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PROROGATION

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Originally appearing in Volume V22, Page 455 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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PROROGATION , a postponement, specifically the termination without See also:

dissolution of a session of See also:parliament by discontinuing the meetings until the next session. The See also:Lat. prorogatio (from prorogare, to ask publicly) meant a prolongation or continuance of See also:office or command, cf. prorogatio imperii (Liv. viii. 26), or a needful that to plainness should be added various attractions and ornaments. The sentences must be built up in a manner which displays variety and flexibility. It is highly desirable that there should be a See also:harmony, and even a See also:rhythm, in the progress of See also:style, care being always taken that this rhythm and this harmony are not those of See also:verse, or recognizably metrical. Again, the See also:colour and See also:form of adjectives, and their sufficient yet not excessive recurrence, is an important See also:factor in the construction of See also:prose. The omission of certain faults, too, is essential. In every See also:language grammatical correctness is obligatory. Here we see a distinction between See also:mere conversation, which is loose, fragmentary and often, even in the lips of highly educated persons, slightly ungrammatical; and prose, which is See also:bound to See also:weed away whatever is slovenly and incorrect, and to See also:watch very closely lest merely colloquial expressions, which cannot be defended, should slip into careful speech. What is required in See also:good prose is a moderate and reasonable See also:elevation without bombast or See also:bathos. Not everything that is loosely said or vaguely thought is prose, and the celebrated phrase of M. Jourdain in See also:Moliere's See also:Bourgeois gentilhomme: " See also:Par ma foi, it y a plus de quarante ans que je dis de la prose, sans que j'en susse rien," is not exactly true, although it is an amusing See also:illustration of the truth, for all the little loose phrases which M.

Jourdain had used in his See also:

life, though they were certainly not verse, were not prose either, whatever the schoolmaster might say. On the other See also:hand, it seems that See also:Earle goes too enthusiastically in the contrary direction when he says, " See also:Poetry, which is the See also:organ of See also:Imagination, is futile without the support of See also:Reason; Prose, which is the organ of Reason, has no vivacity or beauty or See also:artistic value but with the favour and sympathy of the Imagination." It is better to hold to the simpler view that prose is See also:literary expression not subjected to any See also:species cif metrical See also:law. See also:Greece.—The beginnings of See also:ancient See also:Greek prose are very obscure. It is highly probable that they took the form of See also:inscriptions in temples and upon monuments, and gradually See also:developed into See also:historical and topographical records, preserving See also:local memories, and giving form to local legends. It seems that it was in See also:Ionia that the See also:art of prose was first cultivated, and a See also:history of See also:Miletus, composed by the See also:half-mythical See also:Cadmus, is appealed to as the earliest See also:monument of Greek prose. This, however, is lost, and so are all the other horoi of earliest times. We come down to something definite when we reach Hecataeus, the first geographer, and Herodorus, the first natural philosopher, of the Greeks; and, although the writings of these men have disappeared, we know enough about them to see that by the 4th See also:century B.C. the use of prose in its set See also:modern sense had been established on a permanent basis. We even know what the See also:character of the style of Hecataeus was, and that it was admired for its clearness, its grammatical purity, its agreeable individuality—qualities which have been valued in prose ever since. These writers were promptly succeeded by See also:Hellanicus of See also:Lesbos, who wrote many historical books which are lost, and by See also:Herodotus of See also:Halicarnassus, whose See also:noble storehouse of See also:chronicle and See also:legend is the earliest monument of See also:European prose which has come down to us. When once non-metrical language could be used with the mastery and freedom of Herodotus, it was See also:plain that all departments of human knowledge were open to its exercise. But it is still in Ionia and the See also:Asiatic islands that we find it cultivated by philosophers, critics and men of See also:science. The earliest of these See also:great masters of prose survive, not in their See also:works, but in much later records of their opinions; in See also:philosophy the actual writings of Thales, Agaximander, See also:Pythagoras and See also:Empedocles are lost, and it is more than possible that their cosmological rhapsodies were partly metrical, a mingling of See also:ode with prose See also:apophthegm.

We come into clearer See also:

air when we See also:cross the See also:Aegean and reach the Athenian historians: See also:Thucydides, whose priceless See also:story of the Peloponnesian See also:War has most fortunately come down to us; and See also:Xenophon, who continued that chronicle in the spirit and under the See also:influence of Thucydides, and who carried Greek prose to a great height of easy distinction. But it is with the practice of philosophy that prose in ancient Greece rises to its See also:acme of ingenuity, flexibility and variety,proving itself a vehicle for the finest human thought such as no later ingenuity of language has contrived to excel. The See also:death of See also:Socrates (399 B.C.) has been taken by scholars as the date when the philosophical writings of the Athenians reached their highest See also:pitch of perfection in the art of See also:Plato, who is the greatest prose writer of Greece, and, in the view of many who are well qualified to See also:judge, of the See also:world. In his celebrated dialogues–Crito, See also:Gorgias, See also:Phaedo, See also:Phaedrus, the See also:Symposium, most of all perhaps in the See also:Republic—we see what splendour, what See also:elasticity, what exactitude, this means of expression had in so See also:short a See also:time developed; how little there was for future prose-writers in any See also:age to learn about their business. The rhetoricians were even more highly admired by the critics of antiquity than the philosophers, and it is probable that ancient See also:opinion would have set See also:Demosthenes higher than Plato as a composer of prose. But modern readers are no longer so much interested in the technique of See also:rhetoric, and, although no less an authority than See also:Professor See also:Gilbert See also:Murray has declared the See also:essay-See also:writing of the school of Isocrates to form " the final perfection of ancient prose," the works of the orators cease to move us with great See also:enthusiasm. In See also:Aristotle we see the conscious art of prose-writing already subordinated to the preservation and explanation of facts, and after Aristotle's See also:day there is little to See also:record in a hasty outline of the progress of Greek prose. Latin.—In spite of having the experience of the Greeks to See also:guide them, the See also:Romans obeyed the universal law of literary history by cultivating verse See also:long before they essayed the writing of prose. But that the example of later Greece was closely followed in See also:Rome is proved by the fact that thq earliest prose historians of whom we have definite knowledge, Q. F. Pictor and L. C.

Alimentus, actually wrote in Greek. The earliest annalist who wrote in Latin was L. C. Hemina; the works of all these See also:

early historians are lost. A great See also:deal of See also:primitive See also:Roman prose was occupied with See also:jurisprudence and See also:political See also:oratory. By universal consent the first See also:master of Latin prose was See also:Cato, the loss of whose speeches and " Origines " is extremely to be deplored; we possess from his See also:pen one See also:practical See also:treatise on See also:agriculture. In the next See also:generation we are told that the literary perfection of oratory was carried to the highest point by See also:Marcus See also:Antonius and See also:Lucius See also:Licinius See also:Crassus—" by a happy See also:chance their styles were exactly complementary to one another, and to hear both in one day was the highest intellectual entertainment which Rome afforded." Unfortunately none but inconsiderable fragments survive to display to us the qualities of Roman prose in its See also:golden age. Happily, however, those qualities were concentrated in a See also:man of the highest See also:genius, whose best writings have come down to us; this is See also:Cicero, whose prose exhibits the Latin language to no less See also:advantage than Plato's does the Greek. From 70 to 6o B.C. Cicero's literary See also:work See also:lay mainly in the See also:field of rhetoric; after his See also:exile the splendour of his oratory declined, but he was occupied upon two See also:treatises of extreme importance, the De oratore and the De republica, composed in 55 and 54–57 B.C. respectively; of the latter certain magnificent passages have been preserved. The beautiful essays of Cicero's old age are more completely known to us, and they comprise two of the masterpieces of the prose of the world, the De amicitia and De senectute (45 B.C.). It is to the collection of the wonderful private letters of Cicero, published some years after his death by See also:Atticus and Tiro, that we owe our intimate knowledge of the age in which he lived, and these have ever since and in every language been held the See also:models of epistolary prose.

Of Cicero's greatest contemporary, See also:

Julius See also:Caesar, much less has been preserved, and this is unfortunate because Roman See also:critical opinion placed Caesar at the See also:head of those who wrote Latin prose with purity and perfection: His letters, his grammars, his works of science, his speeches are lost, but we retain his famous Commentaries on the War in See also:Gaul. See also:Sallust followed Caesar as an historian, and Thucydides as a master of style. His use of prose, as we trace it in the Jugurtha and the Catilina, is hard, clear and polished. The chroniclers who succeeded Sallust neglected these qualities, and Latin prose, as the Augustan age began, became more diffuse and more rhetorical. But it was wielded in that age by one writer of the highest genius, the historian See also:Titus Livius. He greatly enriched the See also:tissue of Latin prose with See also:ornament which hitherto had been confined to poetry; this enables him, in the course of his vast See also:annals, " to advance without flagging through the long and intricate narrative where a simpler diction must necessarily have grown monotonous " (Mackail). The periodic structure of Latin prose, which had been developed by Cicero, was carried by See also:Livy " to an even greater complexity." The style of See also:Pollio, who wrote a History of the See also:Civil See also:Laws, was much admired, and the loss of this work must be deplored. A different species of prose, the plebius sermo, or colloquial speech of the poor, is partly preserved in the invaluable fragments of a Neronian writer, See also:Petronius Arbiter. Of the Latin prose-writers of the See also:silver age, the See also:elder See also:Pliny, See also:Quintilian and See also:Tacitus, who adorned the last years before the decay of classical Latin, nothing need here be said. See also:English.—It was long supposed that the conscious use of prose in the English language was a comparatively See also:recent thing, dating back at farthest to the See also:middle of the 16th century, and due directly to See also:French influences. Earle was the first to show that this was not the See also:case, and to assert that we " possess a longer See also:pedigree of prose literature than any other See also:country in See also:Europe." Though this may be held to be a somewhat violent statement, the See also:independence of English prose is a fact which rests on a See also:firm basis. " The See also:Code of Laws of See also:King's See also:Inn " See also:dates from the 7th century, and there are various other legal documents which may be hardly literature in themselves, but which are worded in a way that seems to denote the existence of a literary tradition.

After the Danish invasion, Latin ceased to be the universal language of the educated, and See also:

translations into the See also:vernacular began to be required. In 887, See also:Alfred, who had collected the See also:principal scholars of See also:England around him, wrote with their help, in English, his Hand-See also:Book; this, probably the earliest specimen of finished English prose, is unhappily lost. Alfred's See also:preface to the English version of the Cura pastoralis was in Latin; this See also:translation was probably completed in 89o. Later still Alfred produced various translations from See also:Bede, See also:Orosius, Boethius and other See also:classics of the latest Latin, and, in coo, closing a translation from St See also:Augustine, we read " Here end the sayings of King Alfred." The prose of Alfred is See also:simple, straightforward and clear, without any pretension to elegance. He had no See also:direct followers until the time of the monastic revival, when the first name of See also:eminence which we encounter is that of See also:IElfric, who, about 997, began to translate, or rather to See also:paraphrase, certain portions of the See also:Bible. The prose of IFlfric, however, though extremely interesting historically, has the See also:fault that it presents too See also:close a resemblance, in structure and See also:movement, to the alliterative verse of the age. This is particularly true of his Homilies. A little later vigorous prose was put forth by See also:Wulfstan, See also:archbishop of See also:York, who died in 1023. At the See also:Norman See also:Conquest, the progress of English prose was violently checked, and, as has been acutely said, it " was just kept alive, but only like a man in See also:catalepsy." The Annals of See also:Winchester, See also:Worcester and See also:Peterborough were carried on in English until 1154, when they were resumed in Latin; the chronicle which thus came to an end was the most important document in English prose 'written before the Norman Conquest. Except in a few remote monasteries, English now ceased to be used, even for religious purposes, and the literature became exclusively Latin or French. There was nothing in prose that was analogous to the revival of verse in the Ormulum or the metrical See also:chronicles. All the pre-Norman practice in prose belongs to what used to be distinguished as Anglo-Saxon literature.

The distinction has fallen into desuetude, as it has become more clearly perceived that there is no real break between the earlier and the later language. The Norman check, however, makes it See also:

fair to say that modern English prose begins with the Testament of Love of See also:Thomas See also:Usk, an See also:imitation of the De consolatione of Boethius, which a certain See also:London Lollard wrote in See also:prison about 1584. About the same time were written a number of translations, The See also:Tale of Melibee and The See also:Parson's See also:Sermon by See also:Chaucer; the treatisesof See also:John of Trevisa, whose style in the Polychronicon has a good deal of vigour; and the three versions of the Travels of See also:Jean a Barbe, formerly attributed to a fabulous " See also:Sir John See also:Mandeville." The composite See also:text of these last-mentioned versions really forms the earliest specimen of purely See also:secular prose which can be said to possess genuine literary value, but again the fact, which has only lately been ascertained, that " Sir John Mandeville " was not an See also:original English writer robs it of much of its value. The See also:anonymous compiler-translator can no longer be styled " the See also:father of English prose." That name seems more properly to belong to John Wyclif, who, in the course of his fierce career as a controversialist, more and more completely abandoned Latin for English as the vehicle of his tracts. The earliest English Bible wag begun by See also:Nicholas See also:Hereford, who had carried it up to See also:Baruch, when he abruptly dropped it in See also:June 1382. The completion of this great work is usually attributed, but on insufficient grounds, to Wyclif himself. A new version was almost immediately started by John Purvey, another Wyclifite, who completed it in 1388. We are still among translators, but towards the middle of the 14th century Englishmen began, somewhat timidly, to use prose as the vehicle for original work. See also:Capgrave, an Augustinian See also:friar, wrote a chronicle of English history down to 1417; Sir John See also:Fortescue, the eminent constitutional jurist, produced about 1475 a book on The Governance of England; and Reginald See also:Pecock, See also:bishop of See also:Chichester, attacked the See also:Lollards in his Repressor of Over Much Blaming of the See also:Clergy (1455), which was so See also:caustic and scandalous that it cost him his See also:diocese. The prose of Pecock is sometimes strangely modem, and to judge what the See also:ordinary English prose familiarly in use in the 15th century was it is more useful to turn to The Paston Letters. The introduction of See also:printing into England is coeval with a sudden development of English prose, a marvellous example of which is to be seen in See also:Caxton's 1485 edition of Sir Thomas See also:Malory's Morte d'See also:Arthur, a compilation from French See also:sources, in which the capacities of the English language for See also:melody and noble sweetness were for the first time displayed, although much was yet lacking in strength and conciseness. Caxton himself, See also:Lord See also:Berners and Lord See also:Rivers, added an See also:element of literary merit to their useful translations.

The earliest modern historian was See also:

Robert See also:Fabyan, whose See also:posthumous Chronicles were printed in 1515. See also:Edward See also:Hall was a better writer, whose Noble Families of See also:Lancaster and York had the See also:honour of being studied by See also:Shakespeare. With the See also:advent of the See also:Renaissance to England, prose was heightened and made more colloquial. Sir Thomas More's See also:Richard III. was a work of 'considerable importance; his finer See also:Utopia (1516) was unfortunately composed in Latin, which still held its own as a dangerous See also:rival to the vernacular in prose. In his See also:Governor (1531) Sir Thomas See also:Elyot added moral philosophy to the gradually widening range of subjects which were thought proper for English prose. In the same See also:year See also:Tyndale began his famous version of the Bible, the story of which forms one of the most romantic episodes in the chronicles of literature; at Tyndale's death in 1536 the work was taken up by See also:Miles See also:Coverdale. The Sermons of See also:Latimer (1549) introduced elements of See also:humour, dash and vigour which had before been See also:foreign to the stately but sluggish prose of England. The earliest See also:biography, a book in many ways marvellously modern, was the Life of See also:Cardinal See also:Wolsey, by See also:George See also:Cavendish, written about 1557, but not printed (even in See also:part) until 1641. In the closing scenes of this memorable book, which describe what Cavendish had personally experienced, we may say that the perfection of easy English style is reached for the first time. The prose of the middle of the 16th century—as we see it exemplified in the earliest English critic, Sir Thomas See also:Wilson; the earliest English See also:pedagogue, See also:Roger See also:Ascham; the distinguished humanist, Sir John See also:Cheke—is clear, unadorned and firm, these Englishmen holding themselves bound to resist the influences coming to them from See also:Italy and See also:Spain, influences which were in favour of elaborate verbiage and tortured construction. Equal simplicity marked such writers as See also:Foxe, See also:Stow and See also:Holinshed, who had definite See also:information to purvey, and wished a straightforward prose in which to See also:present it. But See also:Hoby and See also:North, who translated See also:Guevara, See also:Castiglione and See also:Amyot, brought with them not a few of the ingenious See also:exotic See also:graces of those originals, and pre-pared the way for the startling innovations of See also:Lyly in his famous didactic See also:romance of Euphues (1579).

The extravagances and eccentricities of Lyly outdid those of his See also:

continental prototypes, and See also:euphuism became a disturbing influence which, it may be, English prose has not, even to the present See also:hour, entirely succeeded in throwing off. In spite of its overwhelming popularity, it was opposed in its own day, not merely by the stately sobriety of See also:Hooker, in whom we see Latin models predominant, but by the sweetness of Sir See also:Philip See also:Sidney in his See also:Arcadia. See also:Raleigh wrote English prose that was perhaps more majestic than any which preceded it, but he revelled in length of See also:sentence and in ponderosity of phrase, so that it is probable that the vast See also:prestige of The History of the World on the whole delayed the emancipation of English prose more than it furthered it. The direct influence of the euphuistic eccentricity was seen for some time in the work of poets like See also:Lodge and See also:Greene, and divines like See also:Lancelot See also:Andrewes; its indirect influence in the floweriness and violence of most careful prose down to the Restoration. See also:Bacon, whose contempt of the vernacular is with difficulty to be excused, despaired too early of our See also:national writing. See also:Donne cultivated a See also:rolling and sonorous See also:majesty of style; and See also:Burton could use English with humour and vivacity when he gave himself the chance, but his text is a prototype of the vicious abuse of See also:quotation which was a crowning fault of prose in the early 17th century. In spite of the skill with which, during the civil See also:wars and the See also:Commonwealth, certain authors (such as See also:Jeremy See also:Taylor, See also:Howell, See also:Fuller, See also:Milton, Izaak See also:Walton) manipulated prose, and in spite of the extraordinary magnificence of the Ciceronian periods of Sir Thomas See also:Browne, it was not until shortly before the Restoration that English prose reached its perfection. According to Dr See also:Johnson, Sir See also:William See also:Temple (1628–1699) " was the first writer who gave See also:cadence to English prose; before his time they were careless of arrangement, and did not mind whether a sentence ended with an important word or an insignificant word, or with what part of speech it concluded." The tendency was all in favour of brevity and crispness, and in particular of shorter sentences and easier constructions. Not a little of the majesty of the earlier age was lost; but for practical purposes, and in the hands of ordinary men, prose became a far more useful and businesslike See also:implement than it had hitherto been. The short treatises of See also:Halifax, if we compare them with similar writings of a generation earlier, display the See also:complete See also:change of style; or we may contrast the clear and sarcastic sentences of See also:South with the undulating quaintness of See also:Joseph Hall. The range of English speech was first comprehended perhaps by See also:Dryden, who combined dignity and even pomp of movement with an ease and laxity at occasion which gave variety to prose, removed from it its See also:stilted and too prelatical elevation at inappropriate moments, and approximated it to the ordinary speech of cultivated persons. This then may be called the See also:foundation of modern English prose, which has extended into no departments not recognized, at least in essence, by See also:Bunyan, Dryden and Temple.

The ensuing varieties of prose have been mainly matters of style. In the 18th century, for instance, there was a See also:

constant See also:alternation between a quiet, rather See also:cold elegance and precision of prose-writing, which was called the Addisonian manner, and a swelling, latinized style, full of large words and weighty periods, in which Johnson was the most famous but See also:Gibbon perhaps the most characteristic proficient. But as far as grammatical arrangement and the rules of syntax are concerned, it cannot be said that English prose has altered essentially since about 1680. It is, however, to be noted that in the course of the rgth century the use of short sentences, and the See also:habit of neglecting to See also:group them into paragraphs, introduced a See also:heresy not known before; and that, on the other hand, there has been a successful See also:attempt made to restore the beauty and variety of early 17th-century diction, which had suffered a long decline from the Restoration onwards. Icelandic.—The See also:independent invention of prose by the exiledaristocrats in the Heroic Age of See also:Iceland is one of the most singular facts in literary history. It resulted from the fact that story-telling See also:grew to be a recognized form of amusement in the isolated and refined life of an Icelandic See also:household from the 9th to the rlth century. Something of the same See also:kind had existed in the courts of See also:Norway before the See also:exodus, but it was in Iceland that it was reduced to an art and reached perfection. It is remarkable how suddenly the See also:saga, as a See also:composition, became a finished work; it was written in a prose which immediately presented, in the best examples, " a considerable choice of words, a richness of See also:alliteration and a delicate use of syntax " (See also:Vigfusson). The deliberate composition of sagas began about the year 1030, and it is supposed that they began to be written down soon after 1roo. It is distinctly recorded that See also:Ari Fr6di (1067–1148) was the first man in Iceland who wrote down stories in the Norse See also:tongue. Many of Ari's books are lost, but enough survive to show what Icelandic prose was in the hands of its earliest artificer, and the impress of his See also:rich and simple style is See also:felt on all the succeeding masterpieces of the great age of Icelandic history and biography. But the Greater Sagas, as they are called, the anonymous stories which followed the work of Ari and were completed in the 13th century, exhibit prose style in its most enchanting fullness, whether in the majesty of Njala, in the romantic art of Laxdaela, or in the hurrying garrulity of Eyrbyggia.

There followed a vast abundance of sagas and saga-writers. The great historian, Sturla (1214–1284), is the latest of these classic writers of Iceland, and after his death there was a very rapid decline in the purity and dignity of the national prose. By the opening of the 14th century the art of writing in the old noble language had become entirely lost, and it was not until the 17th century that it began to revive as an archaeological curiosity and a plaything for scholars. " For an Icelander of the present day to write modern history in saga style is a ludicrous absurdity," and the splendid living prose of the 12th century remains unrelated, a See also:

strange and unparalleled portent in the history of European literature. Of its beneficial effect on later Scandinavian, English and even See also:Teutonic style there can be no question. Spain.—In Castilian See also:Spanish, as in the other See also:languages of Europe, verse is already far advanced before we meet with any distinct traces of prose. A didactic treatise for use in the See also:confessional is attributed to a See also:monk of See also:Navarre, writing in the 13th century. Between 1220 and 1250 a chronicle of See also:Toledo was indited. But the earliest prose-writer of whom Spain can really boast is King See also:Alphonso the Learned (1226–1284), in whose encyclopaedic treatises " Castilian. makes its first great stride in the direction of exactitude and clearness " (Fitzmaurice-See also:Kelly). Almost all the creditable prose of the end of the 13th century is attributed to Alphonso, who was helped by a sort of See also:committee of subsidiary authors. The king's See also:nephew, Juan See also:Manuel (1282–1347), author of the admirable See also:Conde Lucanor, carried prose to a further point in delicacy and precision. The poet See also:Ayala (1332–1407) was another gifted artificer of Spanish prose, which suffered a setback in the hands of his successors, See also:Santillana and See also:Mena.

It See also:

rose once more in The See also:Sea of Histories of See also:Perez de Guzman (1378–1460), who has been compared to See also:Plutarch and St See also:Simon, and in whom the lucid and energetic purity of Castilian prose is for the first time seen in its perfection. In the 15th century the shapeless novel of See also:chivalry was predominant, while in the age of See also:Charles V. poetry altogether over-shadowed prose. The next great writer of prose whom we meet with is Guevara, who died in 1545, and whose See also:Dial of Princes exercised an influence which was not confined to Spanish, and even extended to English prose (in North's well-known version). The historians of this See also:period, prolix and discursive, were of less value. The earliest picaroon novel, Lazarillo de Tomes (1554), the authorship of which is unknown, introduced a new form and exhibited Castilian prose style in a much lighter aspect than it had hitherto worn. Still greater elegance is met with in the mystical and critical writings of Juan de See also:Valdes and in those of Luis de See also:Leon; of the latter Mr Fitzmaurice-Kelly says that " his concise eloquence and his classical purity of expression See also:rank him among the best masters of Castilian prose." The See also:instrument, accordingly, was polished and sharpened for the finest uses, and was ready to the hand of the supreme magician Cervantes, whose See also:Don Quixote was begun a few years (about 1591) after Los Nombres de Cristo of Luis de Leon had been published (1583); these dates are significant in the history of Spanish prose. The prose of Lope de See also:Vega is stately and clear, but of course has little importance in comparison with the verse of his huge See also:theatre. Quevedo's style had the faults which were now invading all European writing, of violent See also:antithesis and obscure ingenuity; but his Visions (1627) occupy a prominent See also:place in the history of Castilian prose. The latest struggles of a decadent critical See also:conscience, battling against tortuousness and affectation, are seen in Gracian (1601–1658) and in See also:Molinos (1627-1697), who vainly endeavoured to See also:save classic prose out of the intellectual shipwreck of the 18th century. When Spanish prose revived in the 19th century, in the See also:person of See also:Larra (1809–1837), the influence of French models was found to have deprived it of distinctly national character, while giving it a fresh fluidity and See also:grace. French.—There had long been a flourishing versified literature in the vernacular of See also:France, before anyone thought of writing French prose. It was the See also:desire to be exact in giving information, together with a reduced sense of the value of See also:rhyme and rhythm, which led to a partial divergence from See also:metre.

The translator of the fabulous Chronicle of Tur See also:

pin mentions that he writes in prose " because rhyme entails the addition of words which are not in the Latin." Thus about the year 1200 verse began to be abandoned by chroniclers who had some definite statements to impart, and who had no natural gifts as poets. They ceased to sing; they wrote, more or less easily, as those around them spoke. The earliest French prose was translated from the Latin, but See also:Baldwin VI., who died in 1205, is said to have commissioned several See also:scribes to compile in the vulgar tongue a history of the world. If this was ever written it is lost, but we possess a Book of Stories written about 1225 by a clerk at See also:Lille, which may fairly be said to be the start-word of French prose history. When once, however, a See also:taste for prose was admitted, the superiority of that See also:medium over verse as material for exact history could not but be perceived, and prose soon became frequent. The earliest French prose-writer of genius was See also:Geoffroy (or Jofroi) de See also:Villehardouin, who put down See also:memoirs of his life between 11g8 and 1207; he See also:left his book, which is known as The Conquest of See also:Constantinople, incomplete when he died in 1213. In the history of prose, Villehardouin takes an eminent place. In his admirable style are seen many of the most See also:precious elements of French prose, its lucidity, its force, its sobriety and its See also:charm of address. He had been trained as an orator, and it was his merit that, as M. See also:Langlois has said, he was content to write as he had learned to speak. Villehardouin was closely followed by other admirable writers of memoirs, by Robert of See also:Clari, by See also:Henri of See also:Valenciennes, by the anonymous chronicler of See also:Bethune, to whom we owe the famous description of the See also:battle of See also:Bouvines, and by the See also:Minstrel of See also:Reims. The last-named finished his Recits in r 260.

These works in the new easy manner of writing were found to be as elegant and as vivacious as any preserved by the old rhetorical art of verse. They led the way -directly to the eminent writer who was the earliest historian of modern Europe, to Jean de See also:

Joinville, who finished his Histoire de St See also:Louis in 13og. A century later See also:Froissart left his famous Chroniques unfinished in 1404, and again a See also:hundred years passed before Philippe de See also:Commines dropped the See also:thread of his Memoires in 1511. These are the three most illustrious names in the chronicle of French See also:medieval prose, in whom the various characteristics of the nation are separately developed. It must be noted that these three are simply the most eminent figures in a great See also:cloud of prose-writers, who preserved with more or less vivacity the features of French life in the later middle ages, and helped to facilitate the use of the central national language. In the 15th century, moreover, See also:Antoine de la Salle deserves mention as practically the earliest of French novelists, and one whose skill in the manipulation oflanguage was long in waiting for a rival among his successors. But with the Renaissance came the infusion into France of the spirit of antiquity, and in See also:Rabelais there was revealed an author of the very highest genius who at once defended the integrity of French syntax and enriched its vocabulary with an See also:infinite multitude of forms. The year 1532, in which the first brief See also:sketch of Gargantua appeared, was critical in French literature; for more than twenty years afterwards the structure of the great Pantagruelist romance was still being builded. Meanwhile in 1549 had appeared the Defense et illustration de la langue francaise of See also:Joachim du Bellay, in which the See also:foundations of the learned and brilliant literary See also:criticism of France were firmly laid. The liberation of the language proceeded simultaneously in all directions. In 1539 it was officially decreed that all judicial acts were thenceforward to be written in vernacular prose, " en langage maternal See also:francais et non autrement." See also:Calvin led the theologians, and his precise, transparent and sober prose, curiously deficient in colour, gave the See also:model to a long See also:line of sober rhetoricians. It is in the pages of Calvin that we meet for the first time with a simple French prose style, which is easily intelligible by the reader of to-day.

There is some affectation of an ornamented pedantry in St See also:

Francois de Sales, some return to the form and spirit of medieval French in See also:Montaigne; so that the prose of these great writers may easily seem to us more antiquated than that of Calvin. Yet the Institution belongs at latest to 1560, and the immortal Essais at earliest to 1580. We are approaching the moment when there should be nothing left for French prose to learn, and when development should merely take forms of See also:personal brilliancy and initiative of enterprise on lines already clearly laid down. But we pause at See also:Brantome, in whom the broad practice of French as Froissart and the medieval chroniclers had used it was combined with the modern See also:passion for See also:minute detail and the close observation of the picturesque. Here the habit of memoir-writing in French prose first becomes a passion. With the beginning of the 17th century there sprang up almost an infatuation for making prose uniformly dignified and noble, for draping it in See also:solemn See also:robes, for avoiding all turns of speech which could remind the reader of the " barbarous " origins of the language; the earliest examples of this subjection of eloquence to purely aristocratic forms have been traced back to the See also:Servitude volontaire of Montaigne's friend, La Boetie (1530-1563). In the pursuit of this dignity of speech the prose writers of the 16th century ventured to See also:borrow not words merely but grammatical terms and peculiarities of syntax from the ancient literatures of Greece and Rome. The genius of France, however, and the See also:necessity of remaining intelligible checked excess in this tendency, and after a few See also:wild experiments the See also:general result was discovered to be the widening of the'capacities of the language, but at the temporary expense of some of the idiomatic richness of the old French form. In the 17th century a great stimulus was given to easy prose by the writers of romances, led by d'See also:Urfe, and by the writers of letters, led by See also:Balzac. In the hands of these authors French prose lost its heaviness and its solemnity; it became an instrument See also:fit to record the sentiments of social life in an elegant See also:balance of phrases; here was first discovered what See also:Voltaire calls the hombre et harmonie de la prose. French style became capable of more than this, it achieved the noblest and the subtlest expressions of human and divine philosophy, when it was used by See also:Descartes and by See also:Pascal to interpret their majestic thoughts to the world. At this moment of national development, in 1637, the French See also:Academy was founded, for the distinct purpose of purifying, embellishing and enlarging the French language; and in See also:process of time, out of the midst of the academy, and as a See also:primary result of its labours, arose the extremely important Remarques (1647) of See also:Vaugelas, a work of See also:grave authority, which was the earliest elaborate treatise on the science of prose in any language.

Antiquated as the method of Vaugelas now seems, and little regarded in detail by modern writers, it may be said that his famous book is still the basis of all authority on the subject of French prose. In See also:

common with his colleagues of the hour, Vaugelas strove to lay down laws by which harmony of structure, a graceful sobriety, lucidity and exactitude of expression, could be secured to every practised French writer. He was not accepted as an infallible lawgiver, even in his own age; he was immediately exposed to the searching criticism of La Mothe le Vayer, who, however, was radically at one with him regarding the basis of his See also:definition. The great demerit of the early academicians was that they knew little and cared less about the forms of medieval French. They thrust everything aside which they regarded as barbarous, and the work of the 19th century was to recover from a past behind Rabelais elements of great value which the 17th had arbitrarily rejected as " incorrect." In the succeeding centuries there has been a vast See also:extension of the practice of French prose into every conceivable See also:department of experience and observation, but in spite of all neologisms, and in spite of the waves of preciosity which have periodically swept over the French language in the three hundred years which See also:divide the age of Somaize from that of See also:Mallarme, the treatise of Vaugelas remains the final code in which the laws that govern French prose are preserved. Italy.—The case of prose in the See also:Italian language has this unique feature that, instead of gathering form obscurely and slowly, it came into sudden existence at the will of one of the greatest of writers. Latin had almost universally been used in Italy until the close of the 13th century, when See also:Dante created a vernacular prose in the non-metrical part of his famous Vita Nuova, written about 1293. For a long time the prose of Dante stood practically alone, and See also:Petrarch actually affected to despise the works which his great predecessor had written in the vulgar tongue. But about 1348 See also:Boccaccio started the composition of his Decameron, which gave classic form to the prose romance of Italy. There had been stories in the vernacular before, and Boccaccio himself had written the Filocopo and the Amato, but the Decameron marked the lines upon which easy and graceful Italian prose was to move for the future. It should have been greatly to the advantage of Italy over the other countries of Europe, that in the hands of Dante and Boccaccio prose was See also:born full-grown, and had not to pass through the tedious periods of uncertain development which awaited it in England, France and Spain. After this brilliant beginning, however, there was a decline in the 15th century, the writers of the next age lacking the courage to he independent of antiquity.

There was a return to Latin phraseology which made many works almost macaronic in character; the famous Hypnerotomachia of See also:

Colonna is an instance of this. Something of the purity of Italian prose as Boccaccio had left it was recovered by See also:Sannazaro in his Arcadia (1489) a pseudo-classical See also:pastoral romance, the form of which was widely imitated throughout Europe; even Sannazaro, however, did not see how needful it was to See also:cast off Latin constructions. At length a pair of historians, See also:Machiavelli and See also:Guicciardini, succeeded in releasing prose from the yoke of Rome, and in writing undiluted Tuscan. In the 16th century the prose writers of Italy became extremely prolific, with Pietro See also:Bembo at their head. The novelists were now prominent, but, although they take a foremost place in the history of Italian literature, there was little art in their employment of language. Many of them were born out of See also:Tuscany, and, like See also:Bandello, never learned the exact rules of pure Italian prose. Since the 16th century Italian would seem to have undergone no See also:radical changes as a language, and its prose has been stationary in form. At the close of the 19th century a new school of writers, with Gabriele d'See also:Annunzio at its head, created a demand for a new prose, but it is significant that the remedy suggested by these innovators was neither more nor less than a return to the See also:procedure of Boccaccio and Machiavelli, who remain the types of ease and dignity in Italian prose. See also:German.—The earliest coherent attempts at the creation of German prose belong to the age of See also:Charlemagne, and the first example usually quoted is the Strassburger Eidschwure of 842. For all literary purposes, however, metrical language was used exclusively during the mittelhochdeutsch period, which lasted until the end of the 13th century. What little prose there was, was limited to jurisprudence and See also:theology. See also:David of See also:Augsburg,who died in 1272, is named as the earliest preacher in the vernacular, but only one of his sermons has come down to us.

More important was Berthold " the Sweet " (1220-1272), whose sermons were discovered by See also:

Neander and published in 1824. Historical prose began with the Saxon Chronicle of 1248. There was little to record in the next two centuries, until prose was revived by See also:Geiler von Kaisersburg (1445–1510) in his sermons. About the same time translations were made of the Decameron and of other Italian collections of novels. The development of prose in See also:Germany is, however, negligible until we reach the See also:Reformation, and it is See also:Luther's Bible (New Testament, 1522), on which all classic German prose is based. This movement is due to Luther alone, since the other protagonists of reform wrote mainly in Latin. Johann See also:Fischart composed important secular books in the vernacular, in particular the Bienenkorb (1579) and an imitation of Gargantua (1575), which is the earliest German novel. But nearly a century passes before we reach another prose work of real importance in the German vernacular, this being the curious See also:picaresque romance of Simplicissimus (1669) of See also:Grimmelshausen. But the neglect of prose by the German nation was still general, and is exemplified in the way by which men of the See also:stamp of See also:Leibnitz wrote in Latin and even in French, rather than in their own " barbarous " tongue. What Luther had done at the beginning of the 16th century was, however, completed and confirmed in the middle of the 18th by See also:Lessing, who must be considered as the creator of modern German prose. The critical period in this revival was 1764 to 1768, which saw the See also:production of See also:Laocoon and the Hamburgische Dramaturgie. We pass on presently to Jean See also:Paul See also:Richter, and so to See also:Goethe, in whose majestic hands German prose became the organ of thought and eloquence which it has been ever since.

End of Article: PROROGATION

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