ABSTRACT
Taine’s Histoire de la littérature anglaise came out in four volumes, Paris 1863-4, and was translated as History of English Literature by H.van Laun. (This extract is taken from volume 1 of van Laun, Edinburgh 1871.) Taine’s account of the fogs and marshes from which the English sprang betrays a deep belief in ‘climatic determinism’, while his image of the English race-huge-bodied, glultonous, ‘slow to love…prone to brutal drunkenness’—is closer to chauvinisme.He admits, however, their love of freedom, respect for women and development of ‘the most tragic human faculties, the deep power of love and the grand power of will’. P. 38.
