Rene and A tola mark the beginning of the Romantic School. They arc to France what Goethe's Werther is to Germany, the germ of the so-called nzaladie du sie'ele, a dilettant, morbid, introspective pessimism that was to infect Senan cour, Lamartine, Vigny, Musset, and the youth ful work of Sainte-Beuve, Dumas, and George Saud. It can be traced also, masked by stronger powers, in lingo and in Byron. This moral in fluence, the helpfulness of which has been ques tioned, was accompanied by very great services to art. Chateanbriand was the first in France to draw attention to the literary resources of the :Middle Ages and Christian antiquity. He was a renovator in imagination. criticism, history, and the founder of the new descriptive school of ideal ization and personification of nature, and thus as much the father of Loti as of Thierry and Michelet. He made literature national in as piration, Christian in spirit: he persuaded his generation to break with the imitation of imi tation that had sapped the literary life of the Eighteenth Century. His style left its mark on poetry, history, fiction. on the very lan
guage. his effect on morals and religion has been considered morbid and transitory. In liter ary art he marks an era. Chilteaubriand's works were edited by Sainte-Benve (1859-60). Consult also: Sainte-Bettye, Chateaubriand et son group(' lit teraire (Paris. 1860) ; Vinet, Madame (le Stai'l et Chateaubriand ( Paris, 1857) ; rhateall briand. sa nie, ses eerits et son influence (Paris, 1859) ; Danielo, Les Conversations de Chateaubriand (Paris, 1864) ; Bonder. Eloge de Chatcaubriand (Paris, 1864) : France, Lucile do rhateaubriand (Paris, 1879) : Bardoux, Chateaubriand (Paris, 1893) ; Fag.,net, Le XLV. sit'eb. (Paris, 1887) ; Leseure, rhateaubriand (Paris, 1S92) ; PailhAs. Chateau briand, sa femme ii SeS //1 is (Bordeaux. 18961 ; Naurel, Essai stir Chateaubriand (NH-, 1599 ) ; Bertrin, La rite rchun use do Chat«,u briand (DOI), and Brunetii+re, Evolution de la pnsie 1p•ique, Vol. I. (Paris, 1N94) : and Evolu tion des genres, Vol. 1. ( Park, 1898) : Mcniotres d'outre-totabt, trans. by Teixeira de Alaltos (t; New York and London, 19021.