French Prose of the XVII Century: Selected and Edited with an Introduction and Notes (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from French Prose of the XVII Century: Selected and Edited With an Introduction and Notes

French prose of the seventeenth century, like French poetry and drama of the same epoch, is the ofi'spring of the Renais sance. In the prose of society, such as fiction and letters, which take much of their matter from abroad, the parentage is evident. It is not so clear in the more philosophical lines, which we are to consider, where the material is quite original and indigenous. Yet the latter as well as the former are plainly actuated by the same purpose and prompted by the same spirit. The Spirit is the one which inspired the revival of learning, the spirit of interest in humanity. In France, Rabelais, who was of the transition, old in form, new in thought, is the first, perhaps, to reveal its workings, while Calvin, his contemporary and counterpart, combats its results without escaping its influence. Montaigne, of the next generation, is its confessed exponent. The traditions which embarrassed the monk are gone. The dogmatism which was formulated by the theologian has passed by. A sceptic on all other subjects, Montaigne's only creed is man, expressed either in himself, his neighbors of France or Europe or Asia, or in the records bequeathed to posterity by the authors of ancient Greece and Rome. Montaigne's Essazlc are the embodiment of this principle of the Renaissance, and as such were ever present before the minds of the prose writers who succeeded him for three generations. He set the theme for literature from Descartes to La Bruyere. And this theme was mankind.

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