A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 From the Beginning to 1800

The seventeenth century, almost if not quite from its beginning, ranks in French literature as the eighteenth does with us, that is to say, as the time of origin of novels or ro...

Justice has, it is hoped, been done to the great classes of fictitious work which, during the seventeenth century, made fiction, as such, popular with high and of low in France....

The words which closed the last chapter should make it unnecessary to prefix much of the same kind to this, though at the end we may have again to summarise rather more fully.

It has been for some time a commonplace--though, like most commonplaces, it is probably much more often simply borrowed than an actual and (even in the sense of _communis_) orig...

Frequent reference has been made, in the last two chapters, to the curious phenomenon called in French _sensibilite_ (with a derivative of contempt, _sensiblerie_), the exact En...

It has been said already that the Saint's Life, as it seems most probable to the present writer, started the romance in France; but of course we must allow considerable reinforc...

contrary thereto. But if the Will of God had been so, would you say that He could not have done it? Oh for grace' sake do not make a mess of your wits in such vain thoughts. For...

itself) by a translation of Wieland's _Don Silvia de Rosalva_, which is a German _Sir Launcelot Greaves_ or _Spiritual Quixote_, with fairy tales substituted for romances of chi...

In the present chapter we shall endeavour to treat two divisions of actual novel- or at least fiction-writing--strikingly opposed to each other in character; and a third subject...

On the whole, however, the most important influence in the development of the novel originally--that of the _nouvelle_ or _novella_ in French, and Italian taking the second plac...

The title of this chapter may seem an oversight or an impertinence, considering that large parts of an earlier one have been occupied with discussions and translations of the pr...

It was shown in the last chapter that fiction, and even prose fiction, of very varied character began to develop itself in French during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries....

(The dates given in this Index are confined to _persons_ directly dealt with in this volume. Those of the more important _books_ noticed will be found in the Chronological Consp...

Although--as it is hoped the foregoing chapters may have shown--the amount of energy and of talent, thrown into the department of French fiction, had from almost the earliest ti...

Although I have already, in two places,[4] given a somewhat precise account of the manner in which fiction in the modern sense of the term, and especially prose fiction, came to...

Immense importance of the seventeenth century in our subject--The divisions of its contribution--Note on marked influence of Greek Romance--The Pastoral in general--Its beginnin...

_Alexander Legends_ ("Matter of Rome"). The most important editions of romances concerning Alexander are Michelant's of the great poem from which, according to the most general...

The subjects of the chapter--Lesage: his Spanish connections--Peculiarity of his work generally--And its variety--_Le Diable Boiteux_--Lesage and Boileau--_Gil Blas_: its peculi...

The general histories and bibliographies of M. Reynier and Herr Koerting, as well as the monographs of MM. Chatenay, Magne, and Reure, will be found registered in the notes to t...

"Sensibility"--A glance at Miss Austen--The thing essentially French--Its history--Mme. de Tencin and _Le Comte de Comminge_--Mme. Riccoboni and _Le Marquis de Cressy_--Her othe...

The anonymity, or at least impersonality, of authorship up to this point--Rabelais unquestionably the first very great known writer--But the first great novelist?--Some objectio...

The use of the novel for "purpose"; Voltaire--General characteristics of his tales--_Candide_--_Zadig_ and its satellites--_Micromegas_--_L'Ingenu_--_La Princesse de Babylone_--...

The _Chanson de Geste_--The proportions of history and fiction in them--The part played by language, prosody, and manners--Some drawbacks--But a fair balance of actual story mer...

_Greek Romances, The._ Most convenient editions of originals--Didot's _Erotici Graeci_, Paris, 1856, or Teubner's, ed. Herscher, Leipzig, 1858. English translations in Bohn's Li...

The work, in novel, of Voltaire and Rousseau is in all the cheap collections of Didot, Garnier, etc. Of that of Diderot there have recently been several partial collections, but...

The bibliography of the _Romans d'Aventures_ generally is again too complicated and voluminous to be attempted here. A fair amount of information will be found, as regards the t...

_Roman de Renart._ The completest (but not a complete) edition of the different parts is that of Meon and Chabaille (5 vols., Paris, 1826-35). The main or "Ancien" Renart was re...

The material of the chapter--Sorel and _Francion_--The _Berger Extravagant_ and _Polyandre_--Scarron and the _Roman Comique_--The opening scene of this--Furetiere and the _Roman...

Subsidiary importance of Brantome and other character-mongers--The _Heptameron_--Note on Montaigne--Character and "problems"--Parlamente on human and divine love--Desperiers--_C...

For those who wish to study Lesage and Prevost at large, the combined Dutch _Oeuvres Choisies_, in 54 vols. (Amsterdam, 1783), will offer a convenient, if not exactly handy, opp...

Rabelais. Editions of the original very numerous: and of Urquhart's famous English translation more than one or two recently. The cheapest and handiest of the former, _without_...

Prose novelettes of the thirteenth century: _Aucassin et Nicolette_ not quite typical--_L'Empereur Constant_ more so--_Le Roi Flore et la Belle Jehane_--_La Comtesse de Ponthieu...

The early history of prose fiction--The late classical stage--A _nexus_ of Greek and French romance?--the facts about the matter--The power and influence of the "Saint's Life"--...