BARTRAM'S INFLUENCE ON LITERATURE 195 



5. Continental Writers 

 Chateaubriand: 



Mention of Chateaubriand in connection with Bartram has 

 been made repeatedly in the preceding pages. That he was 

 influenced by Bartram has been definitely established in a series 

 of studies by French scholars; that he in turn influenced the 

 description of American landscape in English poetry has been 

 shown in this study. As early as 1827 a writer in the American 

 Quarterly Review ^ expressed a doubt that Monsieur de Chateau- 

 briand ever actually saw Florida or Louisiana. In France doubt 

 of Chateaubriand's description of America began even earlier.^ 

 In this century the question has been opened up again, with the 

 result that a number of Chateaubriand's sources for his knowl- 

 edge of the American scene have been uncovered. Following 

 upon the work of Joseph Bedier, who first mentioned Bartram 

 as one of the sources to which Chateaubriand owed a debt,' 

 Professor Gilbert Chinard has made a comprehensive study of 

 Chateaubriand's American experiences, descriptions and sources.* 

 In an earlier work Professor Chinard pointed out that Chateau- 

 briand himself had confessed that in his Le Voyage en Amerique 

 he had included " quelques extraits des voyages de Bartram que 

 j' avals traduits avec assez de soin." ^ That the " quelques ex- 

 traits " was most of the scenery and a good deal of his imagery, 

 as well as his Indian lore, — and not only in his Travels in 

 America but also in other works as well — is proved by Professor 

 Chinard, who cites parallel after parallel, striking and unmis- 

 takable.^ 



The following selections from Professor Cloran's notes to his 



^December, 1827, p. 460. 



^ Emma Kate Armstrong, " Chateaubriand's America." P. M.. L. A., XXII, New 

 series 15, 1907, p. 345. 



* Etudes critiques, Paris, 1903, pp. 127-294. 



* Gilbert Chinard, L'Exotisme Americain dans I'Oeuvre de Chateaubriand, 

 Paris, 1918. 



' University of California Publications, Modern Philology, IV, 297. 

 •See especially L'Exotisme, pp. 251-271. 



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