Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 14, 1903.djvu/181

 Obituary. 165

lay afresh, with the thoroughness and accuracy demanded by modern criticism, the foundations for the intellectual and aesthetic history of the French mind in the period which lies between the definite break up of the Classic and the constitution of the Modern world. In the prosecution of this task he could not fail to note the variety and importance of those elements derived from more archaic cultures than that of Classic Antiquity, nor to be struck by the way in which many elements of Classic or Oriental culture were refashioned and transformed in the process of assimilation by Mediaeval Christendom. He combined a familiarity with the assured results of Classic, Oriental, Germanic, and Celtic research, which enabled him to bring the facts of his own special mine of work, Romance philology, into touch or harmony with the genera trend of study ; a sanity of view which enabled him to lay the proper stress upon each among the many elements of the complex whole he was analysing ; and a sympathetic insight which caused him to disregard no element however humble or alien it might seem. In studies such as he undertook, these qualities are of first-rate importance ; and it is doubtful if any scholar has ever possessed them in happier or more fruitful combination than did M. Gaston Paris.

In addition to his work on the Charlemagne Cycle and that of Arthur (the Matiere de Bretagne)} there is scarcely a general mediaeval legendary or romantic cycle that he has not dealt with and the criticism of which he has not sensibly advanced. Special mention may be made of his work on the Solomon and Morolf story {Romania, vol. ix. ), the .^sopic Fable and Reynard Cycle (chiefly in the Journal des Savants), the Wandering Jew {Encyclo- pedic des sciences religieuses), the Infants of Lara {Revue de Paris, reprinted in Pohnes et Legendes du Moyen Age), the Accursed Dancers {Journal des Savants, 1900), the Tannhliuser legend {Revue de Paris, reprinted in Poemes et Legejtdes). Ballad and folk-poetry was ever a favourite subject of his ; in 1875 he edited for the Societe des Anciens textes the extant Chansons du 15^ Siecle ; in monographs such as that on the "Chanson du

' Chiefly set forth as far as the second is concerned in his studies on Lancelot {Romania, vol. x.), in his analyses of the " biographical " romances of the cycle (^Histoire Ittteraire, vol. xxx. ), in his edition of the anonymous " lais " akin to those of Marie de France {Romania, vols. 7, 8), and in his exemplary edition of the so-called " Hufk Merlin " (2 vols. Svo, 1S90-91).