DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.71755#0041
PARTI THE POETICAL LITERATURE 37
In other instances, however, —and as good luck will
have it, the most important ones, — the very fact of
authorship determines the limit of their influence.
Such capable critics 1 as Pauli and Green join in attrib-
uting the origin of the “ remarkable Latin poems which
treat of the leading ideas of the great popular move-
ment and the sudden readiness of the third estate for
a genuine constitutional form of government " to mem-
bers of the order of St. Francis. The stimulative
influence of the songs cannot in this case fall far short
of the stimulative influence of their authors. The
peculiar portability of the rhymed verses, and the close
intimacy whicli existed between all members of the
order, would ensure the wide transmission of the songs
in their original form; the Friars' genius for preach-
ing would transmute the ardent Latin into the more
homely, but scarcely less glowing, native speech, while
the general popularity of the Friars would guarantee
them a vast audience. The more sublimated ideas
might be lost in the process, but the substratum of
hard sense would remain and be strengthened by prac-
tical applications such as tlie Friars best knew how to
make. And upon the few choice spirits who could
appreciate the depth and breadth and force of the
original, the refined ideas would work with tenfold
power. It is not too much to say that the strongest
proof of the demand for the rise of the unrepresented
1 Pauli, Bilder aus Alt-England, pp. 44, 45, from which the quo-
tation infra is taken. Green, History of the English People, I.,
p. 265.
In other instances, however, —and as good luck will
have it, the most important ones, — the very fact of
authorship determines the limit of their influence.
Such capable critics 1 as Pauli and Green join in attrib-
uting the origin of the “ remarkable Latin poems which
treat of the leading ideas of the great popular move-
ment and the sudden readiness of the third estate for
a genuine constitutional form of government " to mem-
bers of the order of St. Francis. The stimulative
influence of the songs cannot in this case fall far short
of the stimulative influence of their authors. The
peculiar portability of the rhymed verses, and the close
intimacy whicli existed between all members of the
order, would ensure the wide transmission of the songs
in their original form; the Friars' genius for preach-
ing would transmute the ardent Latin into the more
homely, but scarcely less glowing, native speech, while
the general popularity of the Friars would guarantee
them a vast audience. The more sublimated ideas
might be lost in the process, but the substratum of
hard sense would remain and be strengthened by prac-
tical applications such as tlie Friars best knew how to
make. And upon the few choice spirits who could
appreciate the depth and breadth and force of the
original, the refined ideas would work with tenfold
power. It is not too much to say that the strongest
proof of the demand for the rise of the unrepresented
1 Pauli, Bilder aus Alt-England, pp. 44, 45, from which the quo-
tation infra is taken. Green, History of the English People, I.,
p. 265.