SECTION G BELLES-LETTRES 



(Hall 3, September 24, 10 a. TO.) 



CHAIRMAN: PROFESSOR ROBERT HERRICK, University of Chicago. 

 SPEAKERS: PROFESSOR WILLIAM HENRY SCHOFIELD, Harvard University. 

 PROFESSOR BKANDER MATTHEWS, Columbia University. 



THE RELATIONS OF BELLES-LETTRES 



BY WILLIAM HENRY SCHOFIELD 



[William Henry Schofield, Assistant Professor of English, Harvard University, since 

 1892. b. Brockville, Ontario, April 6, 1870. B.A. Victoria College, University of 

 Toronto, 1889; A.M. Harvard University, 1893; Ph.p.ibid. 1895. Ecole des 

 Hautes Etudes, Paris, 1895-96; Universities of Christiania and Copenhagen, 

 1896-97; Master of Modern Languages, Collegiate Institute, Hamilton, Ontario, 

 1889-92; Resident Fellow, Harvard, 1893-95; Traveling Fellow, tfo'd. 1895-97; 

 Instructor, Harvard, 1897-1902. Author of Studies on the Libeaus Desconus; 

 Essays on Medieval Literature; English Literature from the Norman Conquest 

 to Chaucer. Translator of Sophus Bugge's Home of the Eddie Poems.] 



BELLES-LETTRES! Perhaps, Ladies and Gentlemen, you know 

 exactly what this term means. If so, you have me straightway at 

 a disadvantage. For when, not long since, I was invited to address 

 this International Congress on "The Relations of Belles-Lettres" (to 

 other manifestations of human thought), I found myself unable to 

 define satisfactorily these the main words of my proffered theme; 

 and much subsequent inquiry has shown me to be not singular in this 

 uncertainty. So great, indeed, is the variety in connotation of belles- 

 lettres in the minds of those who employ it, that one is led to believe 

 that in the interest of precision, for the sake of a clearer understand- 

 ing of what it but vaguely suggests, the term is one we should do 

 well to abandon. 



When the French speak of "les religieux," they usually refer to 

 monks of the Roman Catholic Church; but to most of us "the 

 religious" has no such limited application. It may be that belles- 

 lettres means still in France what it meant in the eighteenth century, 

 the cult of the classicists, advanced by appropriate ceremonies 

 in the salon. But surely it does not mean this to us. Those who 

 arranged the programme of this Congress did not intend to have 

 a section devoted to the consideration of "polite and elegant litera- 

 ture" in the ordinary sense of this dictionary definition, any more 

 than they desired to institute a section of Society to discuss the rela- 

 tions and problems of the "smart sets" in the many countries of the 

 world. By belles-lettres they undoubtedly meant what we are now 



