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Indiana University Studies 



The first expression of critical opinion concerning Irving that we 

 have been able to find appeared in 1825 in the Glohe. From that time 

 until the day of his death his writings continued to attract the at- 

 tention of French men of letters. A number of critical notices of 

 his books were published in the Globe and the Revue encyclopedique. 

 From time to time more serious articles by such well known critics 

 as A. Fontaney and Philarete Chasles found their way to the public 

 thru the columns of the Revue des Deux Mondes. For the most part, 

 however, the best of the appreciations of Irving that we owe to the 

 French did not appear until after his death. One of the most notable 

 of these is that of Xavier Eyma, published in the Revue contemporaine 

 in 1864. The placing of Irving on the list of English authors to be 

 studied in French schools was followed by the appearance of several 

 editions of the Sketch-hook, each of which was provided with an intro- 

 duction more or less critical in character. 



II. Analysis of Appreciations 



The Globe and the Revue encyclopedique. The Glohe, a 

 literary journal established in 1824, was one of the very few periodicals 

 which at that time showed an interest in foreign literatures. No 

 periodical of that epoch is more frequently mentioned in connection 

 with the liberalizing tendencies of the Romantic movement. The 

 Revue encyclopedique was another literary journal which contributed 

 to the triumph of Romanticism, altho prior to 1825 it had been 

 considered a representative of Classicism. To these two journals 

 America is indebted for many of the earlier French appreciations of 

 Cooper as well as for those of Irving already mentioned. It must be 

 admitted, however, that the authors of these articles were not, as a 

 rule, critics of first-rate importance. Sainte-Beuve, we believe, is 

 the only exception and his contributions were very infrequent. 



Of the critical notices of Irving that were published in the Glohe, 

 the most significant, perhaps, is that signed ''E. D." which appeared 

 in the issue of March 31, 1827. Like the early appreciations of 

 Cooper which appeared in this journal, it is far from eulogistic. Of 

 the works of Irving which were at that time accessible in French 

 translation, the only one that found favor in the critic's eyes is the 

 Sketch-hook. He prefaces his observations with the statement that 

 Irving's talent lacks originality, that one always feel that he is 

 writing ''under the eyes of England and not under those of his mother 

 country" (p. 521). Salmagundi, which he recognizes as the joint 



