Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/896

$7 2 PROVENQAL [LITERATURE. nnmbernf words, either wanting or wrongly explained in the Lexique rnman. 3. Modern form. The most useful grammatical works (all done with insufficient knowledge of phonology, and under the preconceived idea that there exist dialects with definite circumscription) are J. R. Andrews, Efsai de grammaire du dialects mmtonais [Mentonej (Nice, 1878), see also his " Phone tique tnentonaise," in Romania, xii. *>4 ; Cantagrel. -Vo/f.i iur I orthographic et la pronunciation langiie- dociennes, prefixed to La Cannon de la Lauseto, by A. Mir (Montpellier, 187(i); Chabaneau, Grammain limousine (Paris, 1870), referring especially to the variety of Xontron, in the north of Pe rigord (Hoidogne) ; Constans, Essai fur I histoire du sous-dialect edit Rouergue (Montpellier and Paris, 1880): Lespy, Grammaire brarnaise (2d ed.. Paris, 1880) ; A. Luchuire, Etudes sur les idiomes pyreiie ens de la region franchise (Paris, 1879); Moutier, Crammaire dauphinoise, Dialecte de la ralle e de hi Drdme (Montelimar, 1882); Ruben, -Etude sur le patois du Haut Limousin," prenxed to Poem* by J. Foucaud, in the Limousin patois (Limoges, Iti6). As to dictionaries we may mention, among others, Andrews, Vocabulaire frantais-inentonais (Nice, 1877) ;"Azais, Dictionnaire ties idiomes romans du midi de la Fratice (Montpeilier, 1877, 3 vols. 8vo), taking for its basis the dialect of Be ziers; Chabraud and l>e Rochas d Aiglun, Patois des Alpes Cottiennes et en fiarticulifr du (jueuras (Grenoble and Paris, 1877); Couzinie, Dictionnaire de la langue romano-catt raise (Castres, 1850); Garcin, Noureau dictionnaire provenfal- franfai* (Diaguignan, 1841, 2 vols.); Honnorat, Dictionnaire provenc.al-franfais (Digne, 184fi-i, 2 vols. 4to) ; ^De Sauvagea, Dictionnaire langvedocien-Jranfait (newr ed., Alais. 1S20. 2 vols.); Vayssier, Dictionnaire patois-fran^ais du departe- nient de 1 Areuron (P.odez, 1879). From 1880 the Dictionnaire provenfal-franfait of Fr. Mistral, in 2 vols. 4to, has been in progress ; more than the half has ap peared. This dictionary takes as Its basis the variety of Maillane (in the north of Bouches-du-Khone). the" author s native disti ict, and gives in as complete a manner as possible all the forms used in the south of France. It is by far the best of all the dictionaries of the southern dialects which have yet been published, and when finished it will almost enable the student to dispense with all the others. II. PROVENCAL LITERATURE. Provencal literature is much more easily defined than the language in which it is expressed. Starting in the llth and 12th centuries in several centres, it thence gradually spread out, first over the greater portion, though not the whole, of southern France, and then into the north of Italy and Spain. It nowhere merged in the neighbouring literatures. At the time of its highest development (12th century) the art of composing in the vulgar tongue did not exist, or was only beginning to exist, to the south of the Alps and the Pyrenees. In the north, in the country of French speech, vernacular poetry was in full bloom ; but between the districts in which it had developed Champagne, tie de France, Picardy, and Normandy and the region in which Provencal literature had sprung up, there seems to have been an intermediate zone formed by Burgundy, Bourbon- nais, Berry, Touraine, and Anjou which, far on in the Middle Ages, appears to have remained barren of vernacular literature. In its rise Prove^al literature stands com pletely by itself, and in its development it long continued to be absolutely original. It presents at several points genuine analogies with the sister-literature of northern France ; but these analogies are due principally to certain primary elements common to both and only in a slight degree to mutual reaction. It must be inquired, however, what amount of origin ality could belong to any, even the most original, Romanic literature in the Middle Ages. In all Romanic countries compositions in the vernacular began to appear while the custom of writing in Latin was still preserved by unin terrupted tradition. Even during the most barbarous periods, when intellectual life was at its lowest, it was in Latin that sermons, lives of saints more or less apocryphal, accounts of miracles designed to attract pilgrims to certain shrines, monastic annals, legal documents, and contracts of all kinds were composed. When learning began to re vive, as was the case in northern and central France under the influence of Charlemagne and later in the llth century, it was Latin literature which naturally received increased attention, and the Latin language was more than ever employed in writing. Slowly and gradually the Romanic languages, especially those of France, came to occupy part of the ground formerly occupied by Latin, but even after the ^ Middle Ages had passed away the parent tongue retained no small portions of its original empire. Conse quently Romanic literatures in general (and this is especi ally true of Provencal as it does not extend beyond the mediaeval period) afford only an incomplete representation of the intellectual development of each country. Those literatures even which are most truly national, as having been subjected to no external influence, are only to a limited extent capable of teaching us what the nation was. They were, in short, created in the interests of the illiterate part of the people, and to a considerable degree by those who were themselves illiterate. But that does not make them less interesting. Origin. It was in the 1 1th century, and at several places in the extensive territory whose limits have been described in the foregoing account of the Prove^al language, that Provencal literature first made its appearance. It took poetic form ; and its oldest monuments show a relative perfection and a variety from which it may be concluded that poetry had already received a considerable develop ment. The oldest poetic text, if the date and origin be correctly determined, is said to be a Provei^al refrain attached to a Latin poem recently published (Zeitschrift fur deutsche Philologie, 1881, p. 335) from a Vatican MS., written, it is asserted, in the 10th century. But it is use less to linger over these few words, the text of which seems corrupt, or at least has not yet been satisfactorily interpreted. The honour of being the oldest literary monument of the Provengal language must be assigned to a fragment of two hundred and fifty-seven decasyllabic verses preserved in an Orleans MS. and frequently edited and annotated since it was first printed by Raynouard in 1817 in his Choix des poesies originates des Troubadours. The writing of the MS. is of the first half of the llth century. The peculiarities of the language point to the north of the Provencal region, probably Limousin or Marche. It is the beginning of a poem in which the unknown author, taking Boetius s treatise De Consolatione Philosopldx as the groundwork of his composition, adopts and develops its ideas and gives them a Christian cast of which there is no trace in the original. Thus from some verses in which Boetius contrasts his happy youth with his afflicted old age he draws a lengthy homily on the necessity of laying up from early years a treasure of good works. The poem is consequently a didactic piece com posed by a "clerk," knowing Latin. He doubtless preferred the poetic form to prose because his illiterate contempor aries were accustomed to poetry in the vulgar tongue, and because this form was better adapted to recitation ; and thus his work, while a product of erudition in as far as it was an adaptation of a Latin treatise, shows that at the time when it was composed a vernacular poetry was in existence. A little later, at the close of the same century, we have the poems of William IX., count of Poitiers, duke of Guienne. They consist of eleven very diverse strophic pieces, and were consequently meant to be sung. Several are love songs ; one relates a bonne fortune in very gross terms ; and the most important of all the only one which can be approximately dated, being composed at the time when William was setting out for Spain to fight the Saracens expresses in touching and often noble words the writer s regret for the frivolity of his past life and the apprehensions which oppressed him as he bade farewell, perhaps for ever, to his country and his young son. We also know from Ordericus Vitalis that William IX. had composed various poems on the incidents of his ill-fated expedition to the Holy Land in 1101. And it must further be mentioned that in one of his pieces (Ben voil que sapckon li plusor) he makes a very clear allusion to a kind of poetry which we know only by specimens of later date, the partimen, or, as it is called in France, ihejeu parti. William IX. was born in 1071 and died in 1127. There is no doubt that the most prolific period of his literary activity was his youth. On the other hand there is no reason to believe that he created the type of poetry of which he is to us the oldest representative. It is easy to understand how his high social rank saved some of his

productions from oblivion whilst the poems of his pre-