independent writer. The most important of his works were the classical poems "Gebir" (1795), "Heroic Idyls" and "The Hellenics" (1847); "Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men and Statesmen," composed during the years 1820-1830; "Pericles and Aspasia" (1836), "Pentameron" (1837)," Citation of Shakespeare," and "Last Fruit off an Old Tree" (1853). As a poet he was the link between Scott, Wordsworth, and Byron, and the Victorian poets. His artistic method, classical taste and repose were not in accord with the Age of Revolution, which he despised, and by which he was neglected. Landor stood apart from his contemporaries to lay the foundations of a new poetic movement - one which his unusually long literary career of seventy years enabled him to see promoted and carried forward by the master-hand of Tennyson. "We do not recollect," said Ralph Waldo Emerson of him in 1841, "an example of more complete independence in literary history. He has no clanship, no friendships that warp him." II.-8 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CONTEMPORARY LITERATURES OF FRANCE, GERMANY, ITALY, SPAIN, AND THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WITH HISTORICAL, SCIENTIFIC, AND ART NOTES. I. France.-House of Bourbon: LOUIS XVI., -1792. Republic, 17921804. NAPOLEON, Emperor, 1804-1814. Bourbons restored: LOUIS XVIII., 1814-1824. CHARLES X., 1824-1830. House of Orleans: LOUIS PHILIPPE, 1830 French Revolution, 17891795 Formation of political clubs and societies. Flight and capture of Louis XVI., 1791. Attack on the Tuileries, 1792. Reign of Terror, 1792-1794. Execution of Louis XVI., 1793. Decline in Literature during the Period of the French Revolution and of the Empire.-Just before the revolutionary outbreak two works appeared in French literature which were in striking contrast with the general spirit of the age. In 1784 Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (1737-1814) published a devout poem, "Études de la Nature," and four years afterwards the famous tale, "Paul et Virginie," which Carlyle called "the swan-song of old dying France." Piety and nature, which had been long excluded from literature, reappeared in these productions. In spite of the unfavorable verdict pronounced upon it by the ungodly, artificial critics at Madame Necker's salon, "Paul et Virginie" was loved and admired by all classes in France and in foreign countries. "For many years," says Humboldt, "it was the constant companion of myself and my valued friend and fel low-traveller, Bonpland; and often, in the calm brilliancy of a southern sky, or when, in the rainy season, the thunders re-echoed and the lightning gleamed through the forests that skirt the shores of the Orinoco, we felt ourselves penetrated by the marvellous truth with which tropical nature is described in this little work." The period of Revolution and Empire which followed was unfavorable to literature. Napo Foundation of the French branch of the Scotch School of Commonsense by Royer-Collard (1763-1845), the disciple of Reid, whose lated and expupils, among works he trans pounded to his whom were Victor Cousin leon patronized art, not literature. Poetry fell into the hands of servile imitators called the Classicists of the Decline, who loaded their verses with strained metaphors and saturated them with false sentimentality. The drama became effete and artificial, and continued so in spite of the reformatory efforts of Jean François Ducis (1733-1816), the first of his countrymen to systematically attempt the establishment of Shakespeare's plays on the French stage. Rise of the Romantic School. Chateaubriand, Madame de Staël. With the Restoration a literary movement began similar to that which was taking place in England. It had for its object the repudiation of conventionality and the restoration of religion and nature in literature. The pioneers of the new school were those two illustrious writers of the reign of Napoleon whose works vindicate the earliest departure from the prevailing artificiality and materialism of Humiliation of the era-Chateaubriand and Madame de Staël. and Jouffroy. In opposition to this philosophical school were the ma terialism and systematic scepticism of the followers of Condillac and Holbach. Austria by the 1800. Napoleon made First Consul for life, 1802. François Réné de Chateaubriand (1768-1848) was a statesman, poet, historian, an advocate of Christianity, and an acute observer of nature. Combining a powerful imagination with strong religious sentiment, he could not fail to produce works which would thrill the hearts of his readers. Thus the two devout poems, "Atala" (1801) and "Réné” (1805), made a profound effect on the public, and received universal admiration. But it was his "Génie du Christianisme" that produced a reform; it made a revolution in style, taste, and sentiment. appeared "Les Martyrs," and two years later “L'Itinéraire de Paris à Jérusalem." Histories, transla- leviation of the tions, books of travel, and memoirs are to be found among his works, all of which are characterized by magnificence of description, skilful delineation of passion, and harmony of expression. In 1809 Madame de Staël (1766-1817), who has been called the greatest of all female writers, is regarded as the first apostle of the new literary and philosophical doctrines of England and Germany, and the first to Legal reforms of the Code Napoléon: improvement of roads, encouragement of commerce and industry, al distresses of the poor. Napoleon crowned Emperor by Pope Pius VII., at Notre Dame, in 1804; and at Milan, in 1805. Divorce of Commencement of re disastrous Russian campaign of 1812. island of Elba, 1814. introduce foreign influence into France at this epoch. This wonderful woman was the daughter of Necker, the celebrated minister of finance under Louis XVI., and the wife of Baron Staël-Holstein, ambassador from Sweden. Brought up amid the illustrious sociverses with the ety who frequented the salons of her father, she early developed that brilliant conversational power which characterized her through life, and which made her ever the centre of the gatherings of the most able and accomplished men in France. Hostile from the Deposition of first to Napoleon, she was by him feared and driven Napoleon, and his exile to the into exile. During the greater part of the interval between 1800 and 1817, Madame de Stäel was shut out from Paris and forced to reside in foreign countries. Thus she was able to study foreign literature, art, and institutions, and to make them known in her own country through her works. Her sojourn in Italy inspired her with the famous romance of "Corinne" (1807); her residence in Germany was productive of the masterpiece "L'Allemagne" (1813), which introduced German influence into France and contributed much towards the rise of a new era in literature and philosophy; while in London she acquired that admiration of English government which is set forth in the treatise "Considérations sur les Principaux Evènements de la Revolution Française." [See Byron, under Friends.] Restoration of the Bourbons, 1814. Napoleon's escape to France. Defeated at Waterloo by the English and Prussians, un der Wellington and Blücher, and exiled a second time (to St. Helena), in the island of 1815. Introduction of Many young and original writers eagerly carried on the revival thus begun. They looked for their models in foreign literatures. Walter Scott became a favorite, and Shakespeare was read with admiration. The exaggerations of the Classical School were scoffed at, and the Middle Ages, as in Germany, were regarded as the source of inspiration. But these innovations were not without opposition. An animated controversy arose between these supporters of reform and the adherents of the Classical School. Foremost among the former were Victor says Van Laun, Hugo and Lamartine; among the latter-who clung to the principles of Voltaire and opposed foreign Influence of England over French politics and literary taste. "Two Englishmen in particular," "Scott and Byron, rose vor of French men, as soon as their works had been translated and their imitation-were Béranger and Delavigne. An im-high in the famense number of writers now appeared and ranged themselves on either side. When at last the contest was decided in favor of the Romanticists, there ensued an appalling activity in literature, which continued during the greater part of the next age. New life was infused into the drama, poetry, history, and philosophy. Victor Hugo.-The Reformation of the Drama. immediate and chief aim of the new school was the reformation of the drama, which had sunk to its low lives had been made familiar in France. The historical novels of Sir Walter Scott took a strong hold on the imagination of his new read ers. The majority of them were at once translated; the caught up and imitated.... But it was to Lord Byron more than to the literary Anglomania of the Restora any other that tion was due; and it was his life as much as his works which produced so deep an impression in France. 'Childe Harold' was a revelation to Frenchmen.... 'Lara,' 'Manfred,' 'The Giaour,' one by est depth under the Classicists. The formerly de-style was spised Shakespeare was adopted by the Romanticists as their model; and Victor Hugo, their bold leader, Frédéric Soulié, Alexandre Dumas, Alfred de Vigny, etc., produced on the stage dramas framed according to their conceptions of the Shakespearian style. But the drama was a tender point with the Classicists, and repeated petitions were made by them to the government to prohibit the representation of romantic dramas. The contest reached its height in 1830, when Victor Hugo's "Hernani," which was an open attack on the classical style, caused a scene of riotous confusion in the theatre where it was first acted. But though the efforts of the Romantic School were mainly directed to the drama, it was in lyric poetry one, exerted that they attained the greatest success. Culmination of French Lyric Poetry. Romanticism revived natural poetry. part of the poets," writes Sainte-Beuve, "gave themselves up, without control or restraint, to all the instincts of their nature, and also to all the pretensions of their pride, and even to all the follies of their vanity." The impassioned lyrics of Béranger, Victor Hugo, Lamartine, and Alfred de Musset stirred the hearts of their countrymen and revived patriotism and religious feeling. French lyric poetry culminated with Béranger. Speaking of his lyrics, Goethe wrote: "Béranger was never at school, never studied at a university. But his songs are, nevertheless, so Béranger."The greater their sway over minds which had been long accustomed to extraordinary emotions, and whom the fall of Bonaparte had left a prey to comparative monotony and mediocrity. Moreover, the Englishman's pantheism was precisely the kind of religion which suited an atheism had credited and epoch in which become dis orthodoxy was an impossibility." |