Literary and Philosophical Essays: French, German and ItalianSchiller, Friedrich
Philosophy
Literary and Philosophical Essays: French, German and Italian
Schiller, Friedrich
Essays
celebrated on August 1st. She it is who figures in the French
romances under the name of Lunette. See Lady Guest, vol. i., pp.
113, 114.] Finally, the prose versions, more modern still, sharply
distinguish the two chivalries, the one earthly, the other mystical.
In them Parceval becomes the model of the devout knight. This was
the last of the metamorphoses which that all-powerful enchantress
called the human imagination made him undergo; and it was only right
that, after having gone through so many dangers, he should don a
monkish frock, wherein to take his rest after his life of adventure.
V.
When we seek to determine the precise moment in the history of the
Celtic races at which we ought to place ourselves in order to
appreciate their genius in its entirety, we find ourselves led back
to the sixth century of our era. Races have nearly always a
predestined hour at which, passing from simplicity to reflection,
they bring forth to the light of day, for the first time, all the
treasures of their nature. For the Celtic races the poetic moment of
awakening and primal activity was the sixth century. Christianity,
still young amongst them, has not completely stifled the national
cult; the religion of the Druids defends itself in its schools and
holy places; warfare against the foreigner, without which a people
never achieves a full consciousness of itself, attains its highest
degree of spirit. It is the epoch of all the heroes of enduring
fame, of all the characteristic saints of the Breton Church;
finally, it is the great age of bardic literature, illustrious by
the names of Taliessin, of Aneurin, of Liwarc'h Hen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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