PARIS, BRUNO PAULIN GASTON (1839-1903)

This article appears in Volume V20, Page 803 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: PAI-PAS

PARIS, BRUNO PAULIN GASTON (1839-1903) , French scholar, son of Paulin Paris, was born at Avenay (Marne) on the 9th of August 1839. In his childhood Gaston Paris learned to appreciate the Old French romances as poems and stories, and this early impulse to the study of Romance literature was placed on a solid basis by courses of study at Bonn (1856-1857) under Friedrich Diez, at Gottingen (1857-1858) and finally at the Ecole des Chartes (1858-1861). His first important

work

WORK

was an Etude sur le role de l'

accent

ACCENT

latin clans la langue frangaise (1862). The subject was developed later in his Lettre d M. Leon Gautier sur la versification latine rhythmique (1866). Gaston Paris maintained that French versification was a natural development of popular Latin methods which depended on

accent

ACCENT

rather than quantity, and were as widely different from classical rules as the Low Latin was from the classical idiom.' For his degree as

doctor

DOCTOR (Lat. for " teacher ")

he presented a thesis on the Histoire poetique de Charlemagne (1865). He succeeded his father as professor of medieval French literature at the College de France in 1872; in 1876 he was admitted to the

Academy

ACADEMY, GREEK
ACADEMY, ROYAL

Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS (from Lat. inscribere, to write upon)

and in 1886 to the French

Academy

ACADEMY, GREEK
ACADEMY, ROYAL

; and in 1895 he was appointed director of the College de France. Gaston Paris won a European reputation as a Romance scholar. He had learnt German methods of exact research, but besides being an accurate philologist he was a literary critic of

great

GREAT

acumen and breadth of view, and brought a singularly clear mind to

bear

on his favourite study of medieval French literature. His Vie de Saint-Alexis (1872) broke new ground and provided a model for future editors of medieval texts. It included the

original

ORIGINAL

text and the variations of it dating from the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries. Gaston Paris contributed largely to the Histoire litteraire de la France, and with Paul Meyer published Romania, a journal devoted to the study of Romance literature. Among his other numerous works may be mentioned Les Plus anciens monuments de la langue frangaise (1875); a Manuel d'ancien Francais (1888); an edition of the Mystere de la passion d'Arnoul Greban (1878), in collaboration with M. Gaston Raynaud; Delve redactions du roman des Sept sages de Rome (1876); a translation of the Grammaire des langues romans (1874-1878) of Friedrich Diez, in collaboration with MM. Brachet and Morel-Fatio. Among his works of a more popular nature are La Poesie du moyen dge (1885 and 189J); Penseurs et pates (1897); Fames et legendes du moyen dge (1900); Francois Villon (1901), an admirable monograph contributed to the " Grande Ecrivains Francais "

series

SERIES (a Latin word from serere, to join)

; Legendes du moyen dge (1903). His excellent summary of medieval French literature forms a volume of the Temple Primers. Gaston Paris endeared himself to a wide circle of scholars outside his own country by his unfailing urbanity and generosity. In France itself he trained at the Ecole des Chartes and the College de France a band of disciples who continued the traditions of exact research that he established. Among them were:

Leopold

LEOPOLD (M.H. Ger. Liupolt; O.H. Ger. Liupald, from hut, Mod. Ger. Leute, " people," and paid, " bold," i.e. " bold for the people ")

Pannier; Marius Sepet, the author of Le Drame chretien au moyen dge. (1878) and of the Origines catholiques du theatre moderne (1901); Charles Joret; Alfred Morel-Fatio; Gaston Raynaud, who is responsible for various volumes of the excellent editions published by the Societe des anciens textes frangais; Arsene Darmesteter and others. Gaston Paris died in Paris on the 6th of March 1903.
See " Hommage a Gaston Paris " (1903), the opening lecture of his successor, Joseph Bedier, in the chair of medieval literature at the College de France; A. Thomas, Essais de philologie frangaise (1897); W. P. Kee, in the Fortnightly Review (July. *904); M. Croiset, Notice sur Gaston Paris (1904) ; J. Bedier et M. Roques, Bibliographie des travaux de Gaston Paris (1904).

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