OBITUARY.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 207, 26 May 1908, Page 9

OBITUARY.

. FRANCOIS COPPEE, FRENCH POET. / BY TELEGRAPH PRESS ABSOOIATION—COPYRIGHT '. Paris, May 24. Francois Coppee, the Frouch poet, 'is dead.- . .■■ , ■ " POET, PLAYWRIGHT, CONVEfiT. .Francois' Edouard Joachim Coppee; poet, novelist, and Writer of plays, is uesdribed 'as : iurnisliing a signal example 01 the influence of rea ism on French poetry, with his sentimental realism and homely subject-matter. Prom poetry . lie vpassed to plays and novels, and , he woirm turn the literary honours, being elected to the Academy in 1884, and becoming ail officer of tho Legion, of Honour in 1888. Here is a standard criticism of his style:— it l -verse and. prose, he concerns Eimselt witli the plainest expressions of human emotion, with-elemontal patriotism, and the joy of young love, and the pitifulneS.s of the poor, bringing to bear on each a singular gift of sympathy and insight. The lyrio and dyllio poetry,, .by. Which. he; will chiefly be reinetnberod, is animated by musical cliarm, and ili some instances, such as 'La Benediction' and La breve des 1> orgerons,'. displays a vivid, though not a sustained, power of expression. Ihere is force,.too in tho gloomy tale 'Le C'Oupable. exhibits all tho, defects of his qualities. In prose especially his sentiment often degenerates into, sentimentality, and ho continually approaches, and sometimes oversteps, of tho trivial. Nevertheless; by. neglecting that canon of 'contemporary,' which would reduce the deepest tragedies of life to mero subjects for dissection, lie has won' those common suffrages which ho fully deserves, and which, whero literature is concerned, he probably does not undervalue." ' In 1898 Was published "La Bonne Souffrance," the imtcomo or -M. Coppee's reconversion to .the Roman Catholic Church, which has gained very wide popularity. "The immediate cause of his return to the faith," says one authority, ' was a severo illnoss which twice brought him to the vofge of the grave. Hitherto lie had taken little open interest in public affairs, but he now joined the most violont section of Nationalist politicians, while retaining contempt for tho whole apparatus of domocracy. He took a loading part against the prisoner in the Dreyfus case, and was one of tho originators of the notorious Ligue do la'Patrie Francaise." M. .Coppee's conversion caused a Sensation in'intellectual circlos in France;, and his example has since been followed by other distinguished men °f-letters. Referring to this matter recently, the of Birmingham (Dr. Gore) said:— ■ The, free-.and comprehensive thought of philosophy appears in our day to be .reverting very generally to a spiritual interpretation of the universe. This I beliove to be tho case both in Europe and America. In France there is, I am informed, a noticeable revival of the intel-' .tactual authority of Pascal, which would mean a recognition of the strict limitation of. the sphere of science, properly so called, and an open door for reasonable faith. What is plain to see is that thore has in quite recent years been a remarkable group of distinguished m'on of letters in France—Brunctiere, Huysmans, Bpilrgot, Coppeo, Verlaine, Retto—who have been converted, and havo proclaimed their conversion, from extreme hostility to religion, to enthusiastic and devoted membership in tho Catholic Church. This has arrested the interest of Europe. In England tho rotnrn to faith of the distinguished biologist Georgo Romanes has been followed moro recently by a similar' return described by Mr. George Palmer in his Agnostics Progress.'"