A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1: From the Beginning to 1800Saintsbury, George
History
A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1: From the Beginning to 1800
Saintsbury, George
French fiction -- History and criticism
The material of the chapter--Sorel and _Francion_--The
_Berger Extravagant_ and _Polyandre_--Scarron and the _Roman
Comique_--The opening scene of this--Furetiere and the
_Roman Bourgeois_--Nicodeme takes Javotte home from
church--Cyrano de Bergerac and his _Voyages_--Mme. de la
Fayette and _La Princesse de Cleves_--Its central
scene--Hamilton and the Nymph--The opening of _Fleur
d'Epine_--_Les Quatre Facardins_.
CHAPTER X
LESAGE, MARIVAUX, PREVOST, CREBILLON 325
The subjects of the chapter--Lesage: his Spanish
connections--Peculiarity of his work generally--And its
variety--_Le Diable Boiteux_--Lesage and Boileau--_Gil
Blas_: its peculiar cosmopolitanism--And its adoption of the
_homme sensuel moyen_ fashion--Its inequality, in the Second
and Fourth Books especially--Lesage's quality: not requiring
many words, but indisputable--Marivaux: _Les Effets de la
Sympathie_ (?)--His work in general--_Le Paysan
Parvenu_--_Marianne_: outline of the story--Importance of
Marianne herself--Marivaux and Richardson:
"Marivaudage"--Examples: Marianne on the _physique_ and
_moral_ of Prioresses and Nuns--She returns the
gift-clothes--Prevost--His minor novels: the opinions on
them of Sainte-Beuve--And of Planche--The books themselves:
_Histoire d'une Grecque Moderne_--_Cleveland_--_Le Doyen de
Killerine_--_The Memoires d'un Homme de Qualite_--Its
miscellaneous curiosities--_Manon Lescaut_--Its
uniqueness--The character of its heroine--And that of the
hero--The inevitableness of both and the inestimableness of
their history--Crebillon _fils_--The case against him--For
the defendant: the veracity of his artificiality and his
consummate cleverness--The Crebillonesque atmosphere and
method--Inequality of his general work; a survey of it.
CHAPTER XI
THE _PHILOSOPHE_ NOVEL 377
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