FRANCE
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FRANCE
the wolf, Noble, the lion, Chantecler, the cock, pseudo-
animals that mingle with their bearing an<l instincts as
animals traits and feeUngs borrowed from liumanity.
Under pretext of relating an intrigue bristling with
complications, in which Ysengrin and Renart are
pitted against each other, the "Roman", a kind of
parody of the chansons de geste, ridicules the nobles,
feudal society, and feudal institutions.
Didactic Poetry. — Nobles and bourgeois, the two classes which, in the literature of the Middle Ages, speak with two accents so dissimilar, have one point of resemblance: the one class is as ignorant as the other. Only the clerics had any hold upon science — the little science which those times possessed. It had long remained shut up in Latin books composed in imitation of ancient models, but, beginning from the thirteenth century, the clerics conceived the idea of bringing the intellectual contents of tliese works with- in the domain of the vulgar tongue. This was the origin of didactic literature, in which the most impor- tant work is the "Roman de la Rose", an immense encyclopedic work produced by two authors with ten- dencies and mentalities in absolute mutual opposition, collaborating at an interval of forty years. The first 4000 hnes of the "Roman de la Rose" were viTitten about the year 1236 by Guillaurae de Lorris, a charm- ing versifier endowed with every attractive quality. In the design of Guillaume de Lorris, the work is another "Art of Love"; the author proposes to de- scribe in it love and the effects of love, and to indicate the way of success for a lover. He personifies all the phases and varieties of love and of the other senti- ments which attend it, and makes of them so many allegorical figures. Jealousy, Sadness, Reason, Fair Response (Bd-Accueil) — such are the abstractions to which Lorris lends a tenuous embodiment. With Jean de Meung, who wrote the continuation of the " Roman de la Rose", about 1275, the inspiration changes com- pletely. Love is no longer the only subject. In a number of prolix discourses, aggregating 22,000 lines in length, the later author not only contrives to bring in a multitude of notions on physics and philosophy, but enters into a very severe criticism of contemporary social organization.
Prose and the Chroniclers. — Prose separates itself from poetry but slowly; when the epic outpouring has been exhausted history appears to take its place. It is the great movement of the Crusades that gives the impulse. Villehardouin, in his " Histoire de la Con- quete de Constantinople" (1207), relates the events which he witnessed as a participant in the fourth cru- sade; he knows how to see and how to tell, with restraint and vigour, what he has seen and done. His chronicle is not, strictly speaking, history, but rather memoirs. JoinviUe attaches more importance to the moral element; the charm of his "Histoire de Saint Louis" (1309) is in the bonhomie, at once frank and deliberate, with which he sets forth the king's virtues and recounts his "chevaleries".
The great representative of history in the Middle Ages is Froissart (1337-1410); in him we have to deal with a veritable writer. Just wlien the feudal world was entering upon its period of decadence, and the chivalry of France had been decimated at Crccy and Agincourt, feudalism and chivalry find in Froissart their most marvellous portrayer. His work, "Chron- iquesdeFrance.d'Angleterre, d'Espagne, de Bretagne, Gascogne, de Flandre et autres heux", is the story of all the splendid feats of arms in the Hundred Years' War. Pitched battles, assaults, mere skirmishes, iso- lated raids, deeds of chivalric daring, single combats- he describes them with a picturesque effect and a dis- tinction of style new in our literature. An aristocratic writer, he is above all attracted by the brilliant aspects of society — wealth, gallantry, chivalry. He scorns the bourgeois and the common people, and considers it quite natural that they should pay the cost of war.
In his work is nothing to recall the gloominess of the
period; he has seen in it nothing but exploits and
heroic adventure.
Froissart knew how to depict the outward semblance of an epoch. Philippe de Commynes, on the other hand, the historian of Louis XI, is a connoisseur of souls; his viewpoint is from within. A minister of Louis XI, and then of Charles VIII, he is versed in affairs. He is much given, moreover, to analysis of character and the unravelling of events which have a political bearing. He goes back from effects to causes and is already rising to the conception of the general laws which govern history. One umst not look for either brilliancy or relief in his style; but he has clear- ness, precision, solidity.
The Drama. — ^The fifteenth century would make but a sorry figure in the history of French literature had it not been that in this epoch there developed and flourislied a literary form which had already been inchoate during the preceding centuries. Entirely original in foundation and style, that drama owes nothing to antiquity. It was the Church, the great power of those ages, which gave birth to it. For the masses in the Middle Ages the church was the home where, united in the same thouglits and the same con- soling hopes, they spent that part of their lives which was the best, and so the longest offices of the Church were the most beloved by the people. Conformably with this feeling, the clergy interpolated in the offices representations of certain events in religious history. Such was the liturgical drama, which was presented more especially at the feasts of Christmas (" Les Pas- teurs", "L'Epoux", "Les Prophetes") and Easter ("La Passion", "La R(5surrection", "Les P61erins"). At first the liturgical drama was no more than a trans- lation of the Bible into action and dialogue, but little by little it changed as it developed. The text became longer, verse took the place of prose, the vernacular supplanted Latin. The drama at the same time was tending to make for itself an independent existence and to come forth from the Church.
In the fourteenth century there appeared "Les Miracles de Notre-Dame", a stage presentment of a marvellous event brought about by the intervention of the Blessed Virgin. Thus was the drama making its way towards its completer form, that of the mysteries. A mystery is the exposition in dialogue of an historical incident taken from Holy Scripture or the lives of the saints. Mysteries may be grouped, according to their subjects, in three cycles: the Old Testament cycle ("Le Mystere du Viel Testament", in 50,000 lines), the New Testament cycle ("La Passion", composed by Arnoul Greban and presented in 1450), the cycle of the saints ("Les Actes des Apotres", by Arnoul and Simon Greban). Metrically, the mystery is written in lines of eight syllables; the lyric passages were sup- posed to be sung. A prologue serves the purpose of stating the theme and bespeaking silence of the audi- ence. The piece itself is divided into days, each day occupying as many lines as could be recited at one seance, and the whole ends with an invitation to prayer: "Chantons Te Deum laudamus".
The dramatic system of the mysteries contains cer- tain thoroughly characteristic elements. First of all, the constant recourse to the marvellous: God, the Blessed Virgin, and the Saints intervene in the action; later on abstract characters — Justice and Peace, Truth, Mercy — are added. Then the mingling of the tragic and the comic: side by side with scenes intended to excite deep emotion, the authors of mysteries present others which are mere buffoonery, and sometimes of the coarsest kind. This comic element is borrowed from scenes of modern life; for anachronism is ram- pant in the mysteries, contemporary questions are dis- cussed, Christ and the saints are depicted as people of the fifteenth century. Lastly, not only does the action wander without restraint from place to place, but
