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08518_Field_TCGG T283.txt
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nationality, when style meant the observance of fixed and
complicated rules of rhetoric. To copy and circulate
another man’s book might be regarded as a meritorious
action in the age of manuscript; in the age of print, such
action results in law suits and damages. Writers who wish
to derive profit by amusing a public now write for the
most part in prose; until the middle of the thirteenth
century, only verse could obtain a hearing. Hence, if a fair
judgment is to be passed upon literary works belonging to
the centuries before printing was invented, some effort
must be made to realize the extent of the prejudices
under which we have grown up, and to resist the
involuntary demand that medieval literature must
conform to our standards of taste or be regarded as of
interest purely antiquarian. In the words of Renan,
‘l’essence de la critique est de savoir comprendre des