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| DEPARTMENT OF LITERATURE. | CHIEF REPRESENTATIVE. | DATE. | CHIEF WORKS. | SOME INFLUENCES ON FOREIGN TRIBUTARIES TO ENGLISH LITERATURE. | SOME EFFECTS ON ENGLISH WRITERS. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Epic Verse | HOMER | Ninth century, B.C.? | ILIAD—martial | Imitated by Virgil (Aenéid), and thence affecting Dante, Tasso, etc. | The Iliad translated by Chapman (Elizabethan), Pope, Cowper, etc. Milton’s Paradise Lost is ultimately based on Homer (+ Virgil + Dante). Abundance of characters, similes, etc., incorporated by all our literature. |
| O´DYSSEY—romantic | |||||
| Didactic Verse (Epic metre) | HE´SIOD | Eighth century, B.C. | Works and Days—agricultural | Imitated by Virgil (Georgics) | First model for much (mostly unimportant) didactic work, e.g. Tusser’s Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry (Elizabethan), and the verses of Dyer, Green, Darwin, etc. (eighteenth century). |
| Theogony—pedigree of the Gods | |||||
| Lyric Verse | SAPPHO (and Lesbian School) | fl. 610 B.C. | Odes of love (mostly lost) | Imitated by Catullus and Horace, and thence by Italian and French lyrists. | In English the influence was chiefly through Horace: Keynote to many of the Elizabethan and Caroline songs, e.g., in Davidson’s Poetical Rhapsody, Herrick, Suckling, etc. Moore translates Odes of Anacreon (many spurious). Modern vers de société. |
| ANA´CREON | fl. 530 B.C. | Odes of love and wine | |||
| PINDAR (Simónides, etc.) | fl. 470 B.C. | Odes of victory (Olympian, Isthmian, etc.) | One of the models of Horace. Deliberately imitated by Italians, e.g., Chiabrera. | Directly imitated by Cowley (Pindaric Odes), Dryden (Song for St. Cecilia’s Day, Alexanders Feast), Pope (Ode on St. Cecilia’s Day), Gray (Progress of Poesy), etc. | |
| Tragic Drama | AE´SCHYLUS | fl. 490-456 B.C. | Plays (7 extant, e.g. Agamemnon, Prometheus). | Imitated on wrong principles by Latin writers, e.g., Seneca, from whom false notions of “classical” drama came into France (Corneille and Racine). | Effect on English drama mostly so far as that drama was affected by Italian or French influence (pre-Shakespearean and post-Restoration). Attempts at “classical” drama in Milton’s Samson Agonistes, Addison’s Cato, Swinburne’s Atalanta in Calydon. Much use of Greek subject-matter and characters, e.g., by Shelley (Prometheus Unbound), Byron (Manfred and Cain, with character of Prometheus). Browning’s Balaustion’s Adventure (= Euripides’ Alcestis). |
| SO´PHOCLES | fl. 465-405 B.C. | Plays (7 extant, e.g., Antigone, Ajax). | |||
| EURI´PIDES | fl. 450-406 B.C. | Plays (17 extant, e.g., Alcéstis,Iphigenía). | |||
| Comic Drama | ARISTO´PHANES (and Old comedy) | fl. 425-385 B.C. | Plays (11 extant, e.g., Birds, Clouds, Frogs), (political and personal). | ||
| MENA´NDER (and New comedy) | fl. 310 B.C. | Plays of character and manners (fragments extant). | Adapted by Plautus and Terence, and thence borrowed by Molière. | Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors from Plautus (Menaechmi) from the Greek. Ben Jonson’s comedies of “humours.” English translations from Molière (Dryden, Fielding, etc. ) can be affiliated to Greek. Thence English comedy so far as determined by French, from Goldsmith to modern adaptations. | |
| Pastoral Idylls | THEO´CRITUS (and his school) | fl. 270 B.C. | Idylls of country life (and pastoral “laments” by his disciples Bion, Moschus). | Imitated by Virgil (Eclogues), and thence by Sannazaro, etc. | Pastorals proper by Spenser (Shepheard’s Calender), Drayton, Pope, etc. Mixed with ‘romance’ in Sidney’s Arcadia. Pastoral laments in Milton’s Lycidas, Shelley’s Adonais, Matthew Arnold’s Thyrsis. Idylls in Tennyson (Œnone). |
| History | HERO´DOTUS | lived 484-428 B.C. | History (conflict of Asia and Europe). | Models of Latin historians, e.g., Sallust, Livy, Tacitus. | Theoretically English historians emulated Thucydides. In practice they rather follow the Romans. The influence of the Greek “inventors” of history is everywhere, but does not admit of brief specification. |
| THUCY´DIDES | lived 471-400 B.C. | History (of Peloponnesian War) | |||
| XE´NOPHON | lived 430-355 B.C. | Ana´basis, Helle´nica, etc. | |||
| Oratory | DEMOS´THENES (and the “Attic canon,” Isocrates, etc.) | lived 384-322 B.C. | Speeches (public, e.g., Philippics, and private). | The Roman orators were avowed students of Greek methods. French oratory follows. | Influence indirect. See [“Conspectus of Latin Literature].” |
| Philosophy | PLATO | lived 429-347 B.C. | Dialogues (ethical, politico-ethical, etc.)—e.g., Republic, Symposium. | Affects all subsequent philosophy. | Platonic thought and terms are an element in all modern English philosophy. The thoughts markedly present in many poets, e.g., Shelley, Wordsworth (Intimations of Immortality). Plato’s literary method (dialogue) adopted by Berkeley (Alciphron), Landor, etc. Plato’s Republic the starting point for ideal commonwealths, e.g., More’s Utopia, Bacon’s New Atlantis. |
| ARISTOTLE | lived 384-322 B.C. | Ethics, Politics, Metaphysics, Rhetoric, etc. | Affects all subsequent thought. | Aristotelian philosophy was a kind of religion with mediaeval scholars. Its influence at present on the increase. Translated into Arabic (twelfth century) by Averrhoes, thence into Latin. Dominates the thinking of the Middle Ages (“schoolmen”). His literary criticism carried on by Horace, garbled by Boileau. Literary criticism of Aristotle leads to Puttenham’s Art of English Poesie, Sidney’s Defense of Poesie, Dryden’s Of Dramatic Poesie, etc. The erroneous “Aristotelian” doctrines of Boileau, etc., dominate English style of the “correct” age (Pope, etc.). | |
| Biography and Essays | PLUTARCH | fl. A.D. 80 | Parallel Lives | The model for later writers. French translation by Amyot, favourite reading of Montaigne. | Starting-point for biographies and biographical essays (e.g. of Macaulay). North’s translation of Plutarch’s Lives supplied Shakespeare with subjects and characters (Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, Brutus, Antony). |
| ” | ” | Moral Essays | Greatly read after Revival of Learning. | ||
| Humorous and Satirical Essays | LUCIAN | fl. A.D. 160 | Dialogues and Sketches | Affecting Rabelais, Voltaire. | Effect not reducible to a few words. Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels takes its rise from Lucian’s True History. Sterne is sometimes called “the English Lucian.” |
| Fable | Aesop | Sixth century B.C.? | Fables | Passed on from Phaedrus, etc., to all W. Europe. | Source of the majority of our fables since Alfred (in Caxton, etc.). |
| Character Sketches | Theophrastus | fl. 320 B.C. | Characters | Imitated by La Bruyère | “Characters” of Hall, Overbury, Earle, etc. |
SYNOPTICAL VIEW OF RELATIONS OF GREEK LITERATURE WITH ENGLISH.
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II
LATIN LITERATURE AND ENGLISH
The fashion of treating Latin literature as of all importance to English is passing away in the better understanding of things. It is true that the knowledge of Latin has been always more widely spread than the knowledge of Greek, and that our speech is more deeply tinged with Latinity. Yet Greek literature is the source and origin of almost all that is best in Latin, and its influence to-day is far more vital. Let it be added that, while in point of matter and thought Latin borrowed unsparingly from Greek, in point of style its principles were less sound or consistent.
Nevertheless, Latin literature is of immense importance. We may think of the prodigious historical significance of the pagan Roman Empire, and then of the prodigious spiritual significance of the Christian Roman Church. We may think of the impress that has been left on all Western Europe by these, and remember that the language of each is Latin. The necessity of not neglecting the mere language is obvious. But we are here concerned with Latin literature, of which the language is but the vehicle.
Where does Latin literature begin and end?