THE INTERDEPENDENCE of LITERATURE
By
GEORGINA PELL CURTIS
"There is first, the literature of knowledge, and secondly the literature of power. The function of the first is to teach, the function or the second is to move; the first is a rudder, the second an oar or a sail. The first speaks to the mere discursive understanding, the second speaks ultimately, it may happen, to the higher understanding or reason, but always through affections of pleasure and sympathy."
Thomas De Quincey "Essays on the Poets." (Alexander Pope.)
B. Herder,
17 South Broadway, St. Louis, Mo.
and 68 Great Russell St., London, W.C.
1917
PREFACE.
The author has endeavored in these pages to sketch, in outline, a subject that has not, as far as she knows, been treated as an exclusive work by the schoolmen.
Written more in the narrative style than as a textbook, it is intended to awaken interest in the subject of the interdependence of the literatures of all ages and peoples; and with the hope that a larger and more exhaustive account of a very fascinating subject may some day be published.
Chicago, Ill., June, 1916.