University of Northern Iowa

Troubadours and Trouvères, New and Old by Harriet W. Preston

The North American Review, Vol. 124, No. 255 (Mar. - Apr., 1877), pp. 331-333
Published by: University of Northern Iowa
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25110037 .
Accessed: 14/05/2014 02:11

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

University of Northern Iowa is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The North
American Review.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 91.229.248.50 on Wed, 14 May 2014 02:11:07 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
1877.] Preston's Troubadours and Trouveres. 331

dence of an Over-soul; but is there any theory of science which com

him to the religion which Mr. ? We
pels reject simple Bixby presents
believe there is none. If, on the other hand, Mr. Bixby
by religion
means and if he intends to prove that there is no necessary
Christianity,
antagonism between science and Christianity, he has, wTe regret to say,

failed; for no one w7ould his definition of as

signally accept religion
a definition of the of Christ. Like
religion Hegel's "pure Being"
it includes every type of religion. But these fundamental defects
of definition are followed minor numerous
faults of logic and phi
by
The intended to prove that science as well
losophy. long argument
"
as is concerned with the immaterial," is rendered
religion totally
"
useless a failure to define the immaterial." To Berkeley an idea is
by
the most material thing, to Hamilton it is the least material. Whom
does Mr. follow 1 The
attempt, also, to show that the existence
Bixby
of a First Cause can be as would
proved by induction utterly fails, be

Kant, a hundred years ago, in the Third

expected. nearly Antinomy
"
of the Critique," demonstrated the uselessness of all such
conclusively
attempts.
But notwithstanding these radical faults of definition and philosophy,
the author out with not a little power of discrimination the
points
similarities of science and of what he calls and indicates
religion,
with excellent taste, the consequent foolhardiness of the endeavor of
either to condemn the other at its bar. The in which the book is
spirit
written is to be commended to new-school scientists and to old-school

theologians. The author's theological training has not prejudiced him

against science, and his in what may be called the philo

proficiency
of science has not lessened his reverence for either
sophy evidently
Moses or St. Paul. The and calm rises in cer
style usually judicial
tain passages to a considerable energy,
degree butof sinks in others
into a the treatment of any sub
metaphorical gaudiness unbecoming
ject, and of a philosophical one. The author has a fond
especially
" "
ness for words, as "idealness"
coming hypotheticalness (p. 143), (p.
134), "high-priori" (p. 68). This propensity should be severely curbed.

? New and Harriet Pres

11. Troubadours and Trouveres, Old. By W.
ton. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1876. 16mo.

Miss Preston is favorably known as the translator of Mistral's Mireio,

which first made the American acquainted with the modern Pro
public
vencal school of poets. The first to the formation of this school
impulse
"
was given by Jasmin, whose " Blind Girl of Castel-Cuille is well known

This content downloaded from 91.229.248.50 on Wed, 14 May 2014 02:11:07 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 332 Preston's Troubadours and Trouvlres. [March,

by Longfellow's beautiful translation. The object of the society founded

by Boumanaille in 1854 was, however, very different from that of the
Gascon poet. It was no less than a revival of the old independent
political feeling which found in the strains of the Trouba
expression
dours, whose successors the felibres themselves to be. To this
imagine
group of
poets Miss Preston introduces us in this vol
very pleasantly
ume, which contains articles on Mistral's Calendau, Theodore Au

banel, Jasmin, the Songs of the Troubadours, and the Arthuriad. The
readers of "Mireio" will be made to be with another
glad acquainted
long poem the same author, we do not think that it
by although
sustains his previous This may be influenced
reputation. opinion by
"
the great difference between the two poems. Mireio" is idyllic and
" "
charming in its Calendau is an old-time story of brigands,
simplicity.
abduction, and escape from dungeons. It contains many powerful pas
sages, and it may be that a version would elicit a more favor
complete
able opinion than the detached portions given by Miss Preston. The
on Aubanel is more of
chapter pleasing, consisting purely lyrical speci
mens, marked more or less a tone found in all modern since
by poetry
the of Byron and Heine. The article on Jasmin is noteworthy for
days
"
an of a entitled which, as the trans
analysis long poem FranQonette,"
"
lator says, is fully to rank with the Blind Girl of Castel-Cuille."
worthy
The least satisfactory part of the book is that relating to the old
Provencal poets. The difficulties attending the study of early Provencal
literature are many and of two kinds. The in the first place,
language,
is not easy; there is a lamentable lack of dictionaries and grammatical

aids, and the texts are very In the next the

corrupt. place, although
is in itself there are so many rung on
thought simple enough, changes
the theme, so many allusions to and now un
original persons things
known, and so much in ascertaining the persons to whom many
difficulty
of the poems are dedicated, that a version is often almost
satisfactory
These difficulties are increased when one at
impossible. enormously
tempts metrical versions. in Italian and mediaeval German
Except early
lyrical poetry (the versification of both of which was based on Proven
no such metrical difficulties are to be found in lan
cal), any European
guage as in Provencal. It is almost to reproduce the compli
impossible
cated structure of the stanza and the involved Miss
curiously rhyme.
Preston, who has considerable in versification, imitates
facility generally
the form of the she fails to give
closely originals, although occasionally
the continued from stanza to stanza. In this she only follows
rhyme
the of most German translators, who, however, mention
example always
this deviation from the original. We should not have alluded to these
inaccuracies in form (for examples of which see pages 165, 171, 174, 184,

This content downloaded from 91.229.248.50 on Wed, 14 May 2014 02:11:07 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
1877.] Boring's Farmyard Club of Jotham. 333

" that
229) had not the translator stated on page 161 she had preserved
at all hazards the measure and movement of the originals, the lines of

widely varjdng length, the long-sustained and strangely distributed

lines." After a careful examination of Miss Preston's versions and com
with the we do not think that convey a very
parison originals, they
exact idea of the originals. There is a modern air about her versions,
and are full of phrases and to the
they thoughts entirely foreign spirit
of old Provencal poetry. In her desire to keep the form of the originals
she has sacrificed the contents. She admits herself "that
(p. 161),
some of these versions at least should rather be called paraphrases."
Our space will not us to notice in detail where
permit any examples
the contents have been thus sacrificed to the form. We cannot, how

ever, refrain from calling attention to the version of Guiraut de Borneil's

beautiful on page The is not one
alba, 227. translation only marred by
or two mistakes from an insufficient with the lan
arising acquaintance
guage, but the entire idea original of the
is arbitrarily changed. In the

Provencal the vigilant friend awakes the happy lover who is tarrying
too long with his mistress. In Miss Preston's version the disconsolate
lover addresses the whole poem to his mistress from without her man
sion !
In regard to the remarks which accompany the versions, show
they
that the writer is unfamiliar not with the latest works on the subject
only
but even with such standard ones as Diaz's "Leben und Werke der Trou
" "
badours and Poesie der Troubadours." An acquaintance with these
books wTould have saved her many mistakes and removed many difficul
ties. Most of her information has been taken at second-hand from such
"
superficial and works as Sismondi's Literature of the South
antiquated
"
of Europe," and Millot's Historie des Troubadours." Since then vast
advances have been made study, in this
and many of the sources accepted
without these writers have
question by long ago been proved utterly
unreliable. This is the case with the often-cited Tehan de
notably
Nostre Dame who has been shown to be a forger.
(Nostradamus), silly
"
The concluding article is a pleasant comparison of Tennyson's
Idylls
of the King" with their English, and French prototypes, with some
sensible remarks on the of the Arthurian
morality cycle.

12.? The Farmyard Club of Jotham: An Account of the Families and

Farms of that Famous Town. George B. Loring. Illustrated.
By
Boston: Lockwood, Brooks, k Co. 1876. 12mo. pp. 619.
Large
This book makes us feel anew the force of the of
quaint saying
Cowley, that "if heraldry were guided by reason, a plough in a field

This content downloaded from 91.229.248.50 on Wed, 14 May 2014 02:11:07 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions