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Title: A History of French Literature
Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II.

Author: Edward Dowden

Editor: Edmund Gosse

Release Date: February 27, 2008 [EBook #24700]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE ***

Produced by Ron Swanson

Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II.
Edited by Edmund Gosse

A History of
FRENCH LITERATURE

BY

EDWARD DOWDEN
D.LITT., LL.D. (DUB.), D.C.L. (OXON.), LL.D. (EDIN.)
LL.D. (PRINCETON)
PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN

London
WILLIAM HEINEMANN
MCMXIV

_First Edition_, 1897
_New Impressions_, 1899, 1904, 1907, 1911, 1914

_Copyright, London_ 1897, _by William Heinemann_

PREFACE

French prose and French poetry had interested me during so many years
that when Mr. Gosse invited me to write this book I knew that I was
qualified in one particular--the love of my subject. Qualified in
knowledge I was not, and could not be. No one can pretend to know
the whole of a vast literature. He may have opened many books and
turned many pages; he cannot have penetrated to the soul of all books
from the _Song of Roland_ to _Toute la Lyre_. Without reaching its
spirit, to read a book is little more than to amuse the eye with printed
type.

An adequate history of a great literature can be written only by
collaboration. Professor Petit de Julleville, in the excellent
_Histoire de la Langue et de la Litterature Francaise_, at present
in process of publication, has his well-instructed specialist for
each chapter. In this small volume I too, while constantly exercising
my own judgment, have had my collaborators--the ablest and most
learned students of French literature--who have written each a part
of my book, while somehow it seems that I have written the whole.
My collaborators are on my shelves. Without them I could not have
accomplished my task; here I give them credit for their assistance.
Some have written general histories of French literature; some have
written hi