Initiation into Literature

Initiation into Literature

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Title: Initiation into Literature
Author: Emile Faguet
Release Date: July, 2005 [EBook #8555] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on July 22, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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INITIATION INTO LITERATURE
BY
��MILE FAGUET
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY
SIR HOME GORDON, BART.

The Translator begs to acknowledge with appreciation the courtesy of the Author in graciously consenting to make some valuable additions, at his request, specially for the English version.

PREFACE
This volume, as indicated by the title, is designed to show the way to the beginner, to satisfy and more especially to excite his initial curiosity. It affords an adequate idea of the march of facts and of ideas. The reader is led, somewhat rapidly, from the remote origins to the most recent efforts of the human mind.
It should be a convenient repertory to which the mind may revert in order to see broadly the general opinion of an epoch--and what connected it with those that followed or preceded it. It aims above all at being a frame in which can conveniently be inscribed, in the course of further studies, new conceptions more detailed and more thoroughly examined.
It will have fulfilled its design should it incite to research and meditation, and if it prepares for them correctly.
E. FAGUET.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
ANCIENT INDIA
The Vedas. Buddhist Literature. Great Epic Poems, then very Diverse, much Shorter Poems. Dramatic Literature. Moral Literature.

CHAPTER II
HEBRAIC LITERATURE
The Bible, a Collection of Epic, Lyric, Elegiac, and Sententious Writings. The Talmud, Book of Ordinances. The Gospels.

CHAPTER III
THE GREEKS
Homer. Hesiod. Elegiac and Lyric Poets. Prose Writers. Philosophers and Historians. Lyric Poets, Dramatic Poets. Comic Poets. Orators. Romancers.

CHAPTER IV
THE LATINS
The Latins, Imitators of the Greeks. Epic Poets. Dramatic Poets. Golden Age: Virgil, Horace, Ovid. Silver Age: Prose Writers, Historians, and Philosophers: Titus-Livy, Tacitus, Seneca. Decadence Still Brilliant.

CHAPTER V
THE MIDDLE AGES: FRANCE
_Chansons de Geste: Song of Roland_ and Lyric Poetry. Popular Epopee: Romances of Renard. Popular Short Stories: Fables. Historians. The Allegorical Poem: Romance of the Rose. Drama.

CHAPTER VI
THE MIDDLE AGES: ENGLAND
Literature in Latin, in Anglo-Saxon, and in French. The Ancestor of English Literature: Chaucer.

CHAPTER VII
THE MIDDLE AGES: GERMANY
Epic Poems: Nibelungen. Popular Poems. Very Numerous Lyric Poems. Drama.

CHAPTER VIII
THE MIDDLE AGES: ITALY
Troubadours of Southern Italy. Neapolitan and Sicilian Poets: Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio.

CHAPTER IX
THE MIDDLE AGES: SPAIN AND PORTUGAL
Epic Poems: Romanceros. Didactic Books. Romances of Chivalry.

CHAPTER X
THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES: FRANCE
First Portion of Sixteenth Century: Poets: Marot, Saint-Gelais; Prose Writers: Rabelais, Comines. Second Portion of Sixteenth Century: Poets: "The Pleiade"; Prose Writers: Amyot, Montaigne. First Portion of Seventeenth Century: Intellectual and Brilliant Poets: Malherbe, Corneille; Great Prose Writers: Balzac, Descartes. Second Portion of Seventeenth Century: Poets: Racine, Moli��re, Boileau, La Fontaine; Prose Writers: Bossuet, Pascal, La Bruy��re, F��nelon, etc.

CHAPTER XI
THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES: ENGLAND
Dramatists: Marlowe, Shakespeare. Prose Writers: Sidney, Francis Bacon, etc. Epic Poet: Milton. Comic Poets.

CHAPTER XII
THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES: GERMANY
Luther, Zwingli, Albert D��rer, Leibnitz, Gottsched.

CHAPTER XIII
THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES: ITALY
Poets: Ariosto, Tasso, Guarini, Folengo, Marini, etc. Prose Writers: Machiavelli, Guicciardini, Davila.

CHAPTER XIV
THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES: SPAIN AND PORTUGAL
Poets: Quevedo, Gongora, Lope de Vega, Ercilla, Calderon, Rojas, etc. Prose Writers: Montemayor, Cervantes, etc. Portugal: De Camo��ns, etc. The Stage.

CHAPTER XV
THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES: FRANCE
Of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: Fontenelle, Bayle. Of the Eighteenth: Poets: La Motte, Jean Baptiste Rousseau, Voltaire, etc.; Prose Writers: Montesquieu, Voltaire, Buffon, Jean Jacques Rousseau, etc. Of the Nineteenth Century: Poets: Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Musset, Vigny, etc.; Prose Writers: Chateaubriand, Michelet, George Sand, M��rim��e, Renan, etc.

CHAPTER XVI
THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES: ENGLAND
Poets of the Eighteenth Century: Pope, Young, MacPherson, etc. Prose Writers of the Eighteenth Century: Daniel Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Swift, Sterne, David Hume. Poets of the Nineteenth Century: Byron, Shelley, the Lake Poets. Prose Writers of the Nineteenth Century: Walter Scott, Macaulay, Dickens, Carlyle.

CHAPTER XVII
THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH