448 ROMANCE LITERATURE 



being the principal promoter of their study; through her theatre; 

 through her history even. Italy had her share, however, in Diez's 

 mind; 1 and a preponderant share soon fell to Provence, largely 

 owing to Raynouard, whose Choix the attention of Diez was first 

 directed to by Goethe. 2 Raynouard furnished materials and tools; 

 William Schlegel, who would have become a Provengal scholar of 

 great merit if his many-sidedness had left him time for it, was an 

 inspiring power. Well fitted out, Diez went to Paris in 1824. And 

 he performed a miracle greater than the one performed by Uhland. 

 For was it not a miracle that three months' stay sufficed to per- 

 mit the composition of such classic works as Die Poesie der Trou- 

 badours and Leben und Werke der Troubadours? He had preceded 

 them by a dissertation Ueber die Minnehofe, which proved to be 

 a challenge to Raynouard, who had treated ex-pro fesso of the same 

 subject. David met Goliath and slew him. He showed that the 

 pretended feminine law-courts, which it was claimed had, during 

 the Middle Ages, held jurisdiction in matters of love, solving prac- 

 tical and poetical questions, had grown out of misunderstandings 

 and deceptions. But Goliath and his followers pursued their way 

 as if nothing had happened. The talk about "Courts of Love" 

 in the anti-critical sense of Raynouard continued. And, indeed, in 

 a time very near to us, in the South of France, the extreme was 

 reached of restoring to them a semblance of life, which still holds 

 out. 3 They remained a symbol par excellence of the environment in 

 which lived the Troubadours, 4 whose art was called by the ana- 

 chronistic designation of "gaya sciensa," first used by the over- 

 rhetorical academy of Toulouse, when gayety had in truth vanished. 

 The two expressions gaya sciensa, cours d'amour can serve as 

 a touchstone: when they are heard, modern criticism has not yet 

 penetrated. 5 



weniger, oder vielmehr gar keiner Aufmorksamkeit gewurdiget worden. Man lebt 

 nicht allein in einer ganzlichen Unwissenheit derselben, man ist auch noch so 

 gleichgiiltig. dass man sich nicht einmal die Mlihe giebt, zu untersuchon, ob sie 

 unsere Achtung verdiene, ja man ist wohl gar so ungerecht, sie ohne Priifung 

 schlechterdings zu verachten." 



1 As early as 1819 he wrote many pages on the translation of the Rime of 

 Petrarch published by Karl Forster, and many others on another translation, viz., 

 that of Orlando Furioso by Karl Streckfuss. See Friedrich Diez's Klcinere Arbeiten 

 und Ttccensinncn, hrsgg. von H. Breymann, Munich, 1883, pp. 17-38. 



2 The fact is attested by too good an authority (see Stengel, Erinnerungsworte, 

 p. 22, note T), to be doubted. Of the work of Raynouard, when in 1818 Diez 

 visited Goethe, only the first volumes were published. 



3 The first Cnur d'amour was held by the " Fclibres" at Carpentras, the 15th of 

 September, 1891. An account of it can be found in the Revue Fclibrtcnne, vol. 

 vii, 251 ff. 



4 A. Meray gave the title La vie au temps dot Coiirs d'ammir (Paris, 1876) to the 

 book which should serve as a counterpart to his Vie. au temps des troun'rea. 



s Therefore gaya sriencia could he heard also from the lips of Diez, when, in 

 1820, he gave an account about the first volume of the Choix and about the Obser- 

 vations sur la langue et la literature provenrales of Schlegel (Klein. Arb. u. Recens, 

 p. 39). 



