towards the accepted French dramatic pattern in his Saul
furieux and his Corrivaux, Jacques, his brother (1541–1562), and
Jean de la Péruse (1529–1554), who wrote a Médée. A very Garnier.
different poet from all these is Robert Garnier (1545–1601).
Garnier 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. He
chose his subjects indifferently from classical, sacred and medieval
literature. Sédécie, a play dealing with the capture of Jerusalem
by Nebuchadnezzar, is held to be his masterpiece, and Bradamante
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 Monchrétien or
Montchrestien (c. 1576–1621), set the example of dramatizing
contemporary subjects. His masterpiece is L’Écossaise, 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 first comic writer of great Larivey.
merit was Pierre Larivey (c. 1550–c. 1612), an Italian
by descent. Most if not all of his plays are founded
on Italian originals, but the translations or adaptations are made
with the greatest freedom, and almost 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. Even Molière found something to use in
Larivey.
16th-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 miscellaneous 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 Parthenopex de Blois. The romances, ballads and pastourelles, signed and unsigned, of medieval France were not merely the origin, but in some respects the superiors, of the lyric poetry which succeeded them. Thibaut de Champagne, Charles d’Orléans and Villon need not veil 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 exception 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 Nouvelles, 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 whatever 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 continuous 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 François Rabelais (c. 1490–1553), the one French writer (or with Molière one of the two) whom critics the least inclined to appreciate the characteristics of French literature have agreed to place among Rabelais. the few greatest of the world. 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 philosopher, 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 portentous when taken in conjunction with his other characteristics. 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 personage 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 uncomeliness, its high aspirations, its voluptuous tastes, its political 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 “Pléiade” and Marot, the Cymbalum mundi and Montaigne, Amyot and the Amadis, even Calvin and Duperron.
It was inevitable that such extraordinary works as Gargantua 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 Rabelaisian 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 has been called fatrasie, the huddling together, that is to say, of a medley of language and images which is best known to English readers in the not always successful following of Sterne. It pleased him also to disguise his naturally terse, strong and nervous style in a burlesque envelope of redundant language, partly ironical, partly the result of superfluous erudition, and partly that of a certain childish wantonness and exuberance, which is one of his raciest and pleasantest characteristics. In both these points he was somewhat corruptly followed. But fortunately the romancical writers of the 16th century had not Rabelais for their sole model, but were also influenced by the simple and straightforward style of the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles. The joint influence gives us some admirable work. Nicholas of Troyes, a saddler of Champagne, came too early (his Grand Parangon des nouvelles nouvelles appeared in 1536) to copy Rabelais. But Noël du Fail (d. c. 1585?), a judge at Rennes, shows the double influence in his Propos rustiques and Contes d’Eutrapel, both of which, especially the former, are lively and well-written pictures of contemporary life and thought, as the country magistrate actually saw and dealt with them. In 1558, however, appeared two works of far higher literary and social interest. These are Des Periers. the Heptaméron of the queen of Navarre, and the Contes et joyeux devis of Bonaventure des Periers (c. 1500–1544). Des Periers, who was a courtier of Marguerite’s, has sometimes been thought to have had a good deal to do with the first-named work as well as with the second, and was also the author of a curious Lucianic satire, strongly sceptical in cast, the Cymbalum mundi. Indeed, not merely
