New-York tribune., 1919-03-30
The Real Elements
of Literature

NJ. Lefrhncs specially as literary critic
and historian IN the quest Of the fcnec-
tioh In literary works Of The mind and the
soul the ideas. The sentiments. the habits,
the preoccupaiiors. the struggles, the Joys,
tho s0ffoHp the ofdeas. the friendships.
the passionsl of the authors. es well ms the
tfhees OF the circumstances that sur
rounded and conditioned their productions
sources Of appreciation which he has la.
beled felicitousy "the reai clements Of
literature"
lie thus discovered and published some
lH,oOO lines Of the lost poetry Of Mnrguo-
rite de Navarro, IN whom his interest was
llrst klndled by Renan who encouraged his
literary beginnings. Thus also he has un-
earhcd various personal adventures Of the
contemporaries Of Rabclais, which explain
hitherto obscure passages of "Gargantua"
and "Pantagruc" He has shown that GER
tain incidents in these works may have
been based upon the actual doings of Ra-
belais's very townsmcn and, by disclosing
its real pcrsonagcs, has conferred signif-
cance upon certain dialogue of which
nobody was able to make head or tail be-
fore. He has rendered a kindred service
to the love poems of Clement Marot. lie
""S tfd'Su tHf IIiucncC cNclitt the
thought and form Of Rabclais and of IN.
other writer's of his period by The revival
OF PlatonIsm and Of LucanisA, by The re
appearance. IN Dante and others OF the
Vlrgllan motif of the descent into tho
neither world, etc. And with a view to
making as palpable as possible to students
the precise role of "the real clements of
literature" he has taken his auditors or
the Ecole des Hautes Etudes on excur
slons into the regions in which the period
OF the Renaissance has left the most in
teresting remains.
1t is this more less intimate correla-
ton between literary work and the ex
1stence OF Its creator, as we'll as between
both Of these and the circumambienf
world. which NJ. Lefranc has INVESTIGATED
IN his "Sous lie Masque de Shakespeare
AND the proceeding, abstractly considered,
is OF course uncxceptionabe
But there is no method so excellent tha,
IL may not be vitiated by misapplication or
by over-application. Like the effort to
reconcile science and revelation, the effort
10 harmonze literature and life must be
Kept under rigid control. 1t must not be
given the whip hand, for while it is a good
servant it is a bad master
NJ Lefranc argues that the Shakespear-
ian plays, because they portray with re
narkable fidelity of material and nsvcbo-
logical detail the existence Of courts must
nave been written by patrician. But he.
or another, might argue with equally good
warrant that they must have been written
oy plebeIan because they portray with
equally remarkable fidelity of material and
psychological detail the nature and the
movements of mobs; or by tippler be-
cause they depict roistering tavern scenes:
OF py a woman, because they abound in
noble and charming heroines.
ii 1t is fair to assimilate the author ia
Jacques, an Antonio, Prospero, a Hamlet.
simply because he has created these char
acters why should it not be equally fair In
assim1late him to Falstaff. q shallow
fistol' Shylock, an Tago, a Cade, Dame
Quickly or any other of the crafty. acurvv
or grotesque types of the plays fer the same
reason! Overworked, harnesscd. as NJ. Le
franc harnesses it in the present instance
TO task to which it is UNEQUAL. this fair
seeming doctrine of "the real elements of
literature" inevitably eventuatcs in sor,
OF rcductio ad absurdum