Page:The Cambridge History of American Literature, v4.djvu/74

 486 Scholars Observations on the Language of Chaucer. Slight errors in detail did not prevent this account of Chaucer's life from being the most accurate which had yet been written. The third mono- graph, that on Chaucer's text, is an admirable popular account of the method of textual criticism. The fourth presents Louns- bury's canon of Chaucer's work. The fifth, that on Chaucer's learning, is admirable again in its comprehensive view of Chaucer's sources and of the use he made of them. The sixth consists of two sections, one on Chaucer's language, and the other on his religion. The seventh and the eighth, perhaps the most valuable of all, treat respectively Chaucer's "fortunes" — Chaucer in Literary History — and his craftsmanship — Chaucer as a Literary A rtist. The Studies are exceedingly diffuse. They suffer from occasional paradox. Their arguments (Chapter vii) that Chaucer's spelling and pronunciation should be modernized, can surely not be allowed. Yet, volume for volume, it would not be easy to find anywhere a set of more solidly valuable literary studies. They have served to give body and weight to many a student's vague conceptions of Chaucer, and, as their style is popular, they must also have carried their substantial materials to many "general" readers. The three volumes of Shakespearean Wars (1901-06) began as a study of Shakespeare's text. Soon it appeared that the treatment accorded the text by editors and critics depended in great measure upon their conception of Shakespeare's art ; hence Lounsbury, in much the same way in which he had stud- ied the "fortunes" of Chaucer, was led to study the "fortunes" of Shakespeare. These, as might have been expected, proved to be deeply involved in the general opposition of romanticists to classicists; and of the latter Voltaire emerged as the inter- national champion. Thus finally Lounsbury's studies took shape in a volume on Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist, a volume on Shakespeare and Voltaire, and a volume on The Text of Shakespeare. The first traces to the end of the eighteenth century the course of English opinion about dramatic matters. It shows, what had perhaps been only suspected or inferred, that Shakespeare was, throughout, an encouragement to the more "romantic" party in the controversies; contrary to an opinion rather generally credited, it shows, too, that Shake- speare was esteemed at all times, and esteemed highly even by