"It is a remarkable fact," says M. Sainte-Beuve, "and an
inversion of what is true of other languages, that, in French, prose has
always had the precedence over poetry." Du Bellay's prose is perfectly
transparent, flexible, and chaste. In many ways it is a more
characteristic example of the culture of the Pleiad than any of its
verse; and those who love the whole movement of which the Pleiad is a
part, for a weird foreign grace in it, and may be looking about for a
true specimen of it, cannot have a better than Joachim du Bellay and
this little treatise of his.
Du Bellay's object is to adjust the existing French culture to the
rediscovered classical culture; and in discussing this problem, and
developing the theories of the Pleiad, he has lighted upon many
principles of permanent truth and applicability. There were some who
despaired of the French language altogether, who thought it naturally
incapable of the fulness and elegance of Greek and Latin--cette elegance
et copie qui est en la langue Grecque et Romaine--that science could be
adequately discussed, and poetry nobly written, only in the dead
languages.
Pages:
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219