Es giebt kaum eine Dichtungsart, deren Werth so lebhaft bestritten worden ist und die dennoch eine so grosse Rolle in der Literatur aller westeuropäischen Völker gespielt hat, als das Sonett. Schon hieraus kann man schliessen, dass die Vorzüge dieser poetischen Form doch nicht so gering sein können, wie dies öfters behauptet worden ist. Es könnte ferner aber auch daraus gefolgert werden, dass bald nach dem Bekanntwerden des Sonetts in Frankreich die Franzosen den Italienern das Verdienst, es in die Literatur eingeführt zu haben, streitig zu machen suchten. Seit jedoch Friedrich Diez, der Begründer der romanischen Philologie, Italien als die Heimat des Sonetts nachgewiesen hat, wird der italienische Ursprung desselben wohl ziemlich allgemein als feststehend anerkannt. Aus Italien gelangte es im XVI. Jahrhundert, wie nach den übrigen romanischen Ländern, so auch nach Frankreich und gleichfalls nach England, wo es sich am eigenartigsten, aber ohne auf die anderen Literaturen einen Einfluss auszuüben, entwickelt hat. Überall war Petrarca das Vorbild, von dem man ausgieng, oder das Ideal, dem sich die Sonettendichtung, wenn sie auf Abwege gerathen war, in ihren edleren Bestrebungen wieder so viel wie möglich zu nähern suchte. Durch ihn war ja bekanntlich diese Dichtungsform zur grössten Vollendung und Popularität gebracht worden.

It has been among the results of Dr. Lounsbury's noble work on Chaucer to make the mind of the poet for us, as never for any generation before us, discoverable in his poetry. Since that work appeared, each of Chaucer's poems, read now through the light of that illumination, seems to kindle into fresh meaning in its revealed association with the mind and purpose of the writer. And from the union of all the poems into one image, there seems to come a somewhat clear revelation of the poet's range of human vision and of his method of poetry. This revelation reaches, I think, its highest point of truth in that eighth chapter which forms the crown of Dr. Lounsbury's book, the chapter on Chaucer as Literary Artist. “About Chaucer's method of work,” he says, “there is nothing of that blind creative inspiration, which, acting without reflection, characterizes, or is supposed to characterize, the poets of the earliest periods. He has all the self-consciousness of the creative genius that has mastered his art” (Lounsbury, Studies in Chaucer, III, 324). “He knows precisely what he is aiming to accomplish.” Here is, I think, the true word spoken about Chaucer's mental character, about his poetical method, and, by inference, about his rank and special place among the classical poets. For the essence of classical poetry is self-knowledge and self-restraint, the artistic calculation of proportions, and the aesthetic calculation of effects. It is my purpose, therefore, to show in the Troilus and Criseyde, which I take to be Chaucer's most perfect poem, the evidence of Dr. Lounsbury's summary of Chaucer's poetical character, the evidence of deliberate and careful calculation, of cool, self-conscious, almost infallible skill.

As Holtzmann has shown the Hildebrandslied as we now have it is a copy from an older manuscript. That it was not written in its present form from memory is seen in the fact that the mistakes are those of sight. For example, Hiltibraht occurs six times for Hiltibrant, man for inan, unti for miti, etc. The errors show that the writer or writers did not fully understand what they were writing, and that their copying was mechanical. It follows that the manuscript from which they wrote did not differ materially from their copy, or in other words, that the linguistic confusion was already present. This confusion, however, cannot be entirely explained unless with Kögel we assume that at an earlier time there was a copy from memory.

The rule forbidding hiatus in French verse which has been followed in all literary poetry since Malherbe's day may be thus formulated:—

A word ending in a vowel other than an e muet cannot be followed within the same line by a word beginning with a vowel or h muette.

Where a word ends in an e muet and the following word begins with a vowel or an h muette, the e muet is elided and the hiatus thus avoided.

For the purposes of this rule the t of et is supposed not to exist.

Oui is sometimes treated as though it began with a consonant.

Hiatus is allowed before or after a few interjections; also in certain set expressions such as peu à peu, cà et là, and the like.

Th. Murner, the great opponent of Luther and one of the most interesting characters of the Reformation period, is unduly overshadowed by his great antagonist, Martin Luther, just as Wallenstein is by Gustavus Adolphus; and what. Schiller wrote about Wallenstein: “Von der Parteien Hass und Gunst verwirrt schwankt sein Charakterbild in der Geschichte,” is equally true of Murner.

When the third volume of Professor Skeat's new edition of Chaucer appeared, it was a disappointment to find that he had not revised the opinion of Chaucer's indebtedness to Marco Polo expressed by him several years ago. It is true that his view had been generally accepted, but the cautious manner in which a few prominent scholars had expressed themselves might have suggested a re-examination of the question. The following are fairly representative of the various attitudes of scholars:—

Brandl says: “Ueber das gebiet des märchenhaften hinaus und auf einigermassen realen boden kommen wir bereits, wenn wir nach der herkunft der tartarischen namen und sitten fragen. Herzberg, Canterbury-geschichten s. 631 ff., suchte sie in der reisebeschreibung von Maundeville. Vollständiger decken sich die angaben Chaucer's mit der von Marco Polo…. Aus Marco Polo stammen mit geringen Veränderungen die namen Cambyuskan, … Camballus oder Camballo … und Sarai; die personalschilderung des Khan, seines geburtstagsfestes und hofstaates; die bemerkung, dass die Tartaren manches essen, ‘that in this lond men recch of it but smal;’ das erscheinen eines gesandten von einem anderen könig mit geschenken; endlich der baumgarten mit allerlei falken in der nähe des palastes.” Engl. Stud., XII, 163.