Publisher's Synopsis
From the Preface:
The following outline of French literature is based on lectures given in the Johns Hopkins University, and has therefore certain definite needs of instruction in mind. The original notes have however been worked over, enlarged, and separated into paragraphs - not always happily- and can, by omission or expansion, be made to serve as a statement of facts for any period desired.
Certain defects of execution are evident. The attempt to modernize all names and titles previous to the sixteenth century has sometimes failed through habit or inadvertence. The substitution of the English definite article for the French has led to many absurdities, and seems now to have been unwise. In the first chapters, intended for specialists or for extended commentaries by instructors, the necessary conciseness has at times led to obscurity for beginners. The least satisfactory period is that of the Eighteenth Century, both in division and matter. A serious omission is the dramatic work of Louis-Sebastien Mercier (1740-1814).
The most available reference book for Mediaeval Literature is: La litterature francaise au moyen age, Gaston Paris. Paris, 1888. 16mo. This manual has served to revise the whole period. Its Bibliography is an important feature.
For Pre-Renaissance Literature review articles and lectures at the College de France by Gaston Paris on the poetry of the fifteenth century have furnished the larger part of the material. The history of the stage previous to the Renaissance is fully treated in the Histoire du theatre, L. Petit de Julleville. Paris, 1880-1886. 5 vols. 8vo and 16mo.
On Renaissance Literature the standard authority is: Le Seizieme Siecle en France, A. Darmesteter and A. Hatzfeld. Paris, 3d ed., 1887. 16mo. The first volume of the Geschichte der franzosischen Litteratur seit Anfang des XVI. Jahrhunderts, A. Birch-Hirschfeld, Stuttgart, 1889, 8vo, furnishes many additional facts on the first part of the century. A more general treatise, which has been of much use in the remaining centuries also, is the Lecons de litterature francaise, L. Petit de Julleville. Paris, 1884. 18mo.
The best work on the Seventeenth Century is the Geschichte der franzosischen Litteratur im XVII. Jahrhundert, F. Lotheissen. Wien, 1877-1884. 4 vols. 8vo. For the novels of the century consult the Geschichte des franzosischen Romans im XVII Jahrhundert, H. Koerting. Leipzig, 1885-1887. 2 vols. 8vo.
The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries are extensively treated in the Geschichte der franzosischen Litteratur, G. Bornhak. Berlin, 1886. 8vo.
