LITERARY STUDIES IN NINETEENTH CENTURY 325 



the liberal and Saxon-minded Sainte-Beuve, and the leactionary 

 Nisard; also Taine with his entrancing, but no longer convincing, 

 literary biology. 



In connection with the present or comparative stage of study, names 

 will later be passed in review. Since I have already in certain chapters 

 of a volume entitled Methods and Materials of Literary Criticism 

 (Gayley and Scott, Boston, 1899) described the movement of poetics 

 during the earlier part of the century, I may be pardoned if I fre- 

 quently avail myself of the treatment there accorded to that portion 

 of the subject. 



II. IN REPRESENTATIVE COUNTRIES 



A . Germany 



1. From 1760 to 1795, literary study in Germany was undergoing 

 a process of reconstruction preparatory to the labors of the romantic 

 school. In that country, the art aspect of modern literary criticism 

 proceeds from Winckelmann. He, in his early treatise on the Im- 

 itation of Greek Works of Painting and Sculpture, shows himself 

 a disciple of the Swiss school of Bodmer and Breitinger, who were 

 themselves influenced by the nature poetry of Thomson (1739) and 

 undoubtedly by the battles between moderns and ancients in France 

 and England (1688-1700). Winckelmann's Geschichte der Kunst des 

 Altertvms, published in 1764-65, is the earliest of its kind worthy 

 of mention, for such treatises as Winckelmann himself knew of, 

 Monier's History of Art, for instance, and TurnbulPs Ancient Painting, 

 lack breadth of knowledge and artistic acumen. Winckelmann's 

 especial merit is that he was the first to apply the historic method 

 to the study of the fine arts. His revelations concerning the prin- 

 ciples of Greek art had an influence that did not stop with Lessing 

 and Goethe; it has extended even to our time. We should, of course, 

 remember that Winckelmann's conclusions are drawn rather from 

 the study of Greek art and even with that his acquaintance was 

 limited than from the study of art in general. Still, Hegel is 

 justified in saying of him: "Winckelmann was inspired by the con- 

 templation of the ideals of the ancients to such a degree that he has 

 awakened a new sense for the appreciation of art, has removed such 

 appreciation from the point of view of common aims and a mere 

 imitation of nature, and has set us to seeking the idea of art in the 

 works and history of art. Winckelmann is to be regarded as one of 

 the men who have been able in the realm of art to open for the spirit 

 a new organ and entirely new fashions of contemplation." Upon 

 succeeding conceptions of literature, his doctrines have had a direct 

 bearing. Like our English Bacon one hundred and fifty years before, 

 Winckelmann drew his conclusions from actual contact with the 



