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A history of criticism and literary taste in Europe from the earliest texts to the present day. Volume 2 (of 3), From the Renaissance to the decline of eighteenth century orthodoxy — John Shaqi

A history of criticism and literary taste in Europe from the earliest texts to the present day. Volume 2 (of 3), From the Renaissance to the decline of eighteenth century orthodoxySaintsbury, George

History

A history of criticism and literary taste in Europe from the earliest texts to the present day. Volume 2 (of 3), From the Renaissance to the decline of eighteenth century orthodoxy

Name: A history of criticism and literary taste in Europe from the earliest texts to the present day. Volume 2 (of 3), From the Renaissance to the decline of eighteenth century orthodoxy
Author: Saintsbury, George

Saintsbury, George

Criticism -- History; Literature -- History and criticism; Literature, Medieval

I use the Tauchnitz ed. (with the _Encomium Moriæ_) in 2 vols.
  (Leipsic: 1829).

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The _Concio, sive Merdardus_, after an explanation of the offensive
sub-title (which has less of good-humoured superiority, and more of the
snappish Humanist temper, than is usual with Erasmus), declines into
similar matters of reading and rendering—here in reference not to
profane but to sacred literature. And the curious _Conflictus Thaliæ et
Barbariei_, which is more dramatically arranged than most of the
_Colloquies_, and may even have taken a hint from the French Morality of
_Science et Asnerye_,[13] loses, as it may seem to us, an opportunity of
being critical in the best and real kind. The antagonists exchange a
good deal of abuse, which on Thalia’s part extends to some mediæval
writers cited by Barbaries (among whom our poor old friend John of
Garlandia rather unfairly figures), and the piece, which is short, ends
with a contest in actual citation of verse—Leonine and scholastic enough
on the part of Barbaries, gracefully enough _pastiched_ from the
classics on the part of Thalia. But Erasmus either deliberately
declines, or simply does not perceive, the opening given for a
_critical_ indication of the charms of purity and the deformities of
barbarism.

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Footnote 13:

  _V._ E. Fournier, _Théâtre Français avant la Renaissance_ (Paris, n.
  d.), p. 334 _sq._ It is not at all impossible that the indebtedness
  may be the other way. The dates of these pieces are very uncertain.

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A history of criticism and literary taste in Europe from the earliest texts to the present day. Volume 2 (of 3), From the Renaissance to the decline of eighteenth century orthodoxy

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