PREFATORY NOTE To every person who aims at culture, the literature of France should have a special interest. It is the literature of the world which has had the longest continued existence of vitality and strength. It is the embodiment of the thought and genius of the people in whom the feeling for art in literary expression has had its widest and most general manifestation. Finally, it is the literature which, in form and spirit, most profoundly affects our own. The present book is intended for popular reading. A number of great writers have been selected, the names as a whole constituting a continuous representation of what is best in the literature of France during the three centuries chosen for study. These have had special treatment, and they are thus made to stand out in the history in their due importance. At the same time, a series of connecting studies is presented, which serves to trace the course of development of the literature of France in general. Although brief, these studies are so written as to lay due stress upon those phases of development which literary historians deem of most significance. In order to make the book of the largest value to those |
