Читать книгу History of the French Novel - Saintsbury George - Страница 19

[90] A complete argument on this much vexed subject can hardly be wished for here: but it may be permitted to say that nearly fifty years' consideration of the matter has left less and less doubt in my mind as to the genuineness of the "Quart" or "Quint" Livre as it is variously called—according as Gargantua is numbered separately or not. One of the apparently strongest arguments against its genuineness—the constant presence of "Je" in the narrative—really falls, with the others—the fiercer and more outspoken character of the satire, the somewhat lessened prominence of Pantagruel, etc. etc.—before one simple consideration. We know from the dates of publication of the other books that Rabelais was by no means a rapid writer, or at any rate that, if he wrote rapidly, he "held up" what he did write long, and pretty certainly rewrote a good deal. Now the previous Book had appeared only a short time before what must have been the date of his death; and this could not, according to analogy and precedent, have been ready, or anything like ready, when he died. On the other hand, time enough passed between his death and the publication (even of the Ile Sonnante fragment) for the MS. to have passed through other hands and to have been adulterated, even if it was not, when the Master's hands left it, in various, as well as not finally finished form. I can see nothing in it really inconsistent with the earlier Books; nothing unworthy of them (especially if on the one hand possible meddling, and on the other imperfect revision be allowed for); and much, especially the Chats Fourrés, the Quintessence part, and the Conclusion, without which the whole book would be not only incomplete but terribly impoverished. I may add that, having a tolerably full knowledge of sixteenth-century French literature, and a great admiration of it, I know no single other writer or group of other writers who could, in my critical judgment, by any reasonable possibility have written this Book. François Rabelais could have done it, and I have no doubt that he did it; though whether we have it as he left it no man can say.

[91] It is perhaps hardly necessary, but may not be quite idle, to observe that our Abstractor of Quintessence takes good care not to quote the other half of the parallelism, "but the prudent looketh well to his going."

[92] It is possible, but not certain, that he is playing on the two senses of the word apparence, the ambiguity of which is not so great in English. The A. V., "evidence of things not seen," would not have suited his turn.

[93] In which, it will be remembered, the "liquor called punch," which one notes with sorrow that Rabelais knew not, but which he certainly would have approved, is also "nowhere spoken against."

[94] Original "Sibyle." I owe to Prof. Ker an important reminder (which I ought not to have needed) of Dante's "Sibilia" in the famous "Ulysses" passage, Inf. xxvi. 110.

[95] The Turkish corsair, not the German Emperor.

[96] Probably erected into a kingdom in honour of St. Augustine.

[97] Passant oultre—one of Rabelais' favourite and most polymorphic expressions. It has nearly always an ironical touch in it; and it enjoys a chapter all to itself in that mood—V. xvii.

[98] Perhaps this à gauche might make as good a short test as any of a reader's sense of humour. But here also a possible Dantean reminiscence (not suggested to me this time) comes in; for in the lines already quoted "dalla man destra" occurs.

[99] The King is, however, more difficult to satisfy on this point than on others; and objects with a delightful preterite, "Yes: but we did not get our wine fresh and cool"; whereat they rebuke him with a respectful reminder that great conquerors cannot be always entirely comfortable.

[100] "Suspender of judgment."

[101] Of course the first book of the son preceded the reconstructed history of the father; but this is immaterial.

[102] The correct opposition of this term (Latin or Greek words vernacularised) to "Macaronic" (vernacular words turned into Latin or Greek form) is not always observed.

[103] It is very seldom, after his infantine and innocent excesses, that Pantagruel behaves thus. He is for the most part a quiet and somewhat reserved prince, very generous, very wise, very devout, and, though tolerating the eccentricities of Panurge and Friar John, never taking part in them.

[104] If Swift had drunk more wine and had not put water in what he did drink, possibly this quality might have been lessened in him.

[105] The first of these, the Isle Sonnante, as is well enough known to all students, appeared separately and before the rest.

[106] A sort of dependency or province of the Chats Fourrés.

[107] A MS. "addition" unknown to the old printed forms, appears in some modern ones. It is a mere disfigurement: and is hardly likely even to have been a rejected draft.

[108] Not Swift here, but Sterne. There is far higher genius in Gulliver than in Shandy; but the former is not fatrasie, the latter is.

[109] That the not quite unknown device of setting up a man of straw in order to knock him down has not been followed in this chapter, a single piece of evidence out of many may be cited. H. Körting in his justly well reputed Geschichte des Franz. Romans im XVII. Jahrh. (Oppeln u. Leipzig, 1891, i. 133 note) would rule Rabelais out of the history of the novel altogether. This book, which will be quoted again with gratitude later, displays a painstaking erudition not necessitating any make-weight of sympathy for its author's early death after great suffering. It is extremely useful; but it does not escape, in this and other places, the censure which, ten years before the war of 1914, the present writer felt it his duty to express on modern German critics and literary historians generally (History of Criticism, London, 1904, vol. iii. Bks. viii. and ix.), that on points of literary appreciation, as distinguished from mere philology, "enumeration," bibliographical research, and the like, they are "sadly to seek." It may not be impertinent to add that Herr Körting's history happened never to have been read by me till after the above chapter of the present book was written.