Transcriber's note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected andaccentuation has been made consistent. All other inconsistencies areas in the original. The author's spelling has been maintained.
NORMAL SÉRIES
Littérature Française
PREMIÈRE ANNÉE
MOYEN-ÂGE, RENAISSANCE, DIX-SEPTIÈME SIÈCLE
PAR
E. AUBERT
Normal College, New York, auteur des Échos et Reflets, du ColloquialFrench Drill, et des Élans et Tristesses.
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
Copyright, 1885, by
Henry Holt & Co.
(p. iii) PREFACE.
This volume contains in substance the first part of the course onFrench Literature given in the Normal College.
Though adapted to the requirements of a special programme and tocertain conditions of space and time, it can with advantage be usedwherever an interest is taken or instruction given in FrenchLiterature. It recommends itself particularly to American teachers andstudents as a book, not imported into, but grown out of, theclass-room.
The biographical and critical notices are short, comprehensive, in theclearest and simplest possible style. There is nothing elaborate inthem, nothing superfluous. Each of them is followed by a criticism onthe writer under consideration, by some one whose judgment is of someaccount in the world of letters. It is both interesting andinstructive to know what good critics think of good writers.
The texts from the latter have been selected with great care. They arenot extracts more or less curtailed, which give an idea of a literarywork (p. iv) about as exactly as a stone offers the image of themonument from which it is taken. Whenever it has been practicable, awhole work is reviewed. The parts that are not indispensable aresummarily delineated or analyzed; the passages best calculated toillustrate the author's manner and originality are given in full. Thusthe reader will find the whole plot of Corneille's tragedy "Horace,"of Molière's comedy "Les Femmes savantes," etc.
Following these texts will be found a collection of the author'ssententious and popular sayings. They afford a harvest of beautifulquotations, which every one can turn to account.
Footnotes have been added only to explain what will not be found in anordinary dictionary.
It will be noticed that some of the text is printed with the lineswell apart, and some with them close together. The former portion isfor recitation and colloquial exercise, the portion in close print isfor reading and explaining. The selections are of sufficient varietyand excellence to commend themselves to all lovers of fine literature.
E. A.