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(Derivation. Most of the Old French prefixes and suffixes are descendants of Latin ones, but a few are Teutonic (ard = hard), and some are later borrowings from Latin (arie, afterwards aire, from ărium). In Modern French many old affixes are hardly used for forming new words; the inherited ier (ärium) is yielding to the borrowed aire, the popular contre (contra) to the learned anti (Greek), and the native ée (atam) to the Italian ade. The suffixes of many words have been assimilated to more common ones; thus sengler (singularem) is now sanglier.

(g) Syntax.-Old French syntax, gradually changing from the 10th to the 14th century, has a character of its own, distinct from that of Modern French; though when compared with Latin syntax it appears decidedly modern.

between nominative and accusative; next to this are perhaps the gradual loss of many final consonants, the still recent loss of the vowel of unaccented final syllables, and the extension of analogy in conjugation and declension. In its construction Old French is distinguished by a freedom strongly contrasting with the strictness of the modern language, and bears, as might be expected, a much stronger resemblance than the latter to the other Romanic dialects. French forms a class by itself, distinct in character from the other In many features, indeed, both positive and negative, Modern modern representatives of Latin.

IV. BIBLIOGRAPHY.-The few works which treat of French philology as a whole are now in many respects antiquated, and the important discoveries of recent years, which have revolutionized our ideas of Old French phonology and dialectology, are scattered in various editions, periodicals, and separate treatises. For many things Diez's Grammatik der romanischen Sprachen (4th edition-a (1) The general formal distinction between nominative and reprint of the 3rd-Bonn, 1876-1877; French translation, Paris, accusative is the chief feature which causes French syntax to re1872-1875) is still very valuable; Burguy's Grammaire de la Langue semble that of Latin and differ from that of the modern language: d'Oil (2nd edition-a reprint of the 1st-Berlin, 1869-1870) is useful and as the distinction had to be replaced by a comparatively fixed only as a collection of examples. Schwan's Grammatik des Allword-order, a serious loss of freedom ensued. If the forms are französischen, as revised by Behrens in the 3rd edition (Leipzig, 1898: modernized while the word-order is kept, the Old French l'archevesque French grammar we possess. For the history of French language in French translation, Leipzig and Paris, 1900), is by far the best old ne puet flechir li reis Henris (Latin archiepiscopum non potest flectere general see F. Brunot, Histoire de la langue française des origines à rex Henricus) assumes a totally different meaning-l'archevêque ne peut fléchir le roi Henri. (2) The replacement of the nominative form 1900 (Paris, 1905, 1906, &c.). For the history of spelling, A. F. of nouns by the accusative is itself a syntactical feature, though Didot, Observations sur l'orthographe ou ortografie française suivies treated above under inflection. A more modern instance is exhibited d'une histoire de la réforme orthographique depuis le XVe siècle jusqu'à by the personal pronouns, which, when not immediately the subject Ch. Thurot, De la prononciation française depuis le commencement nos jours (2nd ed., Paris, 1868). For the history of French sounds: of a verb, occasionally take even in Old French, and regularly in the 16th century, the accusative form; the Old French je qui sui du XVIe siècle, d'après les témoignages des grammairiens (2 vols., (ego qui sum) becomes moi qui suis, though the older usage survives Paris, 1881-1883). For the history of syntax, apart from various in the legal phrase je, soussigné. (3) The definite article is now grammatical works of a general character, much is to be gathered required in many cases where Old French dispenses with it-jo (3 parts, 1886, 1894, 1899, parts i. and ii. in second editions, 1902, from Ad. Tobler's Vermischte Beiträge zur französischen Grammatik cunquis Engleterre, suffrir mort (as Modern French avoir faim): 1906). G. Paris's edition of La Vie de S. Alexis (Paris, 1872) was Modern French 'Angleterre, la mort. (4) Old French had distinct pronouns for "this" and "that"-cest (ecce istum) and cel (ecce illum), the pioneer of, and retains an important place among, the recent Darmesteter and Hatzfeld's Le with their cases. Both exist in the 16th century, but the present original works on Old French. Seizième Siècle (Paris, 1878) contains the first good account of Early language employs cet as adjective, cel as substantive, in both meanModern French. Littré's Dictionnaire de la langue française (4 vols., ings, marking the old distinction by affixing the adverbs ci and là -cet homme-ci, cet homme-là; celui-ci, celui-là. (5) In Old French, Paris, 1863-1869, and a Supplement, 1877); and Hatzfeld, Darmesthe verbal terminations being clear, the subject pronoun is usually densed (2 vols., Paris, 1888-1900), contain much useful and often teter and Thomas, Dict. général de la langue française, more connot expressed-si ferai (sic facere habeo), est durs (dūrus est), que original information about the etymology and history of French feras (quid facere habes)? In the 16th century the use of the pronoun words. For the etymology of many French (and also Provençal) is general, and is now universal, except in one or two impersonal phrases, as n'importe, peu s'en faut. (6) The present participle in words, reference must be made to Ant. Thomas's Essais de philologie Old French in its uninflected form coincided with the gerund (amant française (Paris, 1897) and Nouveaux essais de philologie française amantem and amandó), and in the modern language has been re(Paris, 1904). But there is no French dictionary properly historical. placed by the latter, except where it has become adjectival; the A Dictionnaire historique de la langue française was begun by the Old French complaingnans leur dolours (Latin plangentes) is now Académie française (4 vols., 1859-1894), but it was, from the first, plaignant leurs douleurs (Latin plangendo). The now extinct use of antiquated. It contains only one letter (4) and has not been estre with the participle present for the simple verb is not uncommon continued. The leading periodicals now in existence are the Romania in Old French down to the 16th century-sont disanz (sunt dicentēs) = (Paris), founded (in 1872) and edited by P. Meyer and G. Paris (with Modern French ils disent (as English they are saying). (7) In present schrift für romanische Philologie (Halle), founded (in 1877) and Ant. Thomas since the death of G. Paris in 1903), and the ZeitModern French the preterite participle when used with avoir to form verb-tenses is invariable, except when the object precedes (an edited by G. Gröber. To these reference should be made for infor exception now vanishing in the conversational language)-j'ai mation as to the very numerous articles, treatises and editions écrit les lettres, les lettres que j'ai écrites. In Old French down to the by the many and often distinguished scholars who, especially in 16th century, formal concord was more common (though by no France and Germany, now prosecute the scientific study of the means necessary), partly because the object preceded the parti-language. It may be well to mention that, Old French phonology ciple much oftener than now-ad la culur muée (habet colorem mülä- especially being complicated, and as yet incompletely investigated, tam), ad faile sa venjance, les turs ad rendues. (8) The sentences these publications, the views in which are of various degrees of just quoted will serve as specimens of the freedom of Old French value, require not mere acquiescent reading, but critical study. The word-order-the object standing either before verb and participle, dialects of France in their present state (patois) are now being between them, or after both. The predicative adjective can stand scientifically investigated. The special works on the subject (dicbefore or after the verb-halt sunt li pui (Latin podia), e tenebrus e tionaries, grammars, &c.) cannot be fully indicated here; we must grant. (9) In Old French ne (Early Old French nen, Latin non) limit ourselves to the mention of Behren's Bibliographie des patois suffices for the negation without pas (passum), point (punctum) or gallo-romans (2nd ed., revised Berlin, 1893), and of Gilliéron and mie (micam, now obsolete), though these are frequently used-jo Edmont's Atlas linguistique de la France (1902 et seq.), a huge ne sui lis sire (je ne suis pas ton seigneur), autre feme nen ara (il publication planned to contain about 1800 maps. (H. N.; P.M.) n'aura pas autre femme). In principal sentences Modern French uses ne by itself only in certain cases-je ne puis marcher, je n'ai rien, The slight weight as a negation usually attached to ne has caused several originally positive words to take a negative meaning-rien (Latin rem) now meaning "nothing" as well as "something." (10) In Old French interrogation was expressed with substantives as with pronouns by putting them after the verb-est Saul entre les prophètes? In Modern French the pronominal inversion (the substantive being prefixed) or a verbal periphrasis must be used-Saul est-il? or est-ce que Saul est?

(h) Summary.-Looking at the internal history of the French language as a whole, there is no such strongly marked division as exists between Old and Middle English, or even between Middle and Modern English. Some of the most important changes are quite modern, and are concealed by the traditional orthography; but, even making allowance for this, the difference between French of the 11th century and that of the 20th is less than that between English of the same dates. The most important change in itself and for its effects is probably that which is usually made the division between Old and Modern French, the loss of the formal distinction

literature in the proper sense of the term can hardly be said to FRENCH LITERATURE. Origins.-The history of French extend farther back than the 11th century. The actual manuscripts which we possess are seldom of older date than the century subsequent to this. But there is no doubt that by the end at least of the 11th century the French language, as a completely organized medium of literary expression, was in full, varied and constant use. For many centuries previous to this, literature had been composed in France, or by natives of that country, using the term France in its full modern acceptation; but until the 9th century, if not later, the written language of France, so far as we know, was Latin; and despite the practice of not a few literary historians, it does not seem reasonable to notice Latin writings in a history of French literature. Such a history properly busies itself only with the monuments of French itself from the time when the so-called Lingua Romana Rustica

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Early moau ments

them are in Provençal. Two of these, Ferabras and Betonnet d'Hanstonne, are obviously adaptations of French originals. The third, Girart de Rossilho (Gerard de Roussillon), is undoubtedly Provençal, and is a work of great merit and originality, but its dialect is strongly tinged with the characteristics of the Langue d'Oil, and its author seems to have been a native of the debatable land between the two districts. To suppose under these circumstances that the Provençal originals of the hundred others have perished seems gratuitous. It is sufficient to say that the chanson de geste, as it is now extant, is the almost authority for a supposition that the early French poets merely versified with amplifications the stories of chroniclers. On the contrary, chroniclers draw largely from the chansons, and the question of priority between Roland and the pseudo-Turpin, though a hard one to determine, seems to resolve itself in favour of the former. At most we may suppose, with much probability, that personal and family tradition gave a nucleus for at least the earliest.

Chansons

assumed a sufficiently independent form to deserve to be called | in round numbers a hundred of these chansons. Three only of a new language. This time it is indeed impossible exactly to determine, and the period at which literary compositions, as distinguished from mere conversation, began to employ the new tongue is entirely unknown. As early as the 7th century the Lingua Romana, as distinguished from Latin and from Teutonic dialects, is mentioned, and this Lingua Romana would be of necessity used for purposes of clerical admonition, especially in the country districts, though we need not suppose that such addresses had a very literary character. On the other hand, the mention, at early dates, of certain cantilenae or songs composed in the vulgar language has served for basis to a super-exclusive property of northern France. Nor is there much structure of much ingenious argument with regard to the highly interesting problem of the origin of the Chansons de Geste, the earliest and one of the greatest literary developments of northern French. It is sufficient in this article, where speculation would be out of place, to mention that only two such cantilenae actually exist, and that neither is French. One of the 9th century, the Lay of Saucourt," is in a Teutonic dialect; the other, the "Song of St Faron," is of the 7th century, but exists only in Latin prose, the construction and style of which present traces of translation from a poetical and vernacular original. As far as facts go, the most ancient monuments of the written French language consist of a few documents of very various character, ranging in date from the 9th to the 11th century. The oldest gives us the oaths interchanged at Strassburg in 842 between Charles the Bald and Louis the German. The next probably in date and the first in literary merit is a short song celebrating the martyrdom of St Eulalia, which may be as old as the end of the 9th century, and is certainly not younger than the beginning of the roth. Another, the Life of St Leger, in 240 octosyllabic lines, is dated by conjecture about 975. The discussion indeed of these short and fragmentary pieces is of more philological than literary interest, and belongs rather to the head of French language. They are, however, evidence of the progress which, continuing for at least four centuries, built up a literary instrument out of the decomposed and reconstructed Latin of the Roman conquerors, blended with a certain limited amount of contributions from the Celtic and Iberian dialects of the original inhabitants, the Teutonic speech of the Franks, and the Oriental tongue of the Moors who pressed upwards from Spain. But all these foreign elements bear a very small proportion to the element of Latin; and as Latin furnished the greater part of the vocabulary and the grammar, so did it also furnish the principal models and helps to literary composition. The earliest French versification is evidently inherited from that of the Latin hymns of the church, and for a certain time Latin originals were followed in the choice of literary forms. But by the 11th century it is tolerably certain that dramatic attempts were already being made in the vernacular, that lyric poetry was largely cultivated, that laws, charters, and such-like documents were written, and that commentators and translators busied themselves with religious subjects and texts. The most important of the extant documents, outside of the epics presently to be noticed, has of late been held to be the Life of Saint Alexis, a poem Epic of 625 decasyllabic lines, arranged in five-line stanzas, poetry. each of one assonance or vowel-rhyme, which may be as early as 1050. But the most important development of the 11th century, and the one of which we are most certain, is that of which we have evidence remaining in the famous Chanson de Roland, discovered in a manuscript at Oxford and first published in 1837. This poem represents the first and greatest development of French literature, the chansons de geste (this form is now preferred to that with the plural gestes). The origin of these poems has been hotly debated, and it is only recently that the importance which they really possess has been accorded to them, -a fact the less remarkable in that, until about 1820, the epics of ancient France were unknown, or known only through late and disfigured prose versions. Whether they originated in the north or the south is a question on which there have been more than one or two revolutions of opinion, and will probably be others still, but which need not be dealt with here. We possess

Chansons de Geste.-Early Freneh narrative poetry was divided by one of its own writers, Jean Bodel, under three heads poems relating to French history, poems relating to ancient history, and poems of the Arthurian cycle de Geste. (Matières de France, de Bretagne, et de Rome). To the first only is the term chansons de geste in strictness applicable The definition of it goes partly by form and partly by matter A chanson de geste must be written in verses either of ten or twelve syllables, the former being the earlier. These verses have a regular caesura, which, like the end of a line, carries with it the licence of a mute c. The lines are arranged, not in couplets or in stanzas of equal length, but in laisses or tirades, consisting of any number of lines from half a dozen to some hundreds. These are, in the earlier examples assonanced,-that is to say, the vowel sound of the last syllables is identical, but the consonants need not agree. Thus, for instance, the final words of a tirade of Amis et Amiles (II. 199-206) are erbe, nouvelle, selles, nouvelles, traversent, arrestent, guerre, cortège. Sometimes the tirade is completed by a shorter line, and the later chansons are regularly rhymed. As to the subject, a chanson de geste must be concerned with some event which is, or is supposed to be, historical and French. The tendency of the trouvères was constantly to affiliate their heroes on a particular geste or family. The three chief gestes are those of Charlemagne himself, of Doon de Mayence, and of Garin de Monglane; but there are not a few chansons, notably those concerning the Lorrainers, and the remarkable series sometimes called the Chevalier au Cygne, and dealing with the crusades, which lie outside these groups. By this joint definition of form and subject the chansons de geste are separated from the romances of antiquity, from the romances of the Round Table, which are written in octosyllabic couplets, and from the romans d'aventures or later fictitious tales, some of which, such as Brun de la Montaigne, are written in pure chanson form.

Not the least remarkable point about the chansons de geste is their vast extent. Their number, according to the strictest definition, exceeds 100, and the length of each chanson Volume varies from 1000 lines, or thereabouts, to 20,000 or and even 30,000. The entire mass, including, it may be changes of early epics. supposed, the various versions and extensions of each chanson, is said to amount to between two and three million lines; and when, under the second empire, the publication of the whole Carolingian cycle was projected, it was estimated, taking the earliest versions alone, at over 300,000. The successive developments of the chansons de geste may be illustrated by the fortunes of Huon de Bordeaux, one of the most lively, varied and romantic of the older epics, and one which is interesting from the use made of it by Shakespeare, Wieland and Weber. In the oldest form now extant, though even this is probably not the original, Huon consists of over 10,000 lines. A subsequent version contains 4000 more; and lastly, in the 14th century, a later poet has amplified the legend to the extent of 30,000 lines.

When this point had been reached, Huon began to be turned into prose, was with many of his fellows published and republished during the 15th and subsequent centuries, and retains, in the form of a roughly printed chap-book, the favour of the country districts of France to the present day. It is not, however, in the later versions that the special characteristics of the chansons de geste are to be looked for. Of those which we possess, one and one only, the Chanson de Roland, belongs in its present form to the 11th century. Their date of production extends, speaking roughly, from the 11th to the 14th century, their palmy days were the 11th and the 12th. After this latter period the Arthurian romances, with more complex attractions, became their rivals, and induced their authors to make great changes in their style and subject. But for a time they reigned supreme, and no better instance of their popularity can be given than the fact that manuscripts of them exist, not merely in every French dialect, but in many cases in a strange macaronic jargon of mingled French and Italian. Two classes of persons were concerned in them. There was the trouvère who composed them, and the jongleur who carried them about in manuscript or in his memory from castle to castle amd sang them, intermixing frequent appeals to his auditory for silence, declarations of the novelty and the strict copyright character of the chanson, revilings of rival minstrels, and frequently requests for money in plain words. Not a few of the manuscripts which we now possess appear to have been actually used by the jongleur. But the names of the authors, the trouvères who actually composed them, are in very few cases known, those of copyists, continuators, and mere possessors of manuscripts having been often mistaken for them. The moral and poetical peculiarities of the older and more authentic of these chansons are strongly marked, though perhaps not quite so strongly as some of their encomiasts have contended, and as may appear to a reader of the most famous of them, the Chanson de Roland, alone. In that poem, indeed, war and religion are the sole motives employed, and its motto might be two lines from another of the finest chansons (Aliscans, 161-162):

"Dist à Bertran: 'N'avons mais nul losir,
Tant ke vivons alons paiens ferir.'

In Roland there is no love-making whatever, and the hero's betrothed" la belle Aude "appears only in a casual gibe of her brother Oliver, and in the incident of her sudden death at the news of Roland's fall. M. Léon Gautier and others have drawn the conclusion that this stern and masculine character was a feature of all the older chansons, and that imitation of the Arthurian romance is the cause of its disappearance. This seems rather a hasty inference. In Amis et Amiles, admittedly a poem of old date, the parts of Bellicent and Lubias are prominent, and the former is demonstrative enough. In Aliscans the part of the Countess Guibourc is both prominent and heroic, and is seconded by that of Queen Blancheflor and her daughter Aelis. We might also mention Oriabel in Jourdans de Blaivies and others. But it may be admitted that the sex which fights and counsels plays the principal part, that love adventures are not introduced at any great length, and that the lady usually spares her knight the trouble and possible indignities of a long wooing. The characters of a chanson of the older style are somewhat uniform. There is the hero who is unjustly suspected of guilt or sore beset by Saracens, the heroine who falls in love with him, the traitor who accuses him or delays help, who is almost always of the lineage of Ganelon, and whose ways form a very curious study. There are friendly paladins and subordinate traitors; there is Charlemagne (who bears throughout the marks of the epic king common to Arthur and Agamemnon, but is not in the earlier chanson the incapable and venal dotard which he becomes in the later), and with Charlemagne generally the duke Naimes of Bavaria, the cne figure who is invariably wise, brave, loyal and generous. In a few chansons there is to be added to these a very interesting class of personages who, though of low birth or condition, yet rescue the high-born knights from their enemies. Such are Rainoart in Aliscans, Gautier in Gaydon, Robastre in Gaufrey, Varocher in Macaire. These subjects, uniform rather

| than monotonous, are handled with great uniformity if not monotony of style. There are constant repetitions, and it sometimes seems, and may sometimes be the case, that the text is a mere cento of different and repeated versions. But the verse is generally harmonious and often stately. The recurrent assonances of the endless tirade soon impress the car with a grateful music, and occasionally, and far more frequently than might be thought, passages of high poetry, such as the magnificent Granz doel por la mort de Rollant, appear to diversify the course of the story. The most remarkable of the chansons are Roland, Aliscans, Gerard de Roussillon, Amis et Amiles, Raoul de Cambrai, Garin le Loherain and its sequel Les quatre Fils Aymon, Les Saisnes (recounting the war of Charlemagne with Witekind), and lastly, Le Chevalier au Cygne,which is not a single poem but a series, dealing with the earlier crusades. The most remarkable group is that centring round William of Orange, the historical or half historical defender of the south of France against Mahommedar invasion. Almost all the chansons of this group, from the longknown Aliscans to the recently printed Chançon de Willame, are distinguished by an unwonted personality of interest, as well as by an intensified dose of the rugged and martial poetry which pervades the whole class. It is noteworthy that one chanson and one only, Floovant, deals with Merovingian times. But the chronology, geography, and historic facts of nearly all are, it is hardly necessary to say, mainly arbitrary.

Arthurian Romances.-The second class of early French epics consists of the Arthurian cycle, the Matière de Bretagne, the earllest known compositions of which are at least a century junior to the earliest chanson de geste, but which soon succeeded the chansons in popular favour, and obtained a vogue both wider and far more enduring. It is not easy to conceive a greater contrast in form, style, subject and sentiment than is presented by the two classes. In both the religious sentiment is prominent, but the religion of the chansons is of the simplest, not to say of the most savage character. To pray to God and to kill his enemies constitutes the whole duty of man. In the romances the mystical element becomes on the contrary prominent, and furnishes, in the Holy Grail, one of the most important features. In the Carlovingian knight the courtesy and clemency which we have learnt to associate with chivalry are almost entirely absent. The gentix ber contradicts, jeers at, and execrates his sovereign and his fellows with the utmost freedom. He thinks nothing of strik, ing his cortoise moullier so that the blood runs down her cler vis. If a servant or even an equal offends him, he will throw the offender into the fire, knock his brains out, or set his whiskers ablaze. The Arthurian knight is far more of the modern model in these respects. But his chief difference from his predecessor is undoubtedly in his amorous devotion to his beloved, who, if not morally superior to Bellicent, Floripas, Esclairmonde, and the other Carlovingian heroines, is somewhat less forward. Even in minute details the difference is strongly marked. The romances are in octosyllabic couplets or in prose, and their language is different from that of the chansons, and contains much fewer of the usual epic repetitions and stock phrases. A voluminous controversy has been held respecting the origin of these differences, and of the story or stories which were destined to receive such remarkable attention. Reference must be made to the article ARTHURIAN LEGEND for the history of this controversy and for an account of its present state. This state, however, and all subsequent states, are likely to be rather dependent upon opinion than upon actual knowledge. From the point of view of the general historian of literature it may not be improper here to give a caution against the frequent use of the word "proven" in such matters. Very little in regard to early literature, except the literary value of the texts, is ever susceptible of proof; although things may be made more or less probable. What we are at present concerned with, however, is a body of verse and prose composed in the latter part of the 12th century and later. The earliest romances, the Saint Graal, the Quête du Saint Graal, Joseph d'Arimathie and Merlin bear the names of Walter Map and Robert de Borron. Artus and part at least of Lancelot du Lac (the whole of which has been by turns attributed and denied to

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French epic poetry. Some of their authors even confess to the
practice of fiction, while the trouvères of the chansons invariably
assert the historical character of their facts and personages, and
the authors of the Arthurian romances at least start from facts
vouched for, partly by national tradition, partly by the
authority of religion and the church. The classical romances,
however, are important in two different ways.
In the first place,
they connect the early literature of France, however loosely, and
with links of however dubious authenticity, with the great history
and literature of the past. They show a certain amount of scholar-
ship in their authors, and in their hearers they show a capacity
of taking an interest in subjects which are not merely those
directly connected with the village or the tribe. The chansons
de geste had shown the creative power and independent character
of French literature. There is, at least about the earlier ones,
nothing borrowed, traditional or scholarly. They smack of the
soil, and they rank France among the very few countries which, in
this matter of indigenous growth, have yielded more than folk-
songs and fireside tales. The Arthurian romances, less inde-
pendent in origin, exhibit a wider range of view, a greater
knowledge of human nature, and a more extensive command
of the sources of poetical and romantic interest. The classical
epics superadd the only ingredient necessary to an accomplished
literature that is to say, the knowledge of what has been done
by other peoples and other literatures already, and the readiness
to take advantage of the materials thus supplied.

Walter Map) appear to be due to unknown authors. Tristan | in these classical stories than in either of the other divisions of came later, and has a stronger mixture of Celtic tradition. At the same time as Walter Map, or a little later, Chrétien (or Chrestien) de Troyes threw the legends of the Round Table into octosyllabic verse of a singularly spirited and picturesque character. The chief poems attributed to him are the Chevalier au Lyon (Sir Ewain of Wales), the Chevalier à la Charette (one of the episodes of Lancelot), Eric et Enide, Tristan and Percivale. These poems, independently of their merit, which is great, had an extensive literary influence. They were translated by the German minnesingers, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Gottfried of Strassburg, and others. With the romances already referred to, which are mostly in prose, and which by recent authorities have been put later than the verse tales which used to be postponed to them, Chretien's poems complete the early forms of the Arthurian story, and supply the matter of it as it is best known to English readers in Malory's book. Nor does that book, though far later than the original forms, convey a very false impression of the characteristics of the older romances. Indeed, the Arthurian knight, his character and adventures, are so much better known than the heroes of the Carlovingian chanson that there is less need to dwell upon them. They had, however, as has been already pointed out, great influence upon their rivals, and their comparative fertility of invention, the much larger number of their dramatis personac, and the greater variety of interests to which they appealed, sufficiently explain their increased popularity. The ordinary attractions of poetry are also more largely present in them than in the chansons; there is more description, more life, and less of the mere chronicle. They have been accused of relaxing morality, and there is perhaps some truth in the charge. But the change is after all one rather of manners than of morals, and what is lost in simplicity is gained in refinement. Doon de Mayence is a late chanson, and Lancelot du Lac is an early romance. But the two beautiful scenes, in the former between Doon and Nicolette, in the latter between Lancelot, Galahault, Guinevere, and the Lady of Malehaut, may be compared as instances of the attitude of the two classes of poets towards the same subject.

Romans d'Aventures.-These are the three earliest developments of French literature on the great scale. They led, however, to a fourth, which, though later in date than all except their latest forms and far more loosely associated as a group, is so closely connected with them by literary and social considerations that it had best be mentioned here. This is the roman d'aventures, a title given to those almost avowedly fictitious poems which connect themselves, mainly and centrally, neither with French history, with the Round Table, nor with the heroes of antiquity. These began to be written in the 13th century, and continued until the prose form of fiction became generally preferred. The later forms of the chansons de geste and the Arthurian poems might indeed be well called romans d'aventures themselves. Hugues Capel, for instance, a chanson in form and class of subject, is certainly one of this latter kind in treatment; and there is a larger class of semi-Arthurian romance, which so to speak branches off from the main trunk. But for convenience sake the definition we have given is preferable. The style and subject of these romans d'aventures are naturally extremely various. Guillaume de Palerme deals with the adventures of a

Romances of Antiquity.-There is yet a third class of early narrative poems, differing from the two former in subject, but agreeing, sometimes with one sometimes with the other in form. These are the classical romances-the Matière de Rome-which are not much later than those of Charlemagne and Arthur. The chief subjects with which their authors busied themselves were the conquests of Alexander and the siege of Troy, though other classical stories come in. The most remarkable of all is the romance of Alixandre by Lambert the Short and Alexander of Bernay. It has been said that the excellence of the twelve-Sicilian prince who is befriended by a were-wolf; Le Roman de syllabled verse used in this romance was the origin of the term alexandrine. The Trojan romances, on the other hand, are chiefly in octosyllabic verse, and the principal poem which treats of them is the Roman de Troie of Benoit de Sainte More. Both this poem and Alixandre are attributed to the last quarter of the 12th century. The authorities consulted for these poems were, as may be supposed, none of the best. Dares Phrygius, Dictys Cretensis, the pseudo-Callisthenes supplied most of them. But the inexhaustible invention of the trouvères themselves was the chief authority consulted. The adventures of Medea, the wanderings of Alexander, the Trojan horse, the story of Thebes, were quite sufficient to spur on to exertion the minds which had been accustomed to spin a chanson of some 10,000 lines out of a casual allusion in some preceding poem. It is needless to say that anachronisms did not disturb them. From first to last the writers of the chansons had not in the least troubled themselves with attention to any such matters. Charlemagne himself had his life and exploits accommodated to the need of every poet who treats of him, and the same is the case with the heroes of antiquity. Indeed, Alexander is made in many respects a prototype of Charlemagne. He is regularly knighted, he has twelve peers, he holds tournaments, he has relations with Arthur, and comes in contact with fairies, he takes flights in the air, dives in the sea and so forth. There is perhaps more avowed imagination

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l'escoufle, with a heroine whose ring is carried off by a sparrowhawk (escoufle), like Prince Camaralzaman's talisman; Guy of Warwick, with one of the most famous of imaginary heroes; Meraugis de Portléguez is a sort of branch or offshoot of the romances of the Round Table; Cléomadès, the work of the trouvère Adenès le Roi, who also rehandled the old chanson subjects of Ogier and Berte aux grans piés, connects itself once more with the Arabian Nights as well as with Chaucer forwards in the introduction of a flying mechanical horse. There is, in short, no possibility of classifying their subjects. The habit of writing in gestes, or of necessarily connecting the new work with an older one, had ceased to be binding, and the instinct of fiction writing was free; yet those romans d'aventures do not rank quite as high in literary importance as the classes which preceded them. This under-valuation arises rather from a lack of originality and distinctness of savour than from any shortcomings in treatment. Their versification, usually octosyllabic, is pleasant enough; but there is not much distinctness of character about them, and their incidents often strike the reader with something of the sameness, but seldom with much of the naïveté, of those of the older poems. Nevertheless some of them attained to a very high popularity, such, for instance, as the Partenopex de Blois of Denis Pyramus, which has a motive drawn from the story of Cupid and Psyche and the charming Floire et Blanchefleur, giving the woes of a

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istics of early narrative.

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Christian prince and a Saracen slave-girl. With them may be of not a few writers who composed what were often, after the connected a certain number of early romances and fictions of mysterious original poet, named Ysopets. Aesop, Phaedrus, various dates in prose, none of which can vie in charm with Babrius were translated and imitated in Latin and in the vernaAucassin et Nicolette (13th century), an exquisite literary pre- cular by this class of writer, and some of the best known of sentment of medieval sentiment in its most delightful form. "fablers" date from this time. The fabliau, on the other In these classes may be said to be summed up the literature of hand, according to the best definition of it yet achieved, is feudal chivalry in France. They were all, except perhaps the last, the recital, generally comic, of a real or possible incident composed by one class of persons, the trouvères, and occurring in ordinary human life." The comedy, it may be added, character performed by another, the jongleurs. The latter, is usually of a satiric kind, and occupies itself with every class indeed, sometimes presumed to compose for himself, and rank of men, from the king to the villain. There is no limit and was denounced as a troveor batard by the indignant to the variety of these lively verse-tales, which are invariably members of the superior caste. They were all originally written in eight-syllabled couplets. Now the subject is the misintended to be performed in the palais marberin of the baron to adventure of two Englishmen, whose ignorance of the French an audience of knights and ladies, and, when reading became language makes them confuse donkey and lamb; now it is the more common, to be read by such persons. They dealt therefore fortunes of an exceedingly foolish knight, who has an amiable chiefly, if not exclusively, with the class to whom they were and ingenious mother-in-law; now the deserved sufferings of addressed. The bourgeois and the villain, personages of political an avaricious or ill-behaved priest; now the bringing of an nonentity at the time of their early composition, come in for ungrateful son to a better mind by the wisdom of babes and far slighter notice, although occasionally in the few curious sucklings. Not a few of the Canterbury Tales are taken directly instances we have mentioned, and others, persons of a class from fabliaux; indeed, Chaucer, with the possible exception of inferior to the seigneur play an important part. The habit of Prior, is our nearest approach to a fabliau-writer. At the other private wars and of insurrection against the sovereign supply end of Europe the prose novels of Boccaccio and other Italian the motives of the chanson de geste, the love of gallantry, tale-teHers are largely based upon fabliaux. But their influence adventure and foreign travel those of the romances Arthurian in their own country was the greatest. They were the first and miscellaneous. None of these motives much affected the expression of the spirit which has since animated the most lower classes, who were, with the early developed temper of the national and popular developments of French literature. Simple middle- and lower-class Frenchman, already apt to think and and unpretending as they are in form, the fabliaux announce speak cynically enough of tournaments, courts, crusades and not merely the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles and the Heptameron, the other occupations of the nobility. The communal system L'Avocat Patelin, and Pantagruel, but also L'Avare and the was springing up, the towns were receiving royal encouragement Roman comique, Gil Blas and Candide. They indeed do more as a counterpoise to the authority of the nobles. The corruptions than merely prophesy the spirit of these great performances and maladministration of the church attracted the satire rather-they directly lead to them. The prose-tale and the farce are of the citizens and peasantry who suffered by them, than of the the direct outcomes of the fabliau, and the prose-tale and the nobles who had less to fear and even something to gain. farce once given, the novel and the comedy inevitably follow. On the other hand, the gradual spread of learning, The special period of fabliau composition appears to have been inaccurate and ill-digested perhaps, but still learning, the r2th and 13th centuries. It signifies on the one side the not only opened up new classes of subjects, but opened growth of a lighter and more sportive spirit than had Social them to new classes of persons. The thousands of students who yet prevailed, on another the rise in importance of importflocked to the schools of Paris were not all princes or nobles. other and lower orders of men than the priest and the Hence there arose two new classes of literature, the first consisting noble, on yet another the consciousness on the part of the embodiment of learning of one kind or other in the vulgar of these lower orders of the defects of the two privileged classes, tongue. The other, one of the most remarkable developments of and of the shortcomings of the system of polity under which sportive literature which the world has seen, produced the second these privileged classes enjoyed their privileges. There is, howindigenous literary growth of which France can boast, namely, ever, in the fabliau proper not so very much of direct satire, this the fabliaux, and the almost more remarkable work which is an being indeed excluded by the definition given above, and by the immense conglomerate of fabliaux, the great beast-epic of the thoroughly artistic spirit in which that definition is observed. Roman de Renart. The fabliaux are so numerous and so various that it is difficult to select any as specially representative. We may, however, mention, both as good examples and as interesting from their subsequent history, Le Vair Palfroi, treated in English by Leigh Hunt and by Peacock; Le Vilain Mire, the original consciously or unconsciously followed in Le Médecin malgré lui, Le Rai d'Angleterre et le jongleur d'Éli; La houce partie; Le Sot Chevalier, an indecorous but extremely amusing story; Les deux bordeors ribaus, a dialogue between two jongleurs of great literary interest, containing allusions to the chansons de geste and romances most in vogue; and Le vilain qui conquist paradis par plait, one of the numerous instances of what has unnecessarily puzzled moderns, the association in medieval times of sincere and unfeigned faith with extremely free handling of its objects. This lightheartedness in other subjects sometimes bubbled over into the fatrasie, an almost pure nonsense-piece, parent of the later amphigouri.

Spread of literary Laste.

over.

Fabliaux.-There are few literary products which have more originality and at the same time more diversity than the fabliau. The epic and the drama, even when they are independently produced, are similar in their main characteristics all the world But there is nothing in previous literature which exactly corresponds to the fabliau. It comes nearest to the Aesopic fable and its eastern origins or parallels. But differs from these in being less allegorical, less obviously moral (though a moral of some sort is usually if not always enforced), and in having a much more direct personal interest. It is in many degrees further removed from the parable, and many degrees nearer to the novel. The story is the first thing, the moral the second, and the latter is never suffered to interfere with the former. These observations apply only to the fabliaux, properly so called, but the term has been used with considerable looseness. The collectors of those interesting pieces, Barbazan, Méon, Le Grand d'Aussy, have included in their collections large numbers of miscellaneous pieces such as dits (rhymed descriptions of various objects, the most famous known author of which was Baudouin de Condé, 13th century), and débats (discussions between two persons or contrasts of the attributes of two things), sometimes even short romances, farces and mystery plays. Not that the fable proper-the prose classical beast-story of " Aesop was neglected. Marie de France-the poetess to be mentioned again for her more strictly poetical work-is the most literary

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ance of fabliaux.

Roman de Renart.-If the fabliaux are not remarkable for direct satire, that element is supplied in more than compensating quantity by an extraordinary composition which is closely related to them. Le Roman de Renart, or History of Reynard the Fox, is a poem, or rather series of poems, which, from the end of the 12th to the middle of the 14th century, served the citizen poets of northern France, not merely as an outlet for literary expression, but also as a vehicle of satirical comment,-now on the general vices and weaknesses of humanity, now on the usual corruptions in church and state, now on the various historical

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