Chapter X: Conclusion

With the death of Flaubert in 1880, French literature entered upon a new phase--a phase which, in its essential qualities, has lasted till to-day, and which forms a suitable point for the conclusion of the present sketch.

This last phase has been dominated by two men of genius. In prose, MAUPASSANT carried on the work of Flaubert with a sharper manner and more vivid style, though with a narrower range. He abandoned the exotic and the historical visions of his predecessor, and devoted himself entirely, in his brilliant novels and yet more brilliant short stories, to an almost fiendishly realistic treatment of modern life. A precisely contrary tendency marks the poetry of VERLAINE. While Maupassant completely disengaged prose from every alien element of poetry and imagination, pushing it as far as it could go in the direction of incisive realism, Verlaine and his fellow-workers in verse attempted to make poetry more truly poetical than it had ever been before, to introduce into it the vagueness and dreaminess of individual moods and spiritual fluctuations, to turn it away from definite fact and bring it near to music.

It was with Verlaine and his successors that French verse completely broke away from the control of those classical rules, the infallibility of which had been first attacked by the Romantics. In order to express the delicate, shifting, and indecisive feelings which he loved so well, Verlaine abolished the last shreds of rhythmical regularity, making his verse a perfectly fluid substance, which he could pour at will into the subtle mould of his feeling and his thought. The result justified the means. Verlaine's poetry exhales an exquisite perfume--strange, indistinct, and yet, after the manner of perfume, unforgettable. Listening to his enchanting, poignant music, we hear the trembling voice of a soul. This last sad singer carries us back across the ages, and, mingling his sweet strain with the distant melancholy of Villon, symbolizes for us at once the living flower and the unchanging root of the great literature of France.

* * * * *

We have now traced the main outlines of that literature from its dim beginnings in the Dark Ages up to the threshold of the present time. Looking back over the long line of writers, the first impression that must strike us is one of extraordinary wealth. France, it is true, has given to the world no genius of the colossal stature and universal power of Shakespeare. But, then, where is the equal of Shakespeare to be found? Not even in the glorious literature of Greece herself. Putting out of account such an immeasurable magnitude, the number of writers of the first rank produced by France can be paralleled in only one other modern literature--that of England. The record is, indeed, a splendid one which contains, in poetry and drama, the names of Villon, Ronsard, Corneille, Molière, Racine, La Fontaine, Chénier, Lamartine, Hugo, Vigny, Gautier, Baudelaire, Verlaine; and in prose those of Froissart, Rabelais, Montaigne, Pascal, Bossuet, La Rochefoucauld, La Bruyère, Montesquieu, Saint-Simon, Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau, Chateaubriand, Balzac, Flaubert, and Maupassant. And, besides this great richness and variety, another consideration gives a peculiar value to the literature of France. More than that of any other nation in Europe, it is distinctive and individual; if it had never existed, the literature of the world would have been bereft of certain qualities of the highest worth which France alone has been able to produce. Where else could we find the realism which would replace that of Stendhal and Balzac, Flaubert and Maupassant? Where else should we look for the brilliant lucidity and consummate point which Voltaire has given us? Or the force and the precision that glow in Pascal? Or the passionate purity that blazes in Racine?

Finally, if we would seek for the essential spirit of French literature, where shall we discover it? In its devotion to truth? In its love of rhetoric? In its clarity? In its generalizing power? All these qualities are peculiarly its own, but, beyond and above them, there is another which controls and animates the rest. The one high principle which, through so many generations, has guided like a star the writers of France is the principle of deliberation, of intention, of a conscious search for ordered beauty; an unwavering, an indomitable pursuit of the endless glories of art.

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF AUTHORS AND THEIR PRINCIPAL WORKS

I. _Middle Ages_

CHANSONS DE GESTE, eleventh to thirteenth centuries.
_Chanson de Roland, circa_ 1080.

ROMANS BRETONS, twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

CHRÉTIEN DE TROYES, wrote _circa_ 1170-80.

FABLIAUX, twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
_Roman de Renard_, thirteenth century.
_Aucassin et Nicolete, circa_ thirteenth century.

VILLEHARDOUIN, _d_. 1213.
_Conquête de Constantinople_, 1205-13.

GUILLAUME DE LORRIS (?).
_La Roman de la Rose_ (first part), _circa_ 1237.

JEAN DE MEUNG, _d_. 1305.
_La Roman de la Rose_ (second part), 1277.

JOINVILLE, 1224-1319.
_Vie de Saint Louis_, 1309.

FROISSART, 1337-_circa_ 1410.
_Chroniques_, 1373-1400.

VILLON, 1431-(?).
_Grand Testament_, 1461.

COMMYNES, 1445-1509.
_Mémoires_, 1488-98.

II. _Renaissance_

MAROT, 1496-1544.

RABELAIS, _circa_ 1494-1553.

RONSARD, 1524-85.

DU BELLAY, 1522-60.
_Défense et Illustration de la Langue Française_, 1549.

JODELLE, 1532-73.
_Cléopâtre_, 1552.

MONTAIGNE, 1533-92.
_Essays_, 1580-88.

III. _Age of Transition_

MALHERBE, 1555-1628.
_Odes_, 1607-28.

HARDY, 1570-1631 (_circa_).
_Tragedies_, 1593-1630.

ACADEMY, founded 1629.

CORNEILLE, 1606-84.
_Le Cid_, 1636.
_Les Horaces_, 1640.
_Cinna_, 1640.
_Polyeucte_, 1643.

PASCAL, 1623-62.
_Lettres Provinciales_, 1656-57.
_Pensées_, first edition 1670, first complete edition 1844.

IV. _Age of Louis XIV_

MOLIÈRE, 1622-73.
_Les Précieuses Ridicules_, 1659.
_L'École des Femmes_, 1662.
_Tartufe_, 1664.
_Le Misanthrope_, 1666.
_Le Malade Imaginaire_, 1673.

LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, 1613-80.
_Maximes_, 1665.

BOILEAU, 1636-1711.
_Satires_, 1666.
_Art Poétique_, 1674.

RACINE, 1639-99.
_Andromaque_, 1667.
_Phèdre_, 1677.
_Athalie_, 1691.

LA FONTAINE, 1621-95.
_Fables_, 1668-92.

BOSSUET, 1627-1704.
_Oraisons Funèbres_, 1669-87.
_Histoire Universelle_, 1681.

MADAME DE SÉVIGNÉ, 1626-96.
_Letters_, 1671-96.

MADAME DE LAFAYETTE, 1634-93.
_La Princesse de Clèves_, 1678.

LA BRUYÈRE, 1645-96.
_Les Caractères_, 1688-94.

V. _Eighteenth Century_

FONTENELLE, 1657-1757.
_Histoire des Oracles_, 1687.

BAYLE, 1647-1706.
_Dictionnaire Historique et Critique_, 1697.

FÉNELON, 1651-1715.
_Télémaque_, 1699.

MONTESQUIEU, 1689-1755.
_Lettres Persanes_, 1721.
_L'Esprit des Lois_, 1748.

VOLTAIRE (1694-1778).
_La Henriade_, 1723.
_Zaïre_, 1732.
_Lettres Philosophiques_, 1734.
_Essai sur les Moeurs_, 1751-56.
_Candide_, 1759.
_Dictionnaire Philosophique_, 1764.
_Dialogues_, etc., 1755-78.

LE SAGE, 1668-1747.
_Gil Blas_, 1715-35.

MARIVAUX, 1688-1763.
_Vie de Marianne_, 1731-41.
_Les Jeu de l'Amour et du Hasard_, 1734.

SAINT-SIMON, 1675-1755.
_Mémoires_, begun 1740, first edition 1830.

DIDEROT, 1713-84.
_Encyclopédie_, 1751-80.
_La Religieuse_, first edition 1796.
_Le Neveu de Rameau_, first edition 1823.

ROUSSEAU, 1712-78.
_La Nouvelle Héloïse_, 1761.
_Contrat Social_, 1762.
_Confessions_, first edition 1781-88.

BEAUMARCHAIS, 1732-99.
_Le Mariage de Figaro_, 1784.

CONDORCET, 1743-94.
_Progrès de l'Esprit Humain_, 1794.

CHÉNIER, 1762-94.
_Poems_, 1790-94, first edition 1819.

VI. _Nineteenth Century_--I

CHATEAUBRIAND, 1768-1848.
_Atala_, 1801.
_Génie du Christianisme_, 1802.
_Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe_, published 1849.

LAMARTINE, 1790-1869.
_Méditations_, 1820.

HUGO, 1802-85.
_Hernani_, 1830.
_Les Feuilles d'Automne_, 1831.
_Notre-Dame de Paris_, 1831.
_Les Châtiments_, 1852.
_Les Contemplations_, 1856.
_La Légende des Siècles_, 1859.
_Les Misérables_, 1862.

VIGNY, 1797-1863.
_Poemes Antiques et Modernes_, 1826.
_Servitude et Grandeur Militaires_, 1835.

MUSSET, 1810-57.
_Caprices de Marianne_, 1833.
_Lorenzaccio_, 1834.
_Les Nuits_, 1835-40.

GEORGE SAND, 1804-76.
_Indiana_, 1832.
_François le Champi_, 1850.

STENDHAL, 1783-1842.
_Le Rouge et le Noir_, 1831.

BALZAC, 1799-1850.
_La Comédie Humaine_, 1829-50.

MICHELET, 1798-1874.
_History_, 1833-67.

VII. _Nineteenth Century_--II

SAINTE-BEUVE, 1804-69.
_Lundis_, 1850-69.

RENAN, 1833-92.
_Vie de Jésus_, 1863.

TAINE, 1828-93.

FLAUBERT, 1821-80.
_Madame Bovary_, 1857.
_Salammbô_, 1862.

GAUTIER, 1811-72.
_Émaux et Camées_, 1852.

BAUDELAIRE, 1821-67.
_Les Fleurs du Mal_, 1857.

LECONTE DE LISLE, 1818-94.
_Poems_, 1853-84.

SULLY PRUDHOMME, 1839-1907.
_Poems_, 1865-88.

HEREDIA, 1842-1905.
_Les Trophées_, 1893.

MAUPASSANT, 1850-93.

VERLAINE, 1844-96.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The number of works dealing with the history and criticism of French literature is very large indeed. The following are the most useful reviews of the whole subject:--

PETIT DE JULLEVILLE. _Histoire de la Langue et de la Littérature française_ (8 vols.).

LANSON. _Histoire de la Littérature française_ (1 vol.).

BRUNETIÈRE. _Manuel de l'histoire de la Littérature française_ (1 vol.).

DOWDEN. _History of French Literature_ (1 vol.).

An excellent series of biographies of the principal authors, by the leading modern critics, is that of _Les Grands Écrivains Français_ (published by Hachette).

The critical essays of Sainte-Beuve are particularly valuable. They are contained in his _Causeries du Lundi, Premiers Lundis, Nouveaux Lundis, Portraits de Femmes, Portraits Littéraires_, and _Portraits Contemporains_.

Some interesting criticisms of modern writers are to be found in _La Vie Littéraire_, by Anatole France.

Editions of the principal authors are very numerous. The monumental series of _Les Grands Écrivains de la France_ (Hachette) contains complete texts of most of the great writers, with elaborate and scholarly commentaries of the highest value. Cheaper editions of the masterpieces of the language are published by Hachette, La Bibliothèque Nationale, Jean Gillequin, Nelson, Dent, Gowans & Gray.

There are also numerous lyrical anthologies, of which two of the best are _Les Chefs-d'oeuvre de la Poésie lyrique française_ (Gowans & Gray) and _The Oxford Book of French Verse_ (Clarendon Press). But it must be remembered that the greater part of what is most characteristic in French literature appears in its poetic drama and its prose, and is therefore necessarily excluded from such collections.

INDEX

Academy, the French, 34-36 Aesop, 80 Aristotle, 67 Arnold, Matthew, 64 _Aucassin et Nicolete_, 11-12, 13 Austen, Jane, 161

Balzac, Honoré de (1799-1850), 160-164, 166, 168, 171, 175, 176 _La Comédie Humaine_, 161-164 Baudelaire, Charles (1821-67), 172-173, 175 _Les Fleurs du Mal_, 172 Bayle, Pierre (1647-1706) _Dictionnaire Historique et Critique_, 96 Beaumarchais, De [_pseud. of_ Pierre Auguste Caron] (1732-99), 140-141 _Le Mariage de Figaro_, 140-141 Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153), 130 Boileau, Nicolas (1636-1711), 53-55, 143, 167 _Art Poétique_, 53 _À son Esprit_, 54 Bolingbroke, 102 Bossuet, Jacques Benigne (1627-1704), 85-86, 122, 129, 144, 175 _Elévations sur les Mystères_, 86 _Histoire Universelle_, 85, 122 _Méditations sur l'Evangile_, 86 _Oraisons Funèbres_, 86 Bourgogne, Duc de, 95 Browne, Sir Thomas, 35 Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, Comte de (1707-88), 118 Byron, 35, 137, 146, 156

Calas, Jean (1698-1762), 126 Catherine of Russia, 115 Cervantes, 56 _Chanson de Roland_, 8, 12 _Chansons de Geste_, 8, 9 Chapelain, Jean (1595-1674), 55 Chateaubriand, François René, Vicomte de (1768-1848), 145-146, 148, 175 _Génie du Christianisme_, 145 _Martyrs_, 145 _Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe_, 146 Chénier, André (1762-94), 142-143, 173, 175 _Églogues_, 143 Chrétien de Troyes (12th century), 14 Columbus, 111 Commynes, Philippe de (1445-1509), 17-18 _Mémoires_, 17 Condillac, Étienne Bonnot de Mably de (1715-80), 118 Condorcet, Marquis de (1743-94), 114, 118 _Progrès de l'Esprit Humain_, 115 Congreve, 35 Constant, Benjamin (1845-1902), 158 _Adolphe_, 158 Copernicus, 44, 111 Corneille, Pierre (1606-84), 36-41, 48, 55, 77, 144, 175 _Le Cid_, 36, 37, 39 _Cinna_, 39 _Les Horaces_, 39 _Polyeucte_, 39 Cotin, l'Abbé (1604-82), 55

Dalembert, Jean le Rond (1717-83), 118 Dante, 8, 56, 101 Diderot, Denis (1713-84), 35, 116, 118, 131, 136, 139, 145, 158, 175 _Le Neveu de Rameau_, 116-117 _La Religieuse_, 158 Dryden, 64 Du Bellay, Joachim (1522-60), 22 _Les Antiquités de Rome_, 24 _La Défense et Illustration de la Langue Française_, 22 Du Châtelet, Mme., 119-120 Du Deffand, Mme. (1697-1780), 99 Dumas, Alexandra (1824-95), 148

_Encyclopédie_, 115-116

_Fabliaux_, 10, 144 Fénelon, François (1651-1715), 95, 110 _Télémaque_, 95 Flaubert, Gustave (1821-80), 35, 168-171, 172, 174, 175, 176 _Bouvard et Pécuchet_, 170 _Madame Bovary_, 170 _Salammbô_, 170 Fontenelle, Bernard le Bovyer de (1657-1757), 95-96 _Histoire des Oracles_, 96 Francis I, 21 Frederick the Great, 115, 120 Froissart, Jean (_c._ 1337-_c_. 1410), 16-17, 41, 175 _Chroniques_, 16-17

Gautier, Théophile, (1811-72), 148, 171-172, 175 _Émaux et Camées_, 171-172 Gray, Thomas, 35

Hardy, Alexandra (_c._ 1570-_c_. 1631), 36, 37
Helvétius, Claude Adrien (1715-71), 118
Heredia, José-Maria de (1842-1905), 172
Holbach, Baron d' (1723-89), 118
Homer, 101
Hugo, Victor (1802-85), 37, 148, 149-155, 158, 159, 160, 161, 164,
172, 175
_Les Châtiments_, 155
_Les Contemplations_, 155
_Les Feuilles d'Automne_, 155
_Hernani_, 149, 152
_La Légende des Siècles_, 155
_Les Misérables_, 159, 161
_Les Rayons et Les Ombres_, 155
Hume, David, 139

James, Henry, 161 Jodelle, Étienne (1532-73), 36, 37 _Cléopâtre_, 36 Johnson, Samuel, 167 Joinville, Jean, Sire de (1224-1319), 13-14, 41 _Vie de Saint Louis_, 13-14

Keats, John, 143, 173

Labé, Louise (_c._ 1520-66), 24 La Bruyère, Jean de (1645-96), 87, 88-92, 106-107, 144, 175 _Les Caractères_, 89-91 Laclos, Pierre Choderlos de (1741-1803), 158 _Liaisons Dangereuses_, 158 Lafayette, Mme. de (1634-93), 157, 158 _La Princess de Clèves_, 157, 158 La Fontaine, Jean de (1621-95), 11, 53, 79-84, 87, 143, 144, 175 Lamartine, Alphonse (1790-1869), 147, 148, 175 _Le Lac_, 147 La Rochefoucauld, Duc de (1613-80), 87-88, 175 Leconte de Lisle, Charles Marie (1818-94), 172 Le Sage, Alain-René (1668-1747), 158 _Gil Blas_, 158 Locke, John, 102 Lorris, Guillaume de (_fl._ 13th century), 14-15 _La Roman de la Rose_, 14-15 Louis IX, 13-14 Louis XI, 17 Louis XIII, 32 Louis XIV, 31, 33, 41, 45-93, 94-95, 97, 105, 106, 168 Louis XV, 110 Luther, Martin, 111

Machiavelli, 17
Malherbe, François de (1555-1628), 32-34, 38, 41, 149
Marivaux, Pierre (1688-1763), 103-105, 157, 158
_Les Jeu de l'Amour et du Hasard_, 104
_Vie de Marianne_, 158
Marlowe, Christopher, 37
Marmontel, Jean François (1723-99), 118
Marot, Clément (1496-1544), 21-22
Maupassant, Guy de (1850-93), 174, 175, 176
Meung, Jean de (_c._ 1250-1305), 14-15, 25
_La Roman de la Rose_, 15
Michelet, Jules (1798-1874), 166-167, 172
Milton, 62, 101, 153
Molière [_pseud. of_ Jean-Baptiste Poquelin] (1622-73), 35, 53,
55-64, 77, 84, 93, 175
_Don Juan_, 61, 62
_L'École des Femmes_, 57
_Les Femmes Savantes_, 61
_Le Malade Imaginaire_, 58
_Le Misanthrope_, 59, 61, 63
_Les Précieuses Ridicules_, 57, 62
_Tartufe_, 60, 62
Montaigne, Michel Eyquem de (1533-92), 27-30, 31, 41, 175
_Apologie de Raimond Sebond_, 28
Montesquieu, Baron de (1689-1755), 96-100, 103, 110, 122, 175
_Considérations sur la Grandeur et la Décadence des Romains_, 98
_L'Esprit des Lois_, 98-99, 113
_Lettres Persanes_, 96-98, 100
Musset, Alfred de (1810-57), 148, 155, 156-157, 172
_Lorenzaccio_, 157
_Les Nuits_, 157

_Parnassiens, Les_, 172, 173 Pascal, Blaise (1623-62), 41-44, 129, 144, 175, 176 _Lettres Provinciales_, 41-42, 43, 129 _Pensées_, 43-44 _Philosophes, Les_, 111-115, 118, 133, 134 _Pléiade, La_, 22-24, 31, 32 Pombal, 115 Pope, Alexander, 135 Pradon, Nicolas (1632-98), 55 _Précieux, Les_, 33-34, 41, 55 Prévost, l'Abbé (1697-1763), 157-158 _Manon Lescaut_, 157-158, 159

Rabelais, François (_c._ 1494-_c._ 1553), 24-27, 28, 31, 117, 175
Racine, Jean (1639-99), 37, 48, 53, 55, 56, 64-79, 85, 87, 93, 100,
103, 143, 144, 150, 175, 176
_Andromaque_, 76
_Bajazet_, 77
_Bérénice_, 68, 70-71
_Britannicus_, 77
_Phèdre_, 77-79
_Les Plaideurs_, 77
Renan, Ernest (1823-92), 167, 172
Richelieu, Cardinal de (1585-1642), 32, 36
_Romans Bretons_, 9, 10
_Roman de Renard_, 10
_Roman de la Rose_, 14-16
Ronsard, Pierre de (1524-85), 22, 23-34, 175
_La Françiade_, 23
_Odes_, 23
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712-78), 112, 131-139, 145, 146, 158, 159, 175
_Confessions_, 133, 137-138
_Le Contrat Social_, 132
_La Nouvelle Héloïse_, 132, 158

Sainte-Beuve, Charles-Augustin (1804-69), 167-168 _Causeries du Lundi_, 168 _Port-Royal_, 168 Saint-Simon, Duc de (1675-1755), 105-110, 136, 153, 175 _Mémoires_, 105-110, 136 Sand, George [_pseud. of_ Amandine Lucile Aurore Dupin] (1804-76), 159, 168 _François le Champi_, 168 _La Mare au Diable_, 168 _La Petite Fadette_, 168 Scott, Sir Walter, 35 Scudéry, Madeleine de (1607-1701), 157 Sévigné, Mme. de (1626-96), 48 Shakespeare, 35, 56, 60, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 73, 102, 152, 153, 157, 175 Sirven (1709-64), 126 Sophocles, 78 Stendhal [_pseud, of_ Marie-Henri Beyle] (1783-1842), 160, 176 _La Chartreuse de Parme_, 160 _Le Rouge et Le Noir_, 160 Sully Prudhomme, René François Armand (1839-1907), 172 Swift, Jonathan, 173

Tacitus, 173 Taine, Henri (1828-93), 167 Theocritus, 143 Turgot, Anne Robert Jacques (1727-81), 112, 118

Verlaine, Paul (1844-96), 174-175
Versailles, 45-47, 106
Vigny, Alfred de (1797-1863), 148, 155-156, 175
_Colère de Samson_, 156
_Maison du Berger_, 156
_Moïse_, 156
_Monts des Oliviers_, 156
_La Mort du Loup_, 156
_Servitude et Grandeur Militaires_, 156
Villehardouin, Geoffroi de (_c._ 1160-1213), 13, 14
_La Conquête de Constantinople_, 12-13
Villon, François (1431-1463 or after), 18-19, 20, 24, 175
_Grand Testament_, 18
_Petit Testament_, 18
Virgil, 8, 101
Voltaire, François Marie Arouet de (1694-1778), 35, 100-103, 105,
110, 119-131, 135, 136, 139, 140, 144, 145, 152, 175, 176
_Alzire_, 119, 152
_Candide_, 127-128
Correspondence, 129
_Diatribe du Docteur Akakia_, 120
_Dictionnaire Philosophique_, 123, 130
_Le Dîner du Comte de Boulainvilliers_, 123
_Essai sur les Moeurs_, 121-122
_Frère Rigolet et l'Empereur de la Chine_, 123
_La Henriade_, 101
_Lettres Philosophiques_, 102, 119
_Life of Charles XII_, 101
_Mahomet_, 119
_Mérope_, 119
_Zaïre_, 119, 152

Watteau, Antoine, 104 Wordsworth, William, 74