534 BELLES-LETTRES 



The literature of the Middle Ages differentiates itself from that 

 of later eras by certain notable characteristics: it is in the main 

 anonymous, and static in type, impersonal in attitude, and inter- 

 national in scope. A recognition of these attributes should affect 

 not only the method of its study, but the judgment of its merit. It is 

 a mistake to consider the productions of any one country in the 

 Middle Ages apart from those closely connected with it, for the 

 vernacular literature in all lands of Western Europe was then of very 

 similar origin and kind. It is misleading to pick out a few individual 

 writers whose names happen to be preserved, and romance about their 

 personalities, for even had we details about their environment and 

 careers, these would be found comparatively unimportant in deter- 

 mining the real significance of their work. Medieval literature is 

 largely a record of society at large and not of its separate members. 

 It evinces in one form or another the tastes, the sentiments, the 

 needs of the whole nation. Nor yet of one alone, but of the several 

 nations that belonged to the wide province under the control of the 

 Church of Rome. France was then the centre of Western civilization, 

 and at Paris were established the general canons of art, and the ac- 

 knowledged standards of literary achievement. The fashions of Paris 

 had a predominant influence on the writings of England for several 

 centuries, and under their influence our literary styles were almost 

 wholly transformed from what they had been in Saxon times. 



Gaston Paris has convincingly shown that the Middle Ages form 

 an epoch essentially poetic. It had few great poets, but it created 

 or perpetuated a vast supply of poetic thought. Especially in the 

 domain of fiction, than which no imaginative production has ever 

 exerted greater force, its achievement remains unsurpassed. 

 Many and fine are the literary conceptions for which the poets and 

 painters and musicians of our own time are indebted to the Middle 

 Ages. In some instances modern writers have ennobled ancient 

 Themes by treating them in maturer style. But often it is the charm, 

 the spell of the past that is the power in their works most efficacious 

 still. Only by knowing the facts of development in each separate case 

 can our judgment of poems be fair. When art has alchemized base 

 metal into gold, we should give all credit to the art. But when the 

 fourdation of the artist's experiments is gold, as it was with alchem- 

 ists who of old beguiled many to their own advantage, then this 

 Trut li should not be kept dark. We rejoice when we see poetic thought 

 heightened in effect by the art of (lie poet; \ve see how a single man 

 of genius can remodel old material immensely to the increase of its 

 value. But we shall do well not to forget that he began where others 

 left off; that some, moreover, of the greatest poems of the world are 

 but the exaltation of valuable ideas previously existing in the rough. 

 Therefore 1 would plead for a study of the elements as essential to 



