The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Short History of French Literature, by
George Saintsbury

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Title: A Short History of French Literature

Author: George Saintsbury

Release Date: July 3, 2010 [EBook #33062]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHORT HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE ***

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London

HENRY FROWDE

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE

AMEN CORNER, E.C.

New York

112 FOURTH AVENUE

Clarendon Press Series

A SHORT HISTORY

OF

FRENCH LITERATURE

BY

GEORGE SAINTSBURY

FOURTH EDITION

Oxford
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
1892

Oxford

HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY

PREFACE.

An attempt to present to students a succinct history of the course of
French literature compiled from an examination of that literature
itself, and not merely from previous accounts of it is, I believe, a new
one in English. There will be observed in the parts of this Short
History a considerable difference of method; and as such a difference is
not usual in works of the kind, it may be well to state the reasons
which have induced me to adopt it. Early French literature is to a great
extent anonymous. Moreover, even where it is not, the authors were
usually more influenced by certain prevalent styles or forms than by
anything else. Into these forms they threw without considerations of
congruity whatever they had to say. Nothing, for instance, can be less
suitable for historical or scientific disquisition than the octosyllabic
metre of a satiric poem. But Jean de Meung and one at least of the
authors of _Renart le Contrefait_[1] do not think of composing prose
diatribes. At one moment and place the form of the Chanson de Geste is
all-absorbing, at another the form of the Roman d'Aventures, at another
the form of the Fabliau. In Book I. I shall therefore proceed by these
forms, giving an account of each separately.

After Villon the case changes. Instead of classes of chroniclers,
trouveres, jongleurs, we get individual authors of eminence and
individu