[155]. Curiously enough, J. Grimm, though not too clear in his statement, is with the rationalists, in spite of his “divine origin” for poetry and the “mystery” of self-made song, which he advocates elsewhere; for in his Ursprung der Sprache (reprint, 7th ed., 1879, p. 54) he says poetry and music had their origin in the reason, emotion, and imagination of a poet, and gives a genetic process not unlike that set forth by Mr. Spencer: “denn aus betonter, gemessener recitation der Worte entsprangen gesang und lied, aus dem lied die andere dichtkunst, aus dem gesang durch gesteigerte abstraction alle übrige musik.”
[156]. Die antike Kunstprosa, 2 vols., Leipzig, 1898. Mr. Spencer’s theory, analogous in some respects to Norden’s, is considered below.
[157]. This notion itself—see the extract above from Strabo—Norden, I. 35, refers to a desire to glorify the golden age, and to set its poetry over against the prose of degenerate modern days.
[158]. II. 762.
[159]. Ibid., I. 78.
[160]. Tam apud Graecos quam apud Latinos longe antiquiorem curam fuisse carminum quam prosae, etc. Varro in Isiodor. Orig., I. 38, 2, quoted and discussed by Norden, I. 32 f.
[161]. “I suppose, of course,” said a writer of considerable reputation, to whom the project of the present work was mentioned, “you will begin with Homer.”
[162]. Indeed, the very arguments from Greek oratory hardly seem convincing. Let any one read the section of Aristotle’s Rhetoric (III. viii.), where he speaks of prose rhythm. What is this rhythm without metre but the quality, far more musically developed in Greek, which one also recognizes in the harmony of any modern artistic prose?
[163]. Work quoted, I. 30 f. See also I. 37, note; I. 156 ff.; II. 813 f.
[164]. See, however, E. Schröder, “Ueber das Spell,” Zst. f. deutsches Alterthum, XXXVII. 241 ff. Spell and lied, he says, are related in terms of epic and lyric charms or incantations, and form the basis of the common antithesis of “say” and “sing” (p. 258). The epic part of a charm, he thinks, was recited, while the lyric part was sung. Unfortunately, Schröder comes to no very definite results; and, like most writers on early verse, he neglects the communal and choral conditions of primitive poetry.