religion chrétienne" (1541). As a theologian he need not concern

us here; we need only say that, by the simplicity of his exposition, by the energy

of his harsh and gloomy style, he effects an entrance into our literature for a

whole range of subject-matters which had until then been reserved for Latin.

Calvin was a teacher of the Reformation; Agrippa d'Aubigné was its soldier, but

one who had taken the pen in hand. It was after long service in the field that he

had composed his "Tragiques", a versified work unlike any other, a medley of

satire and epic. Here the author presence a picture of France devastated by wars

of religion, and paints his adversaries in odious colors. Now and then hatred

inspires him with fine utterances. After all these struggles and all this violence,

the age could not but long for peace, and could not but hold all these excesses

in horror. Such a spirit inspires the "Satire Ménipée" (1594), a work, part prose,

part verse, which, with its irony, gives evidence that an epoch has come to an

end, fatigued with its own struggles and ready for a great renovation.

The Seventeenth Century: the Classical Age

The seventeenth century is the most noteworthy epoch in the history of French

literature. The circumstances of the age, it is true, are peculiarly favorable for

literary development. France is once more the strongest factor in European

statecraft; her political influence is supreme, thanks to the wonderful

achievements of her arms and the brilliant achievements of her diplomacy.

Conscious of her greatness, she ceases to be dependent on foreign literatures,

and fashions new literary forms which she bids other countries to copy. The

internal peace which she enjoys favors the disinterested study of art and

literature, without the need of giving her literary creations a social or political

tendency. Authors are patronized by society and the court. Intellectual

conditions are especially favorable; the national mind, steeped in the learning and

culture of the classics, has become sufficiently strengthened to emancipate itself

from the yoke of servile imitation. The language, capable henceforth of giving

adequate expression to every shade of thought, has become clearly conscious of

its power and is exclusively French in syntax and vocabulary. Such are the

circumstances, such the elements which combine to form the genesis of the

classical literature of France. It does not, indeed, claim to have determined the

extreme limits beyond which literary activity in France may not range; progress

will continue throughout the ages to come. But in the works of that period may

be seen the most complete and perfect presentation of the distinguishing

qualities of the French race; the ideal counterpart, in miniature, of the most

perfect form of French literature.

It is characterized, in the main, by a tendency which seeks the apotheosis of

human reason in the realm of literary activity, and regards the expression of

moral truth as the end of literary composition. Hence the fondness of the

literature of the seventeenth century for general ideas and for sentiments that are

common to mankind, and its success in those kinds of literature which are

based on the general study of the human heart. It reached perfection in dramatic

literature, in sacred eloquence and in the study of morals. Hence the contempt of

the seventeenth century literature for all that is relative, individual and mutable; in

lyric poetry, which appeals primarily to the individual sentiment, in the description

of material phenomena, and the external manifestations of nature, it falls short of

success.

For thorough understanding of the development of French literature in the

seventeenth century, we must consider it in three periods: (1) from the year 1600

to 1659, the period of preparation; (2) 1659-1688, the Golden Age of classicism;

(3) 1688-1715, the period of transition between the seventeenth and eighteenth

centuries.

First Period (1600-1659)

With the followers of Ronsard and those poets who immediately succeeded him

a kind of lassitude has seized upon poetry at the end of the sixteenth century;

impoverished and spiritless, it handled only trifling subjects. Besides, having

been long subject to the artistic domination of Italy, and having owed allegiance

to Spain also since the intervention of the Spaniards in the days of the League,

poetry had become infected with mannerisms, and suffered a considerable

lowering of tone. A reform was necessary, and Malherbe, whose "Odes" appear

between the years 1600 and 1628, undertook it. From the first he repudiated the

idea of servile imitation of ancient classical authors; discrimination should be

shown in borrowing from their writings, and imitation should be restricted to

features likely to strengthen the thought. On the other hand, if the language of

the sixteenth century was copious, many of its terms were not of the purest;

these Malherbe severely interdicted. With regard to prosody, he lays down the

strictest rules. Malherbe's reform, therefore, aims at purifying the terminology of

the language, and fixing set forms of prosody. Unluckily, it must be secured at a

heavy price; subordinated unduly to inflexible rule, its movement impeded, lyric

poetry is finally crushed out of life. Two centuries must elapse before it revives

and shakes off the yoke of Malherbe. Nor was the rule of Malherbe established

without resistance. Of the writers of that time, none were less disposed to submit

to it than Mathurin Régnier (1579-1613), a poet who in many ways recalls the

sixteenth century. His satires are one long protest against the theory so dear to

Malherbe. An enemy to rule and constraint, Régnier again and again insists upon

the absolute freedom of the poet; the poet must write as the spirit moves him; let

every writer be what he is, is the only principle he accepts. A numerous group of

poets shared Régnier's views, those known by the name of les Grotesques. Such

are Saint-Armant, Théophile de Viau, the direct heirs of the Pléiade; and Scarron,

whose poetry is the very incarnation of the burlesque form imported from Italy.

Malherbe would perhaps have been unable to combat this opposition, had not

two other forces come to his assistance in checking the flood of license that was

spreading with Régnier and his associates. The first of these was the culture of

French society. The rise of a cultured class, and of its life of refinement, which

took place during the end of the reign of Henry IV, is one of the striking facts of

the first half of the seventeenth century. A new institution, the salon, presided

over by women, now makes its appearance; here men of the world meet literary

men to discuss serious questions with women, The salon will prove of service to

writers, though sometimes a hindrance or a lure to false paths, and the next two

centuries of literature will show evidence of its influence. The first salon was that

of the Marquise de Rambouillet; for more than twenty years people of superior

intellect and culture were wont to gather there. By exacting from its guests

refinement and elegant manners it contributed to chasten the language and to

strip it of all low and grotesque words. It is in the salon that the over-refinement

called preciosity budded and bloomed. However, the influence of the Précieuses

was perhaps more harmless than some would have us believe. They have

enriched the language with many clever expressions; they have helped to develop

the taste for precision and subtilty in psychological analysis. They favoured also,

though in an indirect way, that study of the human heart which was the grand

theme of seventeenth century literature.

Authority also, as represented by Richelieu, enrolled itself in the crusade of

reform and added its sanction to the new disciplinary laws. Under the patronage

of the great minister, and by his inspiration, the French academy was founded in

the year 1635. In virtue of its origin and its aims, the academy exerted officially

the same influence as the salon. It watched over the purity of the language and

over its regular development. One of its members, Vaguelas, the great

grammarian of that age, contributed in an especial way toward this object. If the

new ideal found its expression in poetry, prose was also soon to share in the

advantages of the reform. Balzac, in his "Lettres" (1624), created French prose.

He is said to have furnished the rules of French prose composition; in fact it is

his chief merit to have taught his own age, along with the art of composition,

what the greatest minds of the sixteenth century -- Rabelais and Montaigne --

had not known: the rhythm, the flow, and the harmony of the period. In this way,

he has fashioned the magnificent form, which the great prose writers of the last

half of the seventeenth century will find at their disposal when they seek to give

outward shape to the sublime conceptions of their minds.

At the same time, Voiture, one of the habitués of the Hôtel de Rambouillet, gave

to French prose its raciness, is vigour, and its ease of movement. Balzac and

Voiture, of the great writers of the time, are masters of styles of the seventeenth

century, but Descartes, whose "Discours de la Méthod" appeared in 1673, has

left his mark deeply stamped on French classical literature. This could not be

otherwise; the principles which gained distinction for him were the same as those

invoked for the literary reform. But reason, whose sovereign authority Descartes

proclaimed and whose power he demonstrated, was the same reason whose

absolutism Malherbe sought to establish in literature. The abstract tone, the

surety of inference proceeding directly to the solution of one or two questions

clearly laid down, permitting no chance thoughts to lead it away from the straight

line, the determination to take up only one subject, mastering it completely, to

simplify everything, to see in man only and abstract soul, without a body, and in

this soul not the phenomena, but the substance -- these are at the same time

Cartesian principles and literary peculiarities of the seventeenth century.

The craving for order and uniformity which made itself felt in every branch of

literature seized the theatrical world and achieved the masterpieces of the

classic drama. In 1629, Jean Mairet produced his "Sophonisbe", in which the

unities are for the first time observed -- unity of action, unity of time, unity of

place. The plot turns on one incident which is tragic witjout a trace of the comic

element, the action does not extend beyond one day, and tere is no change of

scene. The framework of classical trahegy was created; what was needed was a

writer of genius to fill in the structure. Corneille was this man in the merveille of

"Le Cid", he gave to the French stage its first masterpiece. Lofty sentiments,

strong dialogie, a brilliant style, and rapid action, not exceeding twenty-four hours

were all combined in this play. While its subject was taken from modern history,

Corneille, after the famnous controversy on "Le Cid", stirred up by his jealous

rivals, returned to subjects taken from Roman history for this later pieces, which

date from 1640 to 1643, namely, "Horace", "Cinna", and "Polyeucte". In these

the plot becomes more and more complicated; the poet prefers perpelexing and

anomolous situations, and looks for variety and strangeness of incident to tyhe

neglect of the snetimenst and the passions. the noble simplicityand serene

beuarty which characterized his great works are replaced by the riddles of

"Héraclius" and the extravagances of "Attila".

Corneille's "Polyeucte" shows reaces ofthe controversies on Divne Grace whihc

at that time agitated the minds of men. Jansenism p[rofiundly influenced the

entire litertaure of the sveneteenth century, gioving rise, first and foremost, to one

of its prose masterpieces, the "Lettes provinciales" (1656-67) of Pascal. in these

the author cham,pions the cvause of his freunds of Port-Royal against the

Jesuits. They display all of the quakities which it had taken sixty year sof

progress in literature to develop: clearness of exposition, beauty iof form,

elegance and distinction of style, a subtle wit, graceful irony, and geniality.

diveested of all dull learning and all dialectic formalism, it placed within the reach

of every serious mind the deepest theological questions. as far removed form the

vigorous rhetorical of balzac as from the studied wit of Voiture, it embodied ion

prose the greatest effort to reach perfection that we meet with in the earlky part

of the seventeenth century.

Second Period (1659-88); the Great Epoch

Towards 1660 all the lliterary charactreitics which we have seen gradually

developing in the previous sixty years have taken definite form. This is now

reinforced by the influence of the court. After the short-lived trouble of Frande,

one man embodies all the destinies of France: the king, Louis XIV, young,

victorious, at the zenith of his glory. In literature, as in his government, the king

will successfully carry out his taste for regularity, for harmony, and for nobility.

The influence of his strong personality will check the tendencies toward the

caprice, eccentricity, and imaginative waywardness that characterized the

preceding period.

Henceforth nothing is appreciated in literature but what is reasonable, natural,

and harmoniously proportionate, and what depicts the universal in man. Then

follow in succession all those masterpieces which realise this idea, upheld by

Boileau, the great law giver of classicism. Beginning in 1660, Boileau gave to the

world his "Satires", his "Epistles", in which he shows himself a marvelous critic,

unerring in his estimate of contemporary writers, and his "Art poétique" (1674), a

literary code which held sway for more than a century. Seek the truth, be guided

by reason, imitate nature -- these are the principles which Boileau never ceases

to enjoin, and which his friends, Molière, Racine, La Fontaine, put into practice.

Molière, who, since 1653, had been playing in the provinces his first comedy,

"L'Etourdi", produced the "Précieuses Ridicules" at Paris, in 1659, and until his

death (1673) continued to produce play after play. To paint human life and to

delineate character are the aims which Molière proposes to himself. Even his

farces are full of points drawn from observation and study. In his great comedies

it is clear that he rejects everything which is not based on a study of the heart.

Molière is not concerned with plot and dénounement; each incident stands on its

own merits; for him a comedy is but a succession of scenes whose aim is to

place a character in the full light of day. Each of his characters is an exhaustive

study of some particular failing or the comprehensive presentment of a whole

type in a single physiognomy. Some of his best types are not characteristic of

any one period -- the hypocrite, the miser, the coquette. It is Molière's undying

merit that we cannot observe in our experience any of these characteristics

without being reminded of some of Molière's originals.

In 1667, Racine, after his first attempts, the "Thébaïde" and "Alexandre",

reproduced his "Andromaque", which achieved a success no less marked than

that of the "Cid"; after that, scarcely a year passed without the production of a

new work. After bringing out the "Phêdre" in 1677, Racine withdrew from the

stage, partly from a desire for rest and partly on account of religious scruples.

The only dramas produced by him in this last period were "Esther" (1689) and

"Athalie" (1691). His tragedies were a reaction against the heroic and romantic

drama which had prevailed during the first part of the century. He places on the

stage the representation of reality; his plays have their source in reason rather

than in imagination. The result is a loss of apparent grandeur, on the one hand,

but also, on the other hand, an increased moral range and a wider psychology.

Again, instead of the complicated action of which Corneille is so fond, Racine

substitutes "a simple action, burdened with little incident, which, as it gradually

advances towards its end, is sustained only by the interests, the sentiments,

and the emotions of the characters" (preface to "Bérénice"). It is, accordingly,

the study of character and emotion that we must look for in Racine. In

"Britannicus" and "Athalie" he has painted the passion of ambition; but it is love

which dominates his tragedies. The vigour, the vehemence, with which Racine

has analysed this passion show what a degree of audacity may coexist with that

classic genius of which he himself is the best example.

In some points of detail, La Fontaine, whose "Fables" began to appear in 1668,

differs from the other great classics. He has a weakness for the old authors of

the sixteenth century and even for those of the Middle Ages, for the words and

phrases of a bygone time, and certain popular expressions. But he is an utter

classic in the correctness and appropriateness of expression, in the nice

attention to details of composition displayed in his "Fables" (a charming genre

which he himself created), and in the added perfection of nature as he paints it.

The winged grace with which he skims over every theme, his talent for giving life

and interest to the actors in his fables, his consummate skill in handling verse --

all these qualities make him one of the great writers of the seventeenth century.

In this second period of the seventeenth century, all forms of literature bear their

fine flower. In his "Maxims" (1665), the Duke de la Rochefoucald displays a

profound knowledge of human nature, and an almost perfect literary style. The

"Lettres" of Madame de Sévigné, the first of which bear the date of 1617, are

marvels of wit, vivacity, and sprightliness. In his "Memoires" (completed in 1675)

Cardinal de Retz furnishes us a model for this class of writing. In the "Princesse

de Cléves" (1678) Madame de La Fayette created the psychological romance.

Finally, it would be a misconception of the classical genius not to allow to

religious inspiration a marked place in this period. The whole corpus of the

seventeenth century was deeply penetrated by the spirit of religion. Few of its

writers escaped that influence; and those who did, also remained outside the

general current and the philosophic movement of the century. Pulpit oratory, too,

reached a high degree of excellence. The first years of the century had been, so

to say, fragrant with the oratory of that most lovable of saints, Francis de Sales

(1567-1622). He had, in 1602, preached the Lenten sermons before Henry IV at

the Louvre, and ravished his hearers by the unction of his discourse, overflowing

with a wealth of pleasing imagery. The religious revival was then universal; orders

were founded or reformed. Among them the Oratorians, like the Jesuits,

produced more than one remarkable and vigorous preacher. The Jansenists, in

their turn, introduced in pulpit eloquence a sober style without any great wealth of

fancy, without vivacity or brilliancy, but simple, grave, uniform. Thus, sacred

eloquence, already flourishing before 1660, gradually rid itself of the defects from

which it had suffered in the preceding period: the trivialities, the tawdry

refinements, the abuse of profane learning. It was especially during the brilliant

period extending from 1659 to 1688 that Christian eloquence reached its greatest

power and perfection, when its two most illustrious representatives were Bossuet

and Bourdaloue.

In 1659 Bossuet preached in Paris, at the Minims, his first course of Lenten

sermons; during the next ten years his mighty voice was heard pouring forth

eloquent sermons, panegyrics, and funeral orations. Animated, earnest, and

familiar in his sermons, sublime in his funeral orations, simple and lucid in

theological expositions, he always carried out the principle, embodied in a

celebrated definition, "of employing the word only for the thought, and the thought

for truth and virtue". Not only is he a magnificent orator, the greatest that ever

occupied the pulpit in France, but he is also, perhaps, the writer who has had the

most delicate appreciation of the French language. Furthermore, it must not be

forgotten that Bossuet, in his "Discourse on Universal History" (1681) did the

work of a historian. He is, indeed, the only historian of the seventeenth century.

In the art of investigating historical causes, he is a master of exceptional

penetration, and his conclusions have been confirmed by the most recent

discoveries of historical science. He founded the philosophy of history, and

Montesquieu, in the following century, had but little to add to his work.

Bourdaloue, who ascended the pulpit left vacant by Bossuet (1669), is a very

different man. In Bourdaloue we do not find the abruptness and familiarity

Bossuet, but an unbroken evenness, a style always regular and symmetrical,

above all a logician; he appeals to the reason rather than to the imagination and

the sensibilities.

From 1688 to 1715

In the short space of eighteen years classical literature was in its glory. It

resulted from the equilibrium between all the forces of society and all the

faculties of the mind, an equilibrium not destined to last long. If, during the last

years of the century, the great writers still living preserve their powers unimpaired

to the end, we feel, nonetheless, that new forces are forming. In 1688, the king,

aged and absorbed by the cares of his foreign policy, ceased to take his former

interest in literature. Discipline becomes relaxed. The salon, which for a while

had been eclipsed by the Court, gradually regained its ascendancy. Under its

influence, preciosity, which had disappeared during the great period of

classicism, began to revive. This becomes evident in a department in which it

would seem the précieux would have but little interest, that of sacred eloquence.

Fléchier marks an inordinate propensity to wit and frivolities of language.

Massillion, who is Fléchier's heir, lacks the fine equilibrium between thought and

form which was found in Bossuet. He is a wonderful rhetorician who sacrifices

too much to the adornments of style. Besides, the conception of style prevalent

from 1659 to 1688 underwent a change. In the writers of the golden age the

period was, perhaps, somewhat too long, but it was broad and spacious,

effectively reproducing the movements of the thought; it was now replaced by a

shorter phrase, more rapid and more incisive. This new style is that of the

"Caractéres"; these, too, distinguish it from the work of the preceding period. The

same artistic qualities are also found in Saint-Simon, who did not write his

"Mémoires" until after 1722, the materials for which he had been collecting since

1696. He is a writer, however, who from many points of view is connected with

the seventeenth century. Saint-Simon not only gives a moral portrait of the

person dealt with in his "Mémoires", but by dint of violent colours, of contrasting

touches, daring figures combined into a brutal, incorrect, passionate, and feverish

style, he reproduces the physical man to the life. In dramatic literature comedy

follows the same tendencies. After Molière, and after Regnard, who imitated him,

the comedy of character comes to an end, and with Dancourt (1661-1725), the

comedy of manners, which has its inspiration in the actual, replaces it. Lastly,

Fénelon introduces into literature a spirit utterly foreign to the pure classics, so

reverent of tradition -- the spirit of novelty. Télémaque (1699), a romance imitated

from antiquity, records the views of the author on government, foreshadows the

eighteenth century, and its mania for reform.

The Eighteenth Century

To do justice to the writers of the eighteenth century, we must change our point

of view. In truth, the eighteenth century's conception of literature differed

profoundly from that of the great writers of the time of Louis XIV. The eighteenth

century, moreover, never rises above mediocrity when it attempts to follow in the

footsteps of the seventeenth, but is always interesting when it breaks loose from

it. To follow its literary development, we must divide it, like the preceding century,

into three periods: (1) 1715-50; (2) 1750-89; (3) 1789-1800.

From 1715 to 1750

After the death of Louis XIV, the tendencies which already manifested

themselves in the last period of the seventeenth century became more marked.

The classical ideal became more and more distorted and weakened.

Consequently, all the great branches of literature which flourished by following

this ideal either decay of are radically modified. The tragic vein in particular is

completely exhausted. After Racine, there are no longer any great writers of

tragedy, but only imitators, of whom the most brilliant is Voltaire, whose

versatility fits him for every kind of literature. Comedy shows more vitality than

tragedy. With Dancourt it has taken the direction of portrayal of manners in their

most fleeting aspects, and the tendency betrays itself in Lesage (1688-1747).

"Turcaret", which places on the stage not a character, but a condition in life --

that of the financier, is a piece of direct, profound, and merciless observation.

Applying the same methods to romantic literature Lesage wrote "Gil Blas", which

first appeared in 1715, and in which, in spite of a peculiar method of narration,

borrowed from Spain, the manners and the society of the time are drawn to the

life. Thus "Gil Blas" inaugurates in French literature the romance of manners. The

most original of the writers of comedy in this period, however, is Marivaux, who,

between 1722 and 1740, produced his charming works, "La surprise de l'amour",

"Le jeu de l'amour et du hasard", "Le Legs", "Les fausses confidences", etc. The

utmost refinement in the analysis of love -- a love that is timid and scrupulous --

propriety in the setting of his works, a subtile wit bearing the stamp of good

society, grace and delicacy of feeling -- these are the distinguishing

characteristics of Marivaux.

But if the great classical types are exhausted or fall to pieces giving birth to new

forms, literature is compensated by the enlargement of its domain in some

directions, absorbing new sources of inspiration. Writers turn away from the

consideration of man as a moral unit; on the other hand they devote themselves

to the study of man regarded as a product of the changing conditions of the

State, political, social, and religious. In fact, this new direction of literary activity

is favoured by the birth of what has been called "the philosophic spirit". After the

death of Louis XIV, the severe restraint upon men's intellects was at an end.

Respect for authority and for the social hierarchy, submission to the dictates of

religion -- these were things never questioned by any of the seventeenth century

writers. From the earliest years of the eighteenth century, on the contrary, an

aggressive movement against every form of authority, spiritual as well as

temporal, becomes perceptible. This twofold disposition -- curiosity about human

idiosyncrasies as they vary with times, places, environments, and governments,

and a spirit of unfettered criticism -- is met with in Montesquieu, chronologically

the first of the great writers of the eighteenth century. Montesquieu, indeed, does

not manifest any destructive inclination in regard to government and religion;

nevertheless, the the "Lettres persanes" (1721), there is a tone of satire

previously unknown. Montesquieu shows himself the disciple of La Broyère, but

does not hesitate to discuss subjects from which his master would have been

obliged to refrain; social problems, the royal power, the papacy. The "Lettres

persanes" is a pamphlet rather than the work of a moralist. They make an epoch

in the history of French literature, marking the first appearance of the political

satire. But the two truly great works of Montesquieu are the "Considérations sur

la grandeur et la décadence des Romains" (1734), and the "Esprit des Lois"

(1748). In the "Considérations", Montesquieu, by undertaking to explain the

succession events by the power of ideas, the character of the people, the action

and reaction of cause and effect, inaugurated an historical method unknown to

his predecessors -- certainly not to Bossuet, who was the most illustrious of

them. From the "Considérationes" the whole movement of modern historical

study was to draw its inspiration later on. In the "Esprit des Lois", his studies

how laws are evolved under the influences of government, climate, religion, and

manners. On all these subjects, in spite of certain errors of detail, he threw a

light that was altogether new.

With Montesquieu, jurisprudence, politics, and sociology made their entrance

into literature. With Buffon, science has its turn. Already Fontenelle, in his

"Entretiens surf la pluralité des Mondes" had popularized the most difficult

astronomical theories. Buffon, in his "Histoire naturelle", the first volumes of

which appeared in 1749, set forth the ideas of his time on geology and biological

species in a style that is brilliant and highly coloured, but somewhat studied in

its magnificence. No doubt Buffon's descriptions are written in a pompous,

ambition style ill-suited to the severity of a scientific subject, and they are too

often interlarded with commonplaces. It is none the less true that in introducing

natural history into literature he exercised a considerable influence; from Buffon,

who set forth nature in its various aspects, a number of writers were to issue. The

consequence of this broadening of literature was the loss of the purely

speculative and disinterested character which it displayed in the seventeenth

century, when the sole aim of the writer had been production of a beautiful work

and the inculcation of certain moral truths. The writers of the eighteenth century,

on the contrary, wish to spread in society the philosophical and scientific

theories they have adopted, and this diffusion is effected in the salons. From the

beginning of the century the salons, formed from the debris of Louis XIV's court,

has assumed a considerable importance. First, it was the little court of the

Duchesse du Maine, at Sceaux, and the salon of the Marquise de Lambert, at

Paris. Later on, other salons were opened, those of Mme Geoffrin, Mme du

Deffnd, Mlle de Lespinasse. These salons in their day represented public opinion,

and the authors wrote to influence the views of those who frequented them.

Moderately perceptible in the first half of the century, this tendency of literature to

become an instrument of propaganda and even of controversy became bolder in

the second.

From 1750 to 1789

Voltaire is one of the first to mark the character of this period. Of the writers who

flourished about the middle of the eighteenth century, the greatest glory

surrounds Voltaire (1694-1778). The kind of intellectual sovereignty which he

enjoyed, not only in France by throughout Europe, is attributable to his great

talent as a writer of prose as well as to his great versatility. There is no literary

form -- tragedy, comedy, epic poetry, tales in prose, history, criticism, or

philosophy -- in which he did not practise with more or less success. It has been

said of him that he was only "second in every class", and again that he is the

"first of mediocrities". Though paradoxically expressed, these verdicts are partial

truths. In no branch of literature was Voltaire an originator in the full sense of the

word. A man of varied gifts, living at a time when thought extended its domain in

every direction and took hold of every novelty, he is the most accomplished and

the most brilliant of the popularizers. In the early part of his career, from 1717 to

1750, he confines himself almost entirely to purely literary work; but after 1750

his writings assume the militant character which henceforth distinguishes French

literature. In his historical works, such as the "Siècle de Louis Quatorze" (1751)

and the "Essai sur le Moeurs" (1756), he became a controversialist, assailing in

his narrative the Church, her institutions, and her influence on the course of

events. Finally, the "Dictionnaire philosophique" (1764) and a number of treatises

dealing with both philosophy and exegesis, which Voltaire gave to the world

between 1763 and 1776, are wholly devoted to religious polemics. But, while

Voltaire shows his hostility to religion, he attacks neither political authority, nor

the social hierarchy; he is conservative, not revolutionary, in this respect. With

Diderot and the Encyclopedists, however, literature becomes frankly destructive

of the established order of things. Like Voltaire, Diderot is one of the most prolific

writers of the eighteenth century, producing in turn romances, philosophical

treatises tending toward atheism, essays in art-criticism, dramas. But it is only

in productiveness that Diderot can be compared with Voltaire, for he has none of

Voltaire's admirable literary gifts. He is above all an improvisatore, and, with the

exception of some pages which are remarkable for movement and colour, his

work is confused and uneven. His principle production is the "Encyclopedia", to

which the author devoted the greatest part of his life; the first two volumes

appeared in 1751. The aim of this bulky publication was to give a summary of

science, art, literature, philosophy and politics, up to the middle of the eighteenth

century. To bring this enterprise to a successful issue, Diderot, who reserved to

himself the greatest part of the work, called to his assistance numerous

collaborators, amongst whom were Voltaire, Buffon, Montesquieu, D'Alembert

and Condillac. Jean-Jacques Rousseau was entrusted with the department of

music. Despite the assistance of talents so diverse, the same spirit breathes

throughout the work. In philosophy, the Encyclopedists seek to subvert the

principles on which the existing institutions and the authority of dogma in religion

were based. The Encyclopedia, therefore, which embodies all the opinions of that

age, is a work of destruction. However that may be, its influence was

considerable; it served as a rallying-point for the philosophers, and by acting on

public opinion, as Diderot had intended, came to "change the common way of

thinking".

The Encyclopedia wrought the ruin of society, but proposed nothing to take its

place; Jean-Jacques Rousseau dreamed of effecting its re-constitution on a new

plan. On certain points, Rousseau breaks with the philosophes and the

Encyclopedists. both of these believed in the sovereignty of reason, , not, as was

the case in the seventeenth-century writers, with reason subject to faith and

controlled by it, but with reason absolute, universal, and refusing to admit what

eludes its deductions -- that is to say, the truths revealed by religion. They also

believed in the omnipotence of science, in human progress and in civilization

guided by reason and science. Rousseau on the contrary, in his first notable

work, "Discours sur les sciences et les arts" (1751), assails reason and science,

and in a certain sense denies progress. On the other hand, in maintaining the

natural goodness of man he approaches the philosophes. in his opinion, society

has perverted man, who is by nature good and virtuous, has replaced primitive

liberty with despotism, and brought inequality amongst men. society, therefore,

is evil; being so, it must be abolished, and men must return to the state of

nature, that happiness may reign among them. this return to the natural state

Rousseau preaches in his romance, "La nouvelle Héloïse" (1760), in his work on

education, "Emile" (1762), lastly in the "Contrat social" (1762) which was to

become the Gospel of the Revolution.

From the publication of his first work, Rousseau won a success that was

immediate and startling. This was because he brought qualities which were

entirely novel or which had long been forgotten. With him eloquence returns to

literature. Leaving aside his influence on the movement of politics, we must give

him credit for all that the French literature of the nineteenth century owes to him.

Rousseau, by causing a reaction against the philosophy of his time, prepared the

revival of religious sentiment. It was he who, by signalizing in his most beautiful

pages the emotions awakened in him by certain landscapes, aroused in the

popular imagination the feeling for nature. Rousseau, too, by his thoroughly

plebeian manner of parading his personality and displaying his egotism, helped

to develop that sentiment of individualism, whence sprang the lyric poetry of the

nineteenth century. He is also responsible for some of the most regrettable

characteristics of nineteenth-century literature -- for that melancholy and unrest

that has been termed "the distemper of the age", and which was originally the

distemper of the hypochonandriacal Jean-Jacques; for the revolt against society;

for the belief that passion has rights of its own and dominates the lives of mortals

as a fatal compulsion.

The close of the eighteenth century is from some points of view a time of

regeneration, and forebodes a still more radical and complete transformation of

literature in the immediate future. Some branches of literature that had been

neglected in the course of the century receive new life and energy. Since

Lesage's "Turcaret" and after Marivaux, comedy had hardly produced anything

above the commonplace; it revives in the amusing "Barbier de Séville" (1775) of

Beaumarchais, full of life and rapid movement. Beaumarchais owes much to his

predecessors, to Molière, Regnard, and many others. His originality as a

playwright consists in the political and social satire with which his comedies are

filled. In this respect they are the children of the eighteenth century, especially

combative. In the "Barbier de Séville" the impertinent Figaro rails at the privileges

of the aristocracy. In the "Mariage de Figaro" the satire becomes more violent;

the famous monologue of the fifth act is a bitter invective against the aristocracy,

against the inequality of social conditions and the restrictions imposed on liberty

of thought.

Finally, with André Chénier, lyric poetry revives, after the neglect of the

eighteenth century, which had looked upon verse-writing as a mere diversion and

a frivolous toying with syllables. By returning to an ancient and especially Greek

models, in his "Eclogues" and his "Elégies" (1785-91), Chester begins by

bringing into his poetry a new note; at the very outset he renews Ronsard's

experiment; later on the Revolution affords him a more vigorous inspiration. In

presence of the horrors of the Terror, stirred up by wrath and impelled by

indignation, he composed his "Iambles" (1794). In recovering the sincerity of

emotion and gravity of thought which were wanting to the versifiers of the

eighteenth century (John-Baptiste Rousseau, Delille and even Voltaire), André

Chénier restored to French poetry the true voice of the lyre.

From 1789 to 1800

In the throes of the Revolution there is an abundance of writing, but these works,

mere imitations of great writers who flourished during the century, are valueless;

the sole author of note is Chénier (d. 1974). It is true that under the influence of

events, a new literary genre arises, that of political eloquence. The isolated

protestations of the States-General under the monarchy afforded no opportunity

for public speaking; it was in other modes, notably through the pulpit, that the

eloquence for which a strictly appropriate platform was lacking must perforce

manifest itself in that period. But the great revolutionary assemblies favoured the

development of remarkable oratorical gifts. The most famous among the orators --

and he was one who really possessed genius -- was Mirabeau. The blemishes of

his style -- a congeries of violent contrasts -- the incoherency of his figures and

the discordance of his shades of meaning -- all these defects vanished in the

mighty onrush of his eloquence, swept away in an overmastering current of

oratorical inspiration.

The Nineteenth Century

It is yet too early to attempt the task of determining the due place of the

nineteenth century in the literary history of France; the men and affairs of the

century are still near to us, and in the study of literature a true perspective can

be obtained only from a certain distance. A few general characteristics, however,

may be taken as already fairly ascertained.

The nineteenth was one of renascence in literature: in it, following immediately

upon great events, a great intellectual movement came into being, and at one

definitely assignable movement there appeared a splendid efflorescence of

genius; most of all this movement was a renascence because it rid itself of those

theories, adopted by the preceding century, which had been the death of that

century's impoverished literature. Imagination and feeling reappear in literature,

and out of these qualities lyric poetry and the romance develop.

At the same time the sciences, daily acquiring more importance, exercise a

greater influence on thought, so that minds take a new mould.

We may distinguish three periods in the nineteenth century: the first, the period

of preparation, is that of the First Empire; the second, that of intellectual

efflorescence, extends from 1820 to 1850; lastly, the modern period, which

seems to us in these days less brilliant because the works produced in it have

not yet attained the prestige that comes with age.

From 1800 to 1820

Chateaubriand is the great originator of nineteenth-century French literature; from

him proceed nearly the whole line of nineteenth-century writers. In 1802 appeared

his "Génie du Christianisme"; in this work Chateaubriand not only defends

Christianity, toward which the intellectuals of the eighteenth century had been

vaguely hostile -- not only shows that Christianity is the greatest source of

inspiration to the letters and the arts -- but also sets forth certain literary theories

of his own. He asserts the necessity of breaking with classical tradition, which

has had its day and is exhausted, and of opening a new way for art. This is one

of the great ideas developed by this author and thenceforth all is over with

Classicism. But Chateaubriand's work and his influence were not limited to this;

constantly calling attention to the interest offered by the study of the Middle

Ages, as he does in "La Génie de Christianisme" , he engages both history and

poetry new directions. On the other side, where he displays his own personal

sufferings in "Renè" (1805), he develops the sentiment of the Ego, already

affirmed by Rousseau, from which modern lyricism springs. Lastly, in the many

beautiful passages of "Les Martyrs", or of his description of travels, he furnishes

models of a magnificent prose style, full of color, rythmical, well-fitted to

reproduce the most brilliant aspects of nature and to express the deepest

emotions of the heart.

Side by side with Chateaubriand, another great figure dominates this first period,

that of Madame de Staël. Where Chateaubriand personifies the reaction against

the eighteenth century, Mme. de Staël, on the contrary, is the incarnation of

eighteenth-century traditions. Here is the school of the Idéologues, lineal

representatives of the Encyclopedists. And yet in many respects she must be

regarded as an innovator. In her book, "De la Littérature", she lays the foundation

of that modern literary criticism which aims to study each work in its own

particular conditions of origin. In her "Considérations sur la Revolution française"

(1818) she is the first to inquire into the causes of that great social effect, thus

leading the way where many of the great historians of the nineteenth century are

to follow. Lastly, in her principal work, "De l'Allemagne" (1810), she reveals to

France a whole literature then unknown to that country, the influence of which is

to make itself felt in the Romantic writers.

From 1820 to 1850

In this period those literary ideas in which the germs had been placed in

Chateaubriand found their fullest expression with the romantic school. Almost all

the writers whose works appeared between 1820 and 1850 were connected with

this school. Its theories may best be defined as the opposite of Classicist

doctrine. The Classicists were idealists; they held that art should above all be the

representation of the beautiful; the romantics were now about to claim from the

municipality of literature a full license to give public representations of hideous

and grotesque things.

The Classics hold that reason is the ruling faculty in poetry; the Romantics

protest in the name of imagination and fantasy. The Classics go to antiquity for

the models of their art and the sources of their inspiration; the Romantics are

inspired by contemporary foreign literatures, by Goethe, Schiller, and Byron; they

will reach the point of swearing by the example of Shakespeare as men in the

seventeenth century swore by the words of Aristotle. For pagan mythology they

will substitute the Christian art of the Middle Ages, will extol the Gothic

cathedrals and put the troubadours in place of the rhapsodists. The same

system applies in respect to form: where the classic prized clarity and precision

above all things, the Romantics will seek rather glitter and colour, and carry their

taste for effect, for contrast, and for antithesis to the point of mania.

Though the Romantic doctrine had its manifestations in every form of literature,

its first applications were in poetry. Lamartine, with the publication of his

"Méditations poétiques" (1820) gave the signal for the movement, and presented

the first monument of modern lyricism. In this collection of his and in those which

followed -- "Nouvelles Méditations" (1823), "Harmonies poétiques et religieuses"

(1830) -- we find a combination of all those qualities the lack of which had kept

the versifiers of the preceding century from being true poets. The expansion of

the man's own individual nature, the religious faith which makes him see Divine

manifestations in everything, his disquiet in presence of great problems of human

destiny, his deep and serious love, his intimate communion with nature, his

dreamy melancholy -- these are the great sentiments from which Lamartine's

lyricism has its origins.

If Lamartine is the earliest of the Romantics, the real chief of the new school is

Victor Hugo, whose career, from 1822 to 1885, extends over the whole century,

but who by his inspiration belonged to the period (1820-1850) which we are now

considering. Not only has he endeavoured to define the romantic ideal in many of

his prefaces, but he has set himself to realize it all departments of literature, no

less in romance and drama than in poetry. Still, it is in the last that he has

produced his finest works. With him, however, lyricism results less from the

outpouring of his inmost feelings and his Ego than from a masterly faculty which

he has of concentrating his mind upon events taking place around him -- events

public and private -- of listening to their reverberations, their echoes within

himself, and translating these echoes into strophes of incomparable amplitude,

magnificence, and diversity of movement. In a later period, this impersonal

lyricism, which has dictated all his poetical works from 1831 to 1856, gives

pl;ace to another inspiration, the product of which is "La Légende des Siècles"

(1859-76). This vast epic of humanity, viewed in its great moments, is, perhaps, a

unique work in French literature; at any rate it is the work in which Victor Hugo

has most thorough;y realized his genius -- a genius compact of imagination that

exaggerates beings and things beyond all measure, of art mighty to describe, to

paint, and to evoke, and a marvelous gift for creating images.

Very different from both Lamartine and Victor Hugo is Alfred de Musset

(1810-57). In his poetical works as well as his prose dramas (Comédies et

proverbes), Musset exhibits some qualities which are not apparent in his great

predecessors, elegance, lightness of touch, wit. On the other hand, he has

neither Victor Hugo's variety of inspiration not Lamartine's elevation of thought.

He is characterized by the profound, sincere, penetrating emotion by which he

expresses the inmost sufferings of his stricken and harassed soul. The

peculiarity of Alfred de Vigny (1797-1863), another great poet of this period, is

that, unlike most of the Romantics, who are not rich in ideas, he is a thinker. A

philosophical poet, he fills his verses, not with sensations, emotions, and

personal confidences, but with ideas translated into symbols ("Poèms anciens et

modernes"; "Les Destinés") which express his pessimistic conception of life. As

for Théophile Gautier, while his youthful enthusiasms and his extreme taste for

the picturesque connect him with the Romantics, he parts company with them in

a conception of poetry (Emaux et Camées, 1852), wherein he makes no

exhibition either of his Ego or of its sentimental outpourings, but keeps to the

work of rendering the aspect of things outside himself with a painter's fidelity and

resources of colouring. Thus his lyricism forms a transition between that of the

Romantics and that of the Parnassien school which is to succeed them.

The great ambition of Romanticism was to be supreme in the drama as well as in

poetry. Indeed it was in the theatre that the great battle was fought in which,

between 1820 and 1830, the partisans of the new school encountered the belated

defenders of the classical ideal. But while in lyric poetry Romanticism succeeded

in creating veritable masterpieces, it was almost a failure in the drama. In 1827,

victor Hugo, in his preface to "Cromwell", expounds the new dramatic system: no

more unities, but absolute liberty for the author to develop his action just as he

conceives it; the mingling of the tragic and the comic, which the Classics abhor,

is authorized and even recommended; no more dreams; no more minor

characters introduced into the piece solely that the hero may explain the plot to

them for the benefit of the audience; on the other hand, there was to be an

historical setting, local colour, complicated accessories, and authentic

costuming. Lastly, Shakespeare, Goethe, and Schiller are the masters to

imitate, not Corneille and Racine. This resounding preface was followed by a

succession of works in which the authors endeavoured to apply its theories.

There is "Henri III et sa Cour" (1829), by Alexander Dumas, père, full of animation

but infantile in its psychology and written in a bad, melodramatic style; Alfred de

Vigny contributes "Le More de Venise" (1829) and "La Maréchale d'Ancre"

(1830); last comes Victor Hugo's own series of dramas in verse and prose,

"Hernani" (1830), "Marion de Lorme" (1831), "Le roi s'amuse" (1832), "Ruy Blas"

(1838), "Les Burgraves" (1843). These pieces are characterized by a wealth of

extraordinary incident -- by dark intrigues, duels, assassinations, poisoning,

ambuscades, abductions; their historical setting, above all, is a feast for the

eyes. Solid foundation there is none; historical truth and logical action are utterly

lacking. The dramas of Victor Hugo survive and still bear staging only because

the author has lavished upon them all the resources of his lyricism.

As for Comedy, it was neglected by the romantics -- for Musset's delicious, and

often profound, little pieces were not made to be acted. From 1820 to 1850 the

comic stage was dominated by an author who was altogether outside the

romantic movement, Scribe, a prolific writer of vaudevilles with no power of vital

observation, but a great command of sustained plot.

The romance, which had been neglected by the great writers of the seventeenth

and eighteenth century, in this period takes a foremost place in literature. Here

again we find the influence of Romanticism, though that influence clashes with

other tendencies. In the historical romance, imitated from Walter Scott, it is

supreme. Alfred de Vigny's "Cinq Mars" (1826) and Victor Hugo's "Notre-Dame

de Paris" (1831) are distinctly Romantic in the local colour which their authors

employ and the violently dramatic character of their plots. The same

characteristics appear in the innumerable romances of Alexander Dumas, père,

which, although no means strong in literary quality, give pleasure by their

fecundity of invention (Les Trois Mousquetaires, 1844). Again, the romances of

George Sand, at least those written in her first manner, are of the Romantic

school by virtue of their lyrical exaltation of the Ego, their elaborate display of

sentiment, and of passion exaggerated to the degree of paroxysm ("Indiana",

1832). Her heroines are possessed by the restlessness, the unsatisfied longings,

the anguish of soul which Renè suffered. George Sand, however, was to abandon

Romanticism at a later period, in her romances of country life ("La Mare au

Diable", "François le Champi", etc., from 1844 to 1850), idealized pictures of

peasant life and true masterpieces of their class.

But if George Sand's career was half finished before she started with

romanticism, other writers in this department altogether escaped its influence,

abiding by the traditions of the eighteenth century. Benjamin Constance, in

"Adolphe", carries on the line of romances of psychological analysis. Stendahl,

too, who inherited his odes and his precise, dry style from the philosophes of the

eighteenth century, is a subtile psychologist, sometimes penetrating, often

affected. Little appreciated in his own day, he will exert a great influence in the

second half of the nineteenth century. Mérimée very much resembles Stendahl;

he excels in the art of fitting into the frame of a short novel a finished picture of

his frame of action, with clean-cut, vigorous indications of his characters. And

Balzac, the great master of the romance in this period, owes almost nothing to

Romanticism. A peer of the creative geniuses -- the Shakespeare and Molières --

Balzac could set in motion, in his "Comédie Humaine", an imaginary world of

beings as truly living as the flesh-and-blood beings who people the actual world.

Certain of his characters, while animated with an intensely individual life, present,

at the same time, so universal a portraiture as to constitute veritable types

corresponding to the great passions and sentiments of humanity.

Among the great branches of literature which were restored between 1820 and

1850 history and criticism must be reckoned. At the beginning of the nineteenth

century history could hardly be said to exist. The philosophical tendencies which

it had acquired during the eighteenth century wee prejudicial to its exactitude.

But what it lacked to a still more marked degree was the power of realizing the

past -- in other words the power of imagination -- combined with the critical spirit.

Romanticism supplied it with the former of these requisites, which developed so

fast in the first half of the nineteenth century; the latter it borrows from the

sciences, which developed so fast in the first part of the nineteenth century and

impressed the mind of that age with their vigorous methods. Of the historians of

that period, some attach the greater importance to the critical study and

interpretation of the facts, others devote themselves to reconstructing the

features of the past, with all its colour and picturesque quality. To the former

school belong Guizot, who traces the concatenation of facts, showing what

causes -- political, social and religious -- produced them; Thiers, who in his "Le

Consulat l'Empire", lays bare Napoleon's policy and strategy with remarkable

lucidity; Mignet, who excels in the art of singling out the essential features of an

epoch. Augustin Thierry and Michelet belong to the other school. Thierry

possesses in a rare degree the sense of historical verity, and his "Récits des

Temps Mérovingiens" (1838) is the first example in French literature of a

picturesque history which is at the same time founded upon exact erudition.

Lastly, with Michelet, history becomes in very truth, a resurrection of the past.

Powerfully imaginative, indeed a poet by instinct, Michelet rather conjures up

history than relates it. His "Histoire de France" is a canvas in which he has in

marvellous fashion caused persons, feelings, and manners to live again.

Concurrently with history, and under the same influences, literary criticism puts

on a new physiognomy. It is no longer theoretic; henceforth its principle concern

is not to judge the merits of literary works , but to determine the conditions in

which they have been elaborated. It is personified in Sainte-Beuve (1804-69), who

traces a detailed biography and a careful portrait of each writer and,

reconstructing his appearance and character in a thousand scrupulously verified

particulars, seeks thus to explain his works.

Lastly, the religious renascence which took place at the beginning of the century,

after the revolutionary frenzy, and which, in profane literature, gave Chateaubriand

and Lamartine their inspiration, had the effect of giving back its force and

brilliancy to sacred literature, so impoverished in the eighteenth century.