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Lee, Sidney, Sir, 1859-1926

"Shakespeare and the Modern Stage with Other Essays"

This scholarly movement in
France shows signs of rapid extension. Each summer vacation sees an
increase in the number of French visitors to the British Museum
reading-room, who are making recondite researches into English
literary history. The new zeal of Frenchmen for English studies claims
the most cordial acknowledgment of English scholars, and it is
appropriate that the most coveted lectureship on English literature in
an English University--the Clark lectureship at Trinity College,
Cambridge--should have been bestowed last year on the learned
professor of English at the Sorbonne, M. Beljame, author of _Le Public
et les Hommes de Lettres en Angleterre au XVIIIe Siecle_. M.
Beljame's unexpected death (on September 17, 1906), shortly after his
work at Cambridge was completed, is a loss alike to English and French
letters.

II
In view of the growth of the French interest in English literary
history, it was to be expected that serious efforts should be made in
France to determine the character and dimensions of the influence
exerted on French literature by the greatest of all English men of
letters--by Shakespeare. That work has been undertaken by M.
Jusserand.


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