Before the end of the century, Italy tt-: its introduction to Greek and accepted an enthusiasm which augured well • evolution of classical study. The Eastr peror harassed by the Turks and reams: it would not be long unless he rer from the West before his capital sent an embassy headed by Manuel Cirr, an eminent Greek scholar, to hi. Florentines welcomed Chrysoloras city and at once offered him a chair in the University (1396). Hs r room was crowded. Not only the re.r: the old came to hear him, and it is K.. men past 60 gfelt the blood leap in their : at the thought of being able to kart Addington Symonds says that gif it 'e • that except the blind forces of nature. moves in this world which is not Greek origin, we are justified in regarding of contact between the Greek teacher a loras and his Florentine pupils as one most momentous crises in the history ization.' Scholarship• rather than literature occupation of the university men of *_ • tury. Petrarch went so far as to rem he hoped was to be his greatest poem. by which he was to live, his epic, (Afri Latin, though this was a generation air had written his Comedy' in 11: Petrarch could scarcely think that the tongue was elegant enough to hold thew any length of time. Italian might do it sonnets to be read for a generation or 3 not for enduring literature. His Late f: never looked at now while his sonnet!. world possession. Petrarch's spirit all the universities. It was a tune of learning, but only of the Latin ' attracted attention only in the next Translations of the Scriptures into the languages were being made, and the se of thought in the Bible made even tun, of literary value while the familiarity people with Scriptural expressions bee: fixation of the mother tongues.
The literary monuments of the 1411:: make it immortal. Dante's (Divine has been proclaimed by some the gene: ever written. It has not only lived `: certain brief intervals has been a source of inspiration to poets, a.rts• serious students of every kind ever slur that the 600th anniversary of his dea:t is approaching, Dante is higher in than ever. There have been periods partitive neglect of their greatest poet have only served to illustrate that whenever the Italians properly, art and literature flourish Ent whenever he is neglected they are in The profound influence of Dante ore quent literature all over Europe at •cl by the number of works written with d to him. The Dante Library at Cornell ins some 9,000 volumes and thousands of titles of Danteana, and the Dante in of the British Museum contains some rial not represented at Cornell. Petrarch le mode of literature, the sonnet, had a immediate effect upon European literature Dante, and gave rise to a flood of'sonnets ver Europe. He continues to be the poets' at least. Boccaccio created out of older ents a fictional literary mode scarcely less !.ntial than that of Petrarch and his book wen read in all languages ever since, though o much for its literary value as its abiding al to human nature. Italy anticipated the
- countries of Europe in the creation in century of a national literature that was to living force ever afterward, but other tries mainly under her influence succeeded e same achievement. After Italian, English iture had the highest development at this . Chaucer (1320-1400), probably a student 2ambridge, visited Italy when nearly 50 s of age and came under the influence of arch, then the most illustrious man of let in Europe. It was after his return from r that in imitation of Boccaccio he wrote greatest and most original work, 'The terbury Tales.' Written in an English not • different from that of our time, this is of the world's great works of literature, of wit, humor, pathos and knowledge of sanity; written from so close to the heart iature that it has lived and will live.
f ohn Gower's (1325-1408) (Confessio antis,' a collection of stories like the les,' written after his friend Chaucer had ionstrated the power of expression of Eng , and diverted him from his Latin, though had to display his erudition in the title at ;t, is mainly of academic interest, a work of antry rather than of human nature, but com ing our knowledge of the intellectual inter , of the time for that very reason by its trast with Chaucer. The third English rary monument of this century is the 'Vision Piers Ploughman,' probably by William ngland (1332?-1399?), a clergyman in npathy with the lower classes. It is a rited satire against vice and abuses in gen I, not sparing the faults of the churchmen of t time, emphasized by the social conditions er the Black Death. France possesses one iter of cardinal importance in the period, oissart, the historian who wrote in
gland has her corresponding prose writer in unknown translator of Sir John Mande le's
The 14th century presents an unexpected iture of history in the career of a woman iter, who finding herself a widow at the age 25 with three children to support, proceeded make a living for them with her pen. This is Christine de Pisan, born in Italy but ought up in France and writing French bal ks, rondeaux and other poems as well as an unense amount of hack work prose, transla ms and compilations of all kinds, so that, as le herself says, "in the short space of six ors (1397-1403) I wrote 15 important books, ithout mentioning minor essays which com piled, made 70 large copy-books.° It is indeed illuminating for the time to find the career of this kind in it, and it can scarcely help but revolutionize many commonly accepted notions with regard to medizval lack of interest in such things and utter denial of Opportunities for a successful intellectual life for women who possessed the necessary talent and initia tive.