Nineteenth-Century Medievalism: The Polemic of Paulin Paris

The writings of Paulin Paris (1800-1881), one of the first professional medievalists in France, can be read as commentary on the period in which he wrote. If we consider the whole of his work as a polemic on behalf of medieval literature, six aspects of this polemic can be discerned and examined as they relate to the society and thought of nineteenth-century France: the mythical, historical, political, nationalistic, aesthetic, and professional. (BMcRA)