Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/688

 652 FRANCE [LITERATURE, (1540-1570) with a Mart de Cesar, which shuws an improve ment in dramatic art, by Jacques de la Taille and others, such as Pierre Mathieu, who is strongly moral, and Jean de la Taille brother of Jacques. A very different poet from Gamier, all these is Robert Gamier (1545-1G01). Garnicr is the first tragedian who deserves a place not too far below Rotrou, Corneille, Racine, Voltaire, and Hugo, and who may be placed in the same class with them. lie chose his subjects indifferently from classical, sacred, and mediaeval literature. Sedecie, a play dealing with the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar is held to be his masterpiece, and Brada- mante deserves notice because it is the first tragi-comedy of merit in French, and because the famous confidant here makes his first appearance. Garnier s successor, Antoine de Monchre tien (d. 1621), set the example of dramatizing con temporary subjects. His masterpiece is L lZcossaise, the first of many dramas on the fate of Mary Queen of Scots. While tragedy thus clings closely to antique models, comedy, as might be expected in the country of the fabliaux, is more independent. Italy had already a comic school of some originality, and the French farce was too vigorous and lively a production to permit of its being entirely overlooked. The Plelade and their imitators made endeavours, without much success, to write comedies on the classical model, but Larivey. the first comic writer of great merit was Pierre Larivey (1540-1611) (Giunto), an Italian by descent. Most if not all of his plays are founded on Italian originals, but the adaptations are made with the greatest freedom, and deserve the title of original works. The style is admirable, and the skilful management of the action contrasts strongly with the languor, the awkward adjustment, and the lack of dramatic interest found in contemporary tragedians. 16^/i Century Prose Fiction. Great as is the importance of the 16th century in the history of French poetry, its importance in the history of French prose is greater still. In poetry the Middle Ages could fairly hold their own with any of the ages that have succeeded them. The epics of chivalry whether of the cycles of Charlemagne, Arthur, or the classic heroes, not to mention the mis cellaneous romans d aventures, have indeed more than held their own. Both relatively and absolutely the Franciade of the 16th century, the Pucelle of the 17th, the Henriade of the 18th, cut a very poor figure beside Roland and Percivale, Gerard de Roussillon, and Parth- enopex de Blois. The romances, ballads, and pastourelles, signed and unsigned, of mediaeval France were not merely the origin, but in some respects the superiors, of the lyric poetry which succeeded them. Thibaut de Champagne, Charles d Orle ans, and Villon need not vail their crests in any society of bards. The charming forms of the rondel, the. rondeau, and the ballade have won admiration from every competent poet and critic who has known them. The fabliaux give something more than promise of La Fontaine, and the two great compositions of the Roman du Renart and the Roman de la Rose, despite their faults and their alloy, will always command the admiration of all persons of taste and judgment who take the trouble to study them. But while poetry had in the Middle Ages no reason to blush for her French representatives, prose (always the younger and less forward sister) had far less to boast of. With the ex ception of chronicles and prose romances, no prose works of any real importance can be quoted before the end of the 15th century, and even then the chief if not the only place of importance must be assigned to the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelf.es, a work of admirable prose, but necessarily light in character, and not yet demonstrating the efficacy of the French language as a medium of expression for serious and weighty thought. Up to the time of the Renaissance and the consequent reformation, Latin had, as we have already remarked, been considered the sufficient and natural organ for this expression. In France as in other countries the disturbance in religious thought may undoubtedly claim the glory of having repaired this disgrace of the vulgar tongue, and of having fitted and taught it to express whntecr thoughts the theologian, the historian, the philosopher, the politician, and the savant had occasion to utter. But the use of prose as a vehicle for lighter themes was more con tinuous with the literature that preceded, and serves as a natural transition from poetry and the drama to history and science. Among the prose writers, therefore, of the 16th century we shall give the first place to the novelists and romantic writers. Among these there can be no doubt of the precedence, in every sense of the word, of Fra^ois Rabelais (1495 ?-l 553). No detailed account can here be attempted of this extra ordinary person, the one French writer whom critics the least inclined to appreciate the characteristics of French literature have agreed to place among the few great writers of the world, and not far from Shakespeare and Dante. Immense ingenuity and research have been spent on the task of determining the origin and indebtedness of Ga.rga.ntua and Pantagruel. It is sufficient to say that their form is roughly that of a prose roman d aventures, that Gargan- tua is taken in outline from a burlesque romance of the same name, and that Panurge, who rather than Pantagruel is the hero of the second part, has some resemblance to Cingar, a personage of the macaronic poem of the Italian, Merlinua Coccaiua or Folenso. But the borrowings of 4-1 Rabelais are of little more importance than the borrowings of Shakespeare. With an immense erudition representing almost the whole of the knowledge of his time, with an untiring faculty of invention, with the judgment of a philo sopher, and the common sense of a man of the world, with an observation that let no characteristic of the time pass unobserved, and with a tenfold portion of the special Gallic gift of good-humoured satire, Rabelais united a height of speculation and depth of insight and a vein of poetical imagination rarely found in any writer, but altogether por tentous when taken in conjunction with his other character istics. His great work has been taken for an exercise of transcendental philosophy, for a concealed theological polemic, for an allegorical history of this and that person age of his time, for a merely literary utterance, for an attempt to tickle the popular ear and taste. It is all of these, and it is none, all of them in parts, none of them in deliberate and exclusive intention. It may perhaps be called the exposition and commentary of all the thoughts, feelings, aspirations, and knowledge of a particular time and nation put forth in attractive literary form by a man who for once combined the practical and the literary spirit, the power of knowledge and the power of expression. The work of Rabelais is the mirror of the 16th century in France, reflecting at once its comeliness and its uncomeli- ness, its high aspirations, its voluptuous appetites, its poli tical and religious dissensions, its keen criticism, its eager appetite and hasty digestion of learning, its gleams of poetry, and its ferocity of manners. In Rabelais we can divine the Pleiade and Marot, the Cymbalum Mundi and Montaigne, Amyot and the Amadis, even Calvin and Duperron ; and if in this lengthy mention of the curate of Meuclon we have broken through our principle of allotting only scanty notice to individual authors, his unique repre sentative character must be pleaded in excuse. It was inevitable that such extraordinary works as Gar- gantua and Pantagruel should attract special imitators in the direction of their outward form. It was also inevitable that this imitation should frequently fix upon these Rabel aisian characteristics which are least deserving of imitation, and most likely to be depraved in the hands of imitators. It fell within the plan of the master to indulge in what haa