PERIODS OF EUROPEAN LITERATURE. EDITED BY PROFESSOR SAINTSBURY. A COMPLETE AND CONTINUOUS HISTORY OF THE SUBJECT. "The criticism which alone can much help us for the future is a criticism which regards Europe as being, for intellectual and spiritual purposes, one great confederation, bound to a joint action and working to a common result." THE EARLIER RENAISSANCE BY GEORGE SAINTSBURY, M.A. PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBURGH AND LONDON MCMI All Rights reserved PREFACE. Of the difficulties, as regards delimitation of frontiers, in the designing and editing of a History of European Literature by periods, none are more obvious beforehand, or more substantial in experience, than those connected with the all-important and interesting time of the Renaissance. To that word in general, and to the signification commonly and generally attached to it, no serious objection need be taken, when the possible error of supposing any death, or even suspended animation, in the rich and vigorous literature of the Middle Ages is once guarded against. The effect produced on literature by the revived study of the classics, direct from the originals, is a fact of which it is equally impossible to deny the reality or to contest the importance. But it is no less a fact, though a much more complicated one, that this influence was exerted at different times in different countries, and in different manners at different times |