THE GREATEST NAMES OF OTHER LITERATURES.
Greece, in her thirteen centuries of almost continuous literary productiveness from Homer to Longus, gave the world its greatest epic poet, Homer; the finest of lyric poets, Pindar; the prince of orators, Demosthenes; aside from our own Bacon and Spencer, the greatest philosophers of all the ages, Plato and Aristotle; the most noted of fabulists, Æsop; the most powerful writer of comedy, Aristophanes (Molière, however, is much to be preferred for modern reading, because of his fuller applicability to our life); and the three greatest writers of pure tragedy, Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides,—the first remarkable for his gloomy grandeur and gigantic, dark, and terrible sublimity; the second for his sweet majesty and pathos; and third for the power with which he paints men as they are in real life. Euripides was a great favorite with Milton and Fox.
To one who is not acquainted with these ten great Greeks, much of the sweetest and grandest of life remains untasted and unknown. Begin with Homer, Plato's "Phædo" and "Republic," Æschylus' "Prometheus Bound," Sophocles' "Œdipus," and Demosthenes' "On the Crown."
A liberal reading must also include the Greek historians Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon.
Rome taught the world the art of war, but was herself a pupil in the halls of Grecian letters. Only three writers—Plutarch, Marcus Aurelius (who both wrote in Greek), and Epictetus—can claim our attention in anything like an equal degree with the authors of Athens named just above. Its literature as a whole is on a far lower plane than that of Greece or England. A liberal education must include Virgil's "Æneid," the national epic of Rome (which, however, must take its place in our lives and hearts far after Homer, Shakspeare, Milton, Dante, and Goethe), for its elegance and imagination; Horace, for his wit, grace, sense, and inimitable witchery of phrase; Lucretius, for his depth of meditation; Tacitus, for knowledge of our ancestors; Ovid and Catullus, for their beauty of expression; Juvenal, for the keenness of his satire; and Plautus and Terence, for their insight into the characters of men. But these books should wait until at least the three first named in this paragraph, with the ten Greek and twenty English writers spoken of in the preceding paragraphs, have come to be familiar friends.
Italy, in Chaucer's century, produced a noble literature. Dante is the Shakspeare of the Latin races. He stands among the first creators of sublimity. Æschylus and Milton only can claim a place beside him. Petrarch takes lofty rank as a lyric poet, breathing the heart of love. Boccaccio may be put with Chaucer. Ariosto and Tasso wrote the finest epics of Italian poetry. A liberal education must neglect no one of these. Every life should hold communion with the soul of Dante, and get a taste at least of Petrarch.
France has a glorious literature; in science, the best in the world. In history, Guizot; in jurisprudence, in its widest sense, Montesquieu; and in picturing the literary history of a nation, Taine, stand unrivalled anywhere. Among essayists, Montaigne; among writers of fiction, Le Sage, Victor Hugo, and Balzac; among the dramatists, Corneille the grand, Racine the graceful and tender, and Molière the creator of modern comedy; and among fabulists, the inimitable poet of fable, La Fontaine, demand a share of our time with the best. Descartes, Pascal, Rousseau, Voltaire, and Comte belong in every liberal scheme of culture and to every student of philosophy.
Spain gives us two most glorious names, Cervantes and Pedro Calderon de la Barca,—the former one of the world's very greatest humorists, the brother spirit of Lowell; the latter, a princely dramatist, the brother of Shakspeare.
Germany boasts one summit on which the shadow of no other falls. Goethe's "Faust" and "Wilhelm Meister" and his minor poems cannot be neglected if we want the best the world affords; Schiller, too, and Humboldt, Kant and Heine, Helmholtz and Haeckel must be read. In science and history, the list of German greatness is a very long and bright one.
Persia calls us to read her magnificent astronomer-poet, Omar Khayyám; her splendid epic, the Shah Nameh of Firdusi, the story of whose labors, successes, and misfortunes is one of the most interesting passages in the history of poetry; and taste at least of her extravagant singer of the troubles and ecstasies of love, Hafiz.
Portugal has given us Camoens, with his great poem the "Luciad." Denmark brings us her charming Andersen; and Russia comes to us with her Byronic Pushkin and her Schiller-hearted poet, Lermontoff, at least for a glance.
We have thus named as the chiefs, twenty authors in English, ten in Greek, three of Rome, two of Italy, ten of France, two of Spain, seven of Germany, three of Persia, one of Portugal, one of Denmark, and two of Russia,—sixty-one in all,—which, if read in the manner indicated, will impart a pretty thorough knowledge of the literary treasures of the world.