468 ROMANCE LITERATURE 



life of the author and are explained as a development of that life, 

 especially in the French authors of the eighteenth and nineteenth 

 centuries. The work of Rousseau, Voltaire, Mme. de Stael, Cha- 

 teaubriand, George Sand, Victor Hugo, Alfred de Musset, and many 

 other writers, can be understood only by studying them at the 

 same time as the events which inspired them, and also by study- 

 ing the social and historical forces produced in the lifetime of the 

 writers. One of the most important problems, therefore, in the field 

 of Romance literatures is the study of social and historical forces 

 in those literatures, and I wish to repeat here a few ideas which 

 I expressed in 1898 in my address delivered as President of the 

 Modern Language Association of America: 1 



"It is true that all mankind is animated by the same psychical 

 forces inherent in humanity, and that a great work of art, whether 

 produced by a Homer, a Virgil, a Dante, a Shakespeare, a Calderon, 

 a Moliere, a Goethe, is permeated with the same broad human feeling, 

 but each man is bound to reproduce in his work the effect of the 

 civilization to which he belongs. That civilization is largely an 

 inheritance which the individual enjoys by the mere fact of being 

 born in a certain atmosphere; but as civilization means development, 

 new historical and social forces are constantly being brought to bear 

 upon the individual and modifying his ideas. There are, therefore, 

 three great causes which mould the mind of the individual: (1) the 

 fact of being a man, which gives him ideas and sentiments common 

 to all men; (2) his birthplace, which impresses upon him the civiliz- 

 ation of his country; (3) the historical and social forces produced in 

 his own lifetime. . . . 



"M. Brunetiere says that the principal influence in literature is 

 that of works upon works. That influence is certainly very important, 

 but it is not the principal one. So many forces have contributed to 

 the civilization of every country and to the development of every 

 literature that it is very difficult to say which one of these forces 

 has been the most active and the most fruitful. If a great writer has 

 produced a change in the civilization of his time, that change is never 

 so complete as it might appear, inasmuch as the writer must reflect 

 some ideas common to his race, to his country, and to all men. 

 Again, admitting that the personal influence of one man had pro- 

 duced a change almost complete on his epoch and on the literature 

 of his time, that influence of an individual becomes a social force 

 and reacts on other individuals, who may, in their turn, impress the 

 stamp of their genius on civilization and on literature. Historical and 

 social forces are. therefore, continually brought into contact with 

 forces apparently entirely personal and literary, and there is a per- 

 petual reaction of the one class of forces on the other." 



1 Proceedings of the Modern Language Association of America for 1898. 



