SECTION D ROMANCE LITERATURE 



(Hall 8, September 22, 3 p. m.) 



CHAIRMAN: PROFESSOR ADOLPHE COHN, Columbia University. 



SPEAKERS: PROFESSOR Pio RAJNA, Institute of Higher Studies, Florence, Italy. 



PROFESSOR ALCEE FORTIER, Tulane University, New Orleans. 

 SECRETARY: DR. COMFORT, Haverford College. 



EVOLUTION OF THE STUDY OF ROMANCE MEDIEVAL 

 LITERATURE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 



BY PIO RAJNA 

 (Translated from the Italian by courtesy of L. Cipriani, Ph. D., Chicago University) 



[Pio Rajna, Professor of Romance Languages and Literature, Institute R. Stud. 

 Superior!, Florence, Italy, since 1883. b. Sondrio, Lombardy, Italy, July 8, 

 1847. D.Litt. cum laude, University of Pisa, 1868. Professor of Latin and Greek 

 Literature, Royal Lyceum of Modena, 1868-72; ibid. Royal Lyceum at Milan, 

 1872-73; Professor of Romance Literature, Accademia R. Scientifico-litterario, 

 Milan, 1874-83. Member of Royal Academy of Science of Turin, corresponding 

 member of Accademia della Scienzia della Crusca, Accademia dei Linei, Dante 

 Society, Cambridge, Mass., Modern Language Society of America. Author of 

 The Sources of Orlando Furioso ; The Beginnings of the French Epic ; Treatise 

 on Colloquial Language of Dante, etc.] 



IN order to account for the evolution of the study of Romance 

 medieval literature during the nineteenth century, I begin by placing 

 myself at the starting-place, and I look backward. What had been 

 done until then? 



It is imperative to keep well in mind that, for the Middle Ages, there 

 is a profound difference between Italy and the other nations whom 

 language makes her sisters. For the latter, archaic literary productions 

 are withered branches of the tree; for Italy they constitute the very 

 trunk. The contrast, less great in the Iberian Peninsula, where there 

 is no break between the old and the new, is most marked in France, 

 where a distinct literature was formed by the older phases, of which the 

 southern one had indeed the characteristics of a foreign literature. 



The causes are manifold, but one stands out overwhelmingly. 

 Neither France nor Spain (I call the whole peninsula Spain) had the 

 privilege of a Dante. And the finish of Petrarch, the mellowness of 

 Boccaccio, soon took their place beside the genius of an Alighieri. 

 Thus the fourteenth century had not yet closed when Italy already 

 possessed a literature which could rightly be called classical. And it 

 remained classical even when a second period followed the marvelous 

 productiveness of the first. 



Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, were subjects of constant admiration. 



