Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/498

 494 Nordmeyer of completeness in the presentation of pertinent matter," while it must be left to the "intensive" literary criticism to deal "in minute detail with some single phase of a given writer or group of writers." Very well, but that compels nobody to treat us to quotations from the classics. As a matter of fact, the book is a syllabus, although, unfortunately, it does not say so, and when we remember that it covers one thousand years of literary history what else could it be? Taken and treated as a syllabus, then, it is only fair to state that the little volume might be turned to good use, for example by the author himself, fur- nishing the groundwork for some serious study of the subject: as to the causes of political satire, which may be discovered in the conditions of the time, in the writer, in literary fashion, etc.; its relation to the rise and decline of the satirical spirit as such; its scope; its direction, both from a pragmatic and a historic standpoint; to what extent it was representative of public opinion; its effect on public opinion; its influence on other writers and, incidentally, on the writer himself (its function in his own life); its influence on literary production in general; its relation to, and its parallels in, the graphic arts, etc. etc. That a doctor's thesis cannot be expected to do justice to all these aspects of the problem unless the period to be studied be relatively brief, is patent to everybody; but to believe that by mere "extensiveness," one can replace the solidity of results of "intensive" study is scholarly superstition. Nothing has been said as yet regarding the introductory chapter, "Some Historical Data." Based chiefly on Bryce, Giesebrecht, and Lamprecht (see p. 2), especially Bryce, it is characterized by its title. Regarding the history of the Holy Roman Empire some observations are given, intended to acquaint the reader with the subject-matter of the satirical literature to be discussed. The peculiar workings of the medie- val mind, in political and other respects, is not understood although the author recognizes the problem. Had he included St. Augustin's Cimtas Dei in the course of his studies he might have made some more valuable suggestions. On the whole, however, the chapter may be said to serve its purpose. It is a clever piece of literary journalism, evidently composed much later than^the bulk of 'the work, and in a different spirit. The Bibliography may hardly be called either critical or comprehensive. Nevertheless, it comprises an amount of reading-matter any doctor andus may be proud of having covered. We regret that in the General Section the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographic has apparently been overlooked; in many matters it would have been more practical in a study as the author had planned it than the everlasting Vogt-Koch given on p. 133. We are surprised to see that not a single work on German