Essays Of French German And Italian Essayists PDF Download

Excerpt from Essays of French, German and Italian Essayists: Including Biographical and Critical Sketches The spirit of the French race and language lends itself naturally to the essay. Ever appreciative of style and form, ever alert with raillery and badinage, ever keen with critical acumen, there is no people with whom the essay should rather flourish. In fact, whatever kind of prose composition the Frenchman may try, it may be said that he cannot keep from essay-writing. Into the novel, the treatise, the history, the essay is interjected. The Frenchman lives in an art atmosphere; if he be not an artist he must perforce be a critic. Oftentimes he is both, for it is not disputed that one may be an artist in criticism. The plastic sense, the poetry of color and tone, is in the very air the Frenchman breathes from birth. If not creative, he must be appreciative. And does not the whole nation pride itself on its logic? If not logical, the Frenchman is nothing. And this sense of close and accurate argument and inevitable inference is the basic quality of his caustic irony, his withering sarcasm, his matchless innuendo, his smiling but inexorable reductio ad absurdum. It is quite natural, then, that the father of the modern essay should have been a Frenchman. To speak of the great Montaigne with any degree of adequacy a volume would be required. We can only note a few of his characteristics, and briefly hint at his influence on the world of letters. The unity of his desultoriness lies in the spirit and treatment, and, again, in that he is always concerned in the portrayal or discussion of the nature of man. He will always remain popular because he is so human. Theoretically a radical, he was satisfied to let things rest pretty much as they were. He did not preach a great reform, but inculcated a cheerful and grateful resignation to the asperites of life and the irresistibleness of death. He taught the dignity of good-sense. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.