A Short History of French Literature

About the book

Saintsbury explains at the outset that one method cannot fit every period. Early literature is approached through prevalent forms, later writing through distinctive authors, and subsequent developments through schools and genres. That changing organization makes the survey more than a list of dates, even when its scope requires compression. The fourth edition presented here ends within the author's nineteenth-century horizon; its critical preferences and historical assumptions are themselves part of what readers encounter. It is useful for locating an unfamiliar writer or form within a longer sequence, but its judgments should remain open to comparison with the texts. The book's best use is exploratory: follow an account far enough to find a work worth reading, then test the historian's description against the experience of that work.

• Literary forms
• Critical judgment
• Historical change

Why read it

For a broad survey that makes its organizing method explicit and offers many starting points for further reading.

English literary history · fourth edition, 1892