22 AMERICAN MEN OF LETTERS [22 



those singers who have especially distinguished themselves by 

 their acting. 



4. or. (orators). 



5. pub. (publicists). Authors of polemic or propagandic 

 writings. 



6. narr. (narrators). All those who, without marked 

 polemic, artistic or scientific bias, relate facts or describe 

 objects which they have seen close at hand; that is to say, 

 most memoirists, chroniclers, authors of letters or descriptions 

 of voyages, as well as many historians, geographers, econom- 

 ists, etc. 



7. erud. (erudite). Authors of scholarly researches based 

 on literary documents, biographers, most historians and philo- 

 logists, a part of the theologians, jurisconsults, etc., as well 

 as authors of translations themselves destined especially for 

 the erudite. 



8. pop. (popularizers). All authors who serve as inter- 

 mediaries between specialists and the general public, that is 

 to say, in addition to popularizers in the narrow sense, authors 

 of translations, school manuals, and, in general, of any work 

 of instruction or popular edification. 



9. spec, (speculative). Those whose writings possess pri- 

 marily an abstract character ; philosophers in the narrow sense, 

 many moralists, estheticians, educators, sociologists, theo- 

 logians, jurisconsults, etc. 



10. pr. (prose writers). All those who write in prose 

 with the chief purpose of entertaining the reader, or to obtain 

 certain artistic effects, such as novelists, feuilletonists, letter 

 writers a la Balzac, a large part of the critics, as well as most 

 of those who are called simply writers or literary people. 



11. p. (poets). 



12. dram, (dramatists).^ 



This classification developed a general conception of men 

 of letteis. For the purposes of the present study it next 



1 A. Odin, op. cit,, pp. 3S6 et seq. 



