DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.3825#0020
14 PROVENCE.
illustration of the poetic talent or taste of the school
whose works are under consideration, but picked up
at random, as a mere specimen of the language or
the structure of a verse; and certainly neither of
them seems duly sensible of the beauty and force of
the fine language which has so unfortunately perished.
It is too much to ask us to be contented with an
elaborate judgementon the merits of Provencal poetry,
prefaced by an author's admission that he has read
little or nothing of it, that it is contained in MSS.
which he cannot or has not chosen to read, and that
his acquaintance with it is almost exclusively through
the medium of the Abbe" Millot *.
Much remained to be said and learned, and M.
Raynouard has at last (in his Recueil des Poesies des
Troubadours, 6 vols.) amply supplied the deficiency,
particularly in the careful reprint of originals and the
formation of a grammar of the language. In this
elaborate work the early monuments of the Proven-
cal language and poetry may be found, collected
with diligence, and published with taste and critical
• M. Sismondi, in his second edition, has considerably en-
larged and improved his notice of the Troubadours, as well as
altered the tone of his observations, having availed himself of
the intervening publication of M. Raynouard's first volume.
Mr. T. Itoscoe's elegant translation has added incalculably to
the value of his author, by the addition of the original pieces,
which M. Sismondi knew only from Millot's translations, or
rather parodies.
illustration of the poetic talent or taste of the school
whose works are under consideration, but picked up
at random, as a mere specimen of the language or
the structure of a verse; and certainly neither of
them seems duly sensible of the beauty and force of
the fine language which has so unfortunately perished.
It is too much to ask us to be contented with an
elaborate judgementon the merits of Provencal poetry,
prefaced by an author's admission that he has read
little or nothing of it, that it is contained in MSS.
which he cannot or has not chosen to read, and that
his acquaintance with it is almost exclusively through
the medium of the Abbe" Millot *.
Much remained to be said and learned, and M.
Raynouard has at last (in his Recueil des Poesies des
Troubadours, 6 vols.) amply supplied the deficiency,
particularly in the careful reprint of originals and the
formation of a grammar of the language. In this
elaborate work the early monuments of the Proven-
cal language and poetry may be found, collected
with diligence, and published with taste and critical
• M. Sismondi, in his second edition, has considerably en-
larged and improved his notice of the Troubadours, as well as
altered the tone of his observations, having availed himself of
the intervening publication of M. Raynouard's first volume.
Mr. T. Itoscoe's elegant translation has added incalculably to
the value of his author, by the addition of the original pieces,
which M. Sismondi knew only from Millot's translations, or
rather parodies.