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entire transformation, to which the 

 popularity of English literature, 

 especially among the bourgeoisie, 

 greatly contributed. In particular, 

 under the influence of the critical 

 and utilitarian tendencies of the 

 age, literature came to be valued 

 less for its aesthetic qualities than 

 as a means for diffusing ideas, and 

 for this reason the representative 

 masterpieces of the century belong 

 rather to the literature of polemical 

 and propagandist purpose than to 

 that of creative imagination. In 

 prose the transition is marked by 

 Bayle, Fontenelle, and Montes- 

 quieu. But as early as 1718 the 

 most brilliant exponent of the 

 18th century spirit, Voltaire, had 

 already opened his long career of 

 prodigious activity and striking 

 success in almost every field. Vast 

 as was his influence, however, it 

 was less profound than that ex- 

 erted by Rousseau, who passion- 

 ately attacked all the dominant 

 ideals of his age, and who, in his 

 subjectivity, sentimentalism, and 

 love of nature, may be regarded as 

 the first great precursor of ro- 

 manticism. After these two the 

 foremost prose writer of the cen- 

 tury is Diderot. ^. 



Meanwhile, in this uncongenial 

 atmosphere, poetry languished ; 

 Voltaire's epic LaHenriade, 1728 ; 

 the didactic verse of Louis Racine : 

 the descriptive poems of Saint- 

 Lambert, Roucher, and Delille ; 

 and the odes of Jean-Baptiste 

 Rousseau adding little of interest 

 to the possessions of French litera- 

 ture. Some excellent light verse is 

 indeed to be found in the minor 

 poems of Voltaire ; in J. B. L. 

 [ Cresset ; and in the Fables of 

 \ Florian; but in its higher forms 

 18th century poetry had only 

 one acknowledged master, Andre 

 Chenier, the last great product of 

 the classic school. Tragedy, repre- 

 sented at its best by Crebillon and 

 Voltaire, suffered from a similar 

 dry rot ; but comedy, on the other 

 hand, maintained its vitality in the 

 plays of Destouches, Piron, Mari- 

 vaux, and Beaumarchais. 



Innovations in Drama 

 The most significant feature in 

 the history of the 18th century 

 drama is the appearance of a new 

 type of serious play, the tragedie 

 bourgeoise or drame, in which the 

 conventions of classic tragedy were 

 repudiated and the truth of nature 

 was sought. The way for this had 

 been prepared by Marivaux and 

 by the comedie larmoyante of La 

 Chaussee, but its founders were 

 Diderot and Sedaine. This inno- 

 vation was closely connected with 

 the progress of the democratic 

 movement, the influence of which 

 is also conspicuous in the further 



3303 



development of the novel in the 

 hands of Le Sage, Marivaux, 

 Prevost, Jean Jacques Rousseau, 

 and Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. 



While the Revolution overthrew 

 the old social order, it did not at 

 once destroy its art, and the litera- 

 ture of the revolutionary period 

 represents in the main the final 

 exhaustion of classicism. Two 

 great writers, however Mme. de 

 Stael and Chateaubriand herald 

 the romantic movement of the 

 second quarter of the 19th century. 

 Romanticism, defined by Hugo as 

 " liberalism in literature," was at 

 bottom the result of the extension 

 to art of the revolutionary princi- 

 ples of freedom and individuality ; 

 whence its rejection of classic con- 

 vention and all external authority, 

 its assertion of the right of genius 

 to be a law unto itself, its extreme 

 subjectivity, and its frequent 

 extravagances ; while the medie- 

 valism, picturesqueness, and emo- 

 tionalism by which it was also 

 characterised arose from a sweeping 

 reaction against the scepticism and 

 aridity of the 18th century. 



The new note in poetry was first 

 clearly struck by Lamartine, but 

 most powerfully by Hugo, the 

 paramount personality of the 

 entire movement. Vigny, Musset, 

 and Gautier were also pre-eminent. 

 The Rise o! Romanticism 



Moribund classic tragedy was 

 now displaced by a drama of the 

 free romantic or Shakespearean 

 type. Here the real pioneer was 

 Dumas, but its principles were 

 formulated by Victor Hugo in his 

 preface to Cromwell (1827), the 

 first great trumpet-call of roman- 

 ticism, and it was his Hernani 

 (1830) which assured its triumph 

 on the stage. While, however, the 

 glorified melodrama of Dumas had 

 all the qualities which make for 

 popularity, the finest art of the 

 romantic drama must be sought in 

 the plays of Vigny and Musset. 



In fiction the historical romance, 

 inaugurated by Vigny and Merimee, 

 attained enormous success with 

 Hugo, Dumas, and a host of others, 

 and side by side with this appeared 

 the idealistic novel of George Sand 

 in direct line from Rousseau's 

 Nouvelle Heloise, and the realistic 

 novel founded by Balzac and 

 Stendhal. Among the critics, 

 Nisard held tenaciously to classical 

 standards and methods, but the 

 quickening and broadening influ- 

 ences of the time are clearly seen 

 in Villemain and the greatest of 

 all French critics, Sainte-Beuve. 

 The period was also rich in religious 

 and philosophical literature, e.g. 

 Joseph de Maistre, Lamennais, 

 Cousin, and Comte ; and in history, 

 e.g. Thierry, Guizot, and Thiers. 



FRANCE 



By the middle of the 19th cen- 

 tury romanticism had spent its 

 force ; the pendulum of taste 

 swung in the opposite direction, 

 and in response to new social and 

 intellectual tendencies and the 

 rapid spread of the scientific spirit, 

 literature became for a time pre- 

 dominantly anti-romantic and 

 realistic. The change is shown in 

 the drama by the comedie de 

 moeurs (a descendant of the later 

 18th century drama) of Augier 

 and the younger Dumas ; and the 

 drame naturaliste of Becque ; in 

 fiction by the roman realiste of 

 Flaubert and the brothers Edmond 

 and Jules de Goncourt ; and by 

 the roman naturaliste of Zola, 

 Fabre, Maupassant, and Daudet. 



A few novelists, like Octave 

 Feuillet, opposed the prevailing 

 realism, while others, like C. A. A. 

 Theuriet, were only in part 

 affected by it. Outside fiction, 

 much of the prose of this period 

 belongs to the literature of the 

 particular subjects dealt with 

 rather than to general literature, 

 and need not, therefore, be con- 

 sidered here ; but in some cases, 

 as in those of Renan and Taine, 

 even specialised history was by the 

 technical qualities of form and 

 style raised to the highest level of 

 art. Another noteworthy feature 

 of the time was the immense 

 development of criticism by many 

 writers of striking merit, as e.g. 

 Taine, Brunetiere, Scherer, Faguet, 

 and Lemattre. 



Parnassians and Symbolists 



Poetry meanwhile passed through 

 several well-defined phases largely 

 associated, in consonance with the 

 sysfcematising habit of the French 

 mind, with recognized schools. Two 

 of Gautier's disciples, Banville and 

 Baudelaire, mark the transition 

 from the ideas of the romantics 

 to those of the Parnassiens 

 Leconte de Lisle, Heredia, Sully- 

 Prudhomme, and others, who were 

 broadly neo -classic in principle ; 

 and these in turn were succeeded 

 by the Symbolistes Mallarme, 

 Verlaine, and others, in whom may 

 be detected the reawakening of the 

 romantic spirit under fresh forms. 

 Other poets of the time, however, 

 notably Richepin. Moreas,Regnier, 

 and Francis Jammes, cannot 

 strictly be connected with either 

 of these special groups. Jammes 

 is one of the younger generation of 

 writers who, carrying forward the 

 movement initiated by Verlaine, 

 have undertaken a fundamental 

 revolution in the prosodial charac- 

 teristics of French poetry. In the 

 evolution of poetry may be noted 

 the renaissance of the idealistic 

 spirit, and after 1870, though the 

 realists still held their ground, this 



