The current conception of Browning's reputation before his marriage is based to a large extent on that little book of pleasant and readable scholarship by Professor T. R. Lounsbury, The Early Literary Career of Robert Browning. Lounsbury attempted to show that Pauline (1833) and Paracelsus (1835) were surprisingly well received for first poems; that Strafford (1837), a bad play, chilled this initial enthusiasm; and that Sordello (1840), a foolishly obscure poem, killed all enthusiasm except in a few. He went on to assert that the effect of Sordello lasted for many years, and that thereafter there was an ignorance “almost incredible” among “the great majority of the most highly educated class,” even among those “distinguished in letters,” and that this ignorance did not begin to lift until the publication of The Ring and the Book (1868–69).

The present study is an attempt to examine the growth of use of the progressive, or expanded, tense system in Modern English. The shades of significance of the system have been minutely analyzed by Jespersen, Curme, and others. Jespersen's explanation of the form as taking its rise in the preposition on + the gerund after the verb to be (fused with the use of be + the ing participle) seems unchallenged. But the frequency of use is yet another matter.

The fact that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was one of the most widely read poets in the British Isles during the middle of the nineteenth century cannot be explained entirely by the popular nature of a large portion of his writings. Equally important are the circumstances connected with the publishing business, which, prior to the passage of the American international copyright act in 1891, made possible the purchase of pirated editions of his various works at a price within the range of the lower levels of the reading classes. Tennyson was indeed popular, but in the 1850's a copy of one of his books cost a good round sum. Longfellow likewise was popular, but a copy of his latest work could often be bought for a shilling. The result was inevitable. When an English woman wrote to Longfellow in 1876 protesting against American publishers, who had reprinted her works without permission, the poet replied:

Out of the pages of Pickwick step many of Dickens's funniest eccentrics. Characters with mannerisms and tags of speech parade through the novel, illustrating a distinctive style of characterization which is usually labelled caricature in every novel he writes later. How and why did he begin this style? Much light can be thrown upon his early narrative development by a study of Mr. Jingle, the character which has one of the most extreme of all Dickens's uses of eccentric mannerism—a rapid-fire, staccato habit of speech. Furthermore, an unbelievable anecdote usually constitutes the subject-matter of Mr. Jingle's remarks, as:

Don Bolaro Fizzgig—Grandee—only daughter—Donna Christina—splendid creature—loved me to distraction—jealous father—high-souled creature—handsome Englishman—Donna Christina in despair—prussic acid—stomach pump in my portmanteau—operation performed—old Bolaro in ecstasies—consent to our union—join hands and floods of tears—romantic story—very.

On a beaucoup discuté l'influence de Sainte-Beuve sur Victor Hugo dans le domaine de la métrique, influence qui d'après quelques critiques se trouve bien marquée dans les Orientales de Victor Hugo, publiées en janvier 1829. Sainte-Beuve qui fit la connaissance de Hugo vers la fin de janvier 1827 étudiait depuis le mois d'août 1826 en vue d'un concours proposé par l'Académie, “l'histoire de la langue et de la littérature française, depuis le commencement du XVIe siècle.” Ce fut de ce travail que sortit le célèbre Tableau historique et critique de la poésie française et du Théâtre français au XVIe siècle, paru d'abord, à partir de juillet 1827, dans le Globe et ensuite en librairie, en août 1828. Comme chacun sait, cet ouvrage révéla aux romantiques les richesses des poètes de la Pléiade.

The meeting of the American Folk-Lore Society with the Modern Language Association of America on the one hand and with the American Anthropological Association on the other in 1938 illustrates very clearly the wide range of interests covered by the term folklore. A century ago no such term existed, but the need for one was greatly felt. Students of the popular ballad, of popular antiquities, and of superstitions all recognized that they had something in common, and, as soon as the word folklore was proposed in the 1840's, it was adopted, not only by the English-speaking public, but by the whole world. It is now as ubiquitous as the Ford car and moves uneasily in Russian or Hungarian texts, not to speak of such familiar literatures as French or German. During the ninety years in which this word has been spreading over the world, it has extended its meaning until no man today can take all folklore for his province.

No one would deny that contemporary Mexico, the Mexico of Lázaro Cárdenas, the Mexico of widespread agrarian reform, of militant trade unions, of advanced social legislation, of expanding popular education and expropriation of foreign oil companies, has entered an era of great historic significance. We who are close to the scene are acutely aware of the swift tempo which this peaceful phase of the thirty year old Mexican Revolution has assumed. However we may evaluate the direction in which Mexico's social order is moving, we are especially conscious of the fact that for the past half-decade, Mexico has been a nation in rapid transition.

The relation between Balzac's fiction and that of the popular novelists of his generation has often provoked discussion. Various opinions have been advanced: at one extreme, the over-hasty and malignant judgment of Sainte-Beuve, who persisted in classing Balzac with Sue and the feuilletonistes; at the other, the adulation of those who resent any comparison between Balzac and men of second and third rank. Perhaps, in view of the importance which attaches to questions of technique, a resuscitation of the controversy is permissible: an investigation, this time, of Balzac's treatment of violent physical action. The conclusion of such a study might prove only that Balzac differed from the popular novelists—in which case, we should be bringing merely another coal to Newcastle. If, however, our investigation of violent action can be related to the problem of the novelist's general technique, the effort may not be altogether in vain.

De nombreux critiques ont déjà noté des analogies évidentes d'idées et de formes entre Bergson et Proust. M. Léon Pierre-Quint a révélé l'existence de relations personnelles entre le philosophe et le romancier: Marcel Proust fut l'élève de Bergson en Sorbonne et M. Bergson devint parent éloigné de Proust en épousant Mlle Neuburger. De plus, M. Pierre-Quint a indiqué, dans leurs grandes lignes, les thèmes proustiens qui auraient pu être dérivés des propositions contenues dans L'Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience, Matière et Mémoire et L'Évolution créatrice. M. Étienne Burnet a conseillé d'éclairer plus vivement les procédés d'analyse que Proust doit à Bergson: “qu'il y ait du Bergson dans Proust, on l'a dit, mais on ne l'a pas assez dit” Le Dr. Robert Proust, dans la NRF de janvier 1923, numéro consacré à la mémoire de Marcel Proust mort deux mois avant, répète que l'influence de Bergson sur Marcel, après celle de Darlu, son professeur de philosophie à Condorcet, fut considérable. En Allemagne, M. Jackel Kurt a publié dans Sprache und Kultur der Germanischen-Romanischen Volker, un article intitulé “Bergson und Proust.”

Hofmannsthal's Ad Me Ipsum, which appeared posthumously in 1930, was an attempt on the part of the author to reduce his major work to a compact, often gnomic, schema of his creative intentions. Long before the appearance of this confession, which is a compendium of literary interpretation rather than æsthetic evaluation, it was obvious that the premature criticism of the nineties had wrongly classified the poet in the art-for-art's-sake school. Not only were his early plays and lyrics highly colored by an exacting ethos (though its clear formulation came slowly and subsequently), but the various prose-pieces (Gespräche, Reden, Aufsätze, etc.) published at intervals from the early pseudo-authorship of Loris until the close of the poet's life testify to an æsthetic theory in which ethical considerations play an important, if not dominant, rôle.