But the rights of subjective personal emotion could not long be denied in lyric poetry. Even LECONTE DE LISLE had not succeeded in obliterating its traces entirely, and if he achieved a calm that justifies the epithet _impassible_, given so freely to him and to his followers, it is at the cost of a struggle that still vibrates beneath the surface of his lines. Presently emotion asserted its authority again, more discreetly and under the restraint of an imperious intellect in SULLY PRUDHOMME, readily taking the form of sympathy with the humble, in FRANÇOIS COPPÉE, or returning to the old communicative frankness of self-revelation with VERLAINE. With VERLAINE we reach a conscious reaction from the objective and impersonal art of the _Parnassiens_. That art found its end in the perfect rendering of objective reality. The reaction sought to get at the inner significance and spiritual meaning of things, and looked at the objective reality as a veil behind which a deeper sense lies hidden, as a symbol which it is the poet's business to penetrate and illumine. It also moved away from the clear images, precise contours, and firm lines by which the _Parnassiens_ had given such an effect of plasticity to their verse, and sought rather vague, shadowy, and nebulous impressions and the charm of music and melody (cf. VERLAINE'S poem, _Art poétique_, p. 288). This is in general the direction taken by the latest generation of poets, symbolists, decadents, or however otherwise they are styled, for whom VERLAINE'S influence has been conspicuous. They make up rather an incoherent body, whose aims and aspirations, more or less vague, are by no means adequately indicated by this brief statement of their tendency. They have by no means said their last word. But the accomplishment of their movement hitherto has been marred, and its promise for the future is still threatened, by a fatal and seemingly irresistible tendency toward unintelligibility. Notes: [1] Special commendation may be given to the large work by various scholars under the direction of Petit de Julleville now in process of publication, and also to the shorter histories, in one volume, of Gustave Lanson (1895) and F. Brunetière (1897). An English translation of the latter is published by T. Y. Crowell & Co., New York.] [2] A large number of the _chansonniers_ are represented in the collection by Dumersan and Noel Ségur, _Chansons nationales et populaires de France_, 2 vols., 1566, to which an account of the French _chanson_ is prefixed. Specimens of the _chanson populaire_ may be read in T.F. Crane’s _Chansons populaires de la France_, New York, Putnam, 1891: an excellent historical sketch and a bibliography make this little volume a good introduction to the reading of French popular poetry.