FRENCH LITERATURE 



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FRENCH LITERATURE 



ficult for English-speaking lips, but the very 

 decided lack of phonetic character and the 

 frequent silent letters make for confusion. 

 Thus a person may easily gather from two or 

 three years' study in school a sufficient knowl- 

 edge of French to read simple prose or poetry 

 rapidly, but only association with French- 

 speak French so that it really sounds like the 

 French of the Parisian. A.MCC. 



FRENCH LITERATURE. The writings 

 which, to quote William Vaughn Moody, a 

 speaking people can give him the ability to 

 poet with a gift for apt description, are 



Couched in the sweet, satirical, 



Impudent tongrue of France, 



are among the world's greatest productions. 

 At times French literary art has dominated 

 Europe, and the literatures of other countries 

 have been but imitations, more or less feeble; 

 and while this is not the case to-day, it is not 

 because France has deteriorated but because 

 other countries have developed more origi- 

 nality. The French philosopher Buffon once 

 said, "The style is the man," and the state- 

 ment comes most fittingly from a Frenchman, 

 for in a very real sense it may be said the 

 French literary style is France. This does not 

 mean that the content has been neglected, but 

 merely that the effort has always been to make 

 the style worthy of the content and a fit ex- 

 pression of the artistic, beauty-loving French 

 people. 



Two of the greatest departments of litera- 

 ture are the epic and the tragedy, and in these 

 France has not excelled. No great epic of the 

 literary type (see EPIC) and but few really 

 great tragedies have been produced by French- 

 men, but of exquisitely funny comedies, of 

 charming musical verse, of novels that are 

 beyond criticism, of polished essays, of short 

 stories that are models of what the short story 

 should be, France has contributed liberally to 

 the world's literature. A detailed treatment 

 of French literature throughout its long course 

 is impossible in this article, which must serve 

 rather to bind together the numerous biogra- 

 phies of French writers which, are included in 

 these volumes. Most of the authors here 

 named are treated in a separate article, as well 

 as many others, whose names will be found 

 listed in the indexes, under the articles DRAMA; 

 HISTORY; NOVEL; POETRY. 



Early Stage. After the French language 

 had been evolved from the Latin, the first 

 literary productions were the so-called chan- 

 sons de geste, or songs of deeds. These were 



folk epics which centered about the careers of 

 great national heroes, chief among whom were 

 Charlemagne and Arthur. Most famous of the 

 Charlemagne cycle is the Song of Roland, 

 which holds in French literature somewhat the 

 place which the Nibelungenlied occupies in 

 German or the Cid poems in Spanish. Out of 

 the Arthur cycle have grown all those legends 

 and poems so familiar to English readers, which 

 treat of the Round Table. 



During the Middle Ages that is, from about 

 1100 to about 1400 the troubadours (which 

 see) attained wide popularity and influence in 

 the south of France, while in the north the 

 trouveres found enthusiastic audiences for their 

 love songs. In France, as in most countries, 

 poetry grew up first, and prose had a slow de- 

 velopment. The first form of prose which 

 appeared was history, represented by the fa- 

 mous Chronicles of Froissart. Meanwhile, an 

 intense interest in the stage was developing, 

 and mystery plays were produced in great 

 numbers and with much elaborateness. It was 

 nothing unusual for a village to devote sev- 

 eral days to a single religious drama. 



The Golden Age. All of this was largely 

 preliminary, and not until the sixteenth cen- 

 tury did any really great figure stand out in 

 French literature. Then appeared Rabelais, 

 who with his good sense and "Homeric laugh- 

 ter" helped on that intellectual awakening 

 which is known as the Renaissance. The 

 Reformation in France is typified by Calvin, 

 while the spirit of skepticism which grew out 

 of the new questioning attitude found its best 

 spokesman in Montaigne. The real Golden 

 Age of French literature was the seventeenth 

 century, and as the names of Moliere, Cor- 

 neille and Racine testify, the drama was su- 

 preme. The first-named of the trio is looked 

 upon as the greatest laughter-maker the world 

 has produced, with the exception of Shake- 

 speare, while the others brought tragedy to a 

 height which it has never since attained in 

 France. 



Not all the great writers of this period were 

 dramatists. Lafontaine wrote his match- 

 less fables, the only modern fables worthy to 

 rank with those ancient ones credited to 

 Aesop; Boileau, with his satires and criticisms, 

 ruled literary France; Madame de Sevigne set 

 a high standard for letter-writing; Fenelon 

 produced a famous romance; and of more 

 interest to the children than are all the others 

 together Charles Perrault gave to the world 

 the immortal Mother Goose Stories, which 



