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diff --git a/3778.txt b/3778.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c676d71 --- /dev/null +++ b/3778.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3116 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Interdependence of Literature, by +Georgina Pell Curtis + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Interdependence of Literature + +Author: Georgina Pell Curtis + +Posting Date: May 15, 2009 [EBook #3778] +Release Date: February, 2003 +First Posted: September 4, 2001 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INTERDEPENDENCE OF LITERATURE *** + + + + +Produced by Dianne Bean. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + + + + +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. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + Ancient Babylonian and Early Hebrew + Sanskrit + Persian + Egyptian + Greek + Roman + Heroic Poetry + Scandinavian + Slavonic + Gothic + Chivalrous and Romantic + The Drama + Arabian + Spanish + Portuguese + French + Italian + Dutch + German + Latin Literature and the Reformation + Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Philosophy + English + + + +ANCIENT BABYLONIAN AND EARLY HEBREW. + +From the misty ages of bygone centuries to the present day there has +been a gradual interlinking of the literatures of different countries. +From the Orient to the Occident, from Europe to America, this slow +weaving of the thoughts, tastes and beliefs of people of widely +different races has been going on, and forms, indeed, a history by +itself. + +The forerunner and prophet of subsequent Christian literature is the +Hebrew. It is not, however, the first complete written literature, as +it was supposed to be until a few years ago. + +The oldest Semitic texts reach back to the time of Anemurabi, who was +contemporaneous with Abraham, five hundred years before Moses. These +Semites possessed a literature and script which they largely borrowed +from the older non-Semitic races in the localities where the posterity +of Thare and Abraham settled. + +Recent researches in Assyria, Egypt and Babylonia has brought this +older literature and civilization to light; a literature from which the +Hebrews themselves largely drew. Three thousand years before Abraham +emigrated from Chaldea there were sacred poems in the East not unlike +the psalms of David, as well as heroic poetry describing the creation, +and written in nearly the same order as the Pentateuch of Moses. + +The story of the Deluge, and other incidents recorded in the Old +Testament, together with numerous legends, were known and treasured by +the Ancients as sacred traditions from the earliest ages of the world. + +We learn from St. Paul that "Moses was skilled in all the knowledge of +the Egyptians." He must therefore have been familiar not only with the +ancient poems and sacred writings, but also with the scientific, +historical, legal and didactic literature of the times, from which, no +doubt, he borrowed all that was best in the Mosaic Code that he drew up +for the Chosen People of God. This old literature Moses confirmed and +purified, even as Christ at a later period, confirmed and elevated all +that was best in the Hebrew belief. Hence from these Oriental scholars +we learn that the Hebrew was only one of several languages which +enjoyed at different times a development of the highest culture and +polish, although the teaching of the old Rabbis was that the Bible was +the first set of historical and religious books to be written. Such was +the current belief for many ages; and while this view of the Scriptures +is now known to be untrue, they are, in fact, the most ancient and +complete writings now in existence, although the discovery in +Jerusalem, thirty-five or forty years ago, of the inscriptions of +Siloe, take us back about eight hundred years before Christ; but these +Siloeian inscriptions are not complete examples of literature. + +"The Ancient culture of the East," says Professor A. H. Sayce, "was +pre-eminently a literary one. We have learned that long before the day +of Moses, or even Abraham, there were books and libraries, readers and +writers; that schools existed in which all the arts and sciences of the +day were taught, and that even a postal service had been organized from +one end of Western Asia to the other. The world into which the Hebrew +patriarchs were born, and of which the book of Genesis tells us, was +permeated with a literary culture whose roots went back to an antiquity +of which, but a short time ago, we could not have dreamed. There were +books in Egypt and Babylonia long before the Pentateuch was written; +the Mosaic age was in fact an age of a widely extended literary +activity, and the Pentateuch was one of the latest fruits of long +centuries of literary growth." + +There is no doubt that these discoveries of modern times have been a +distinct gain to Christianity, as well as to the older Hebrew +literature, for it confirms (if confirmation is needed), the history of +the creation, to find it was believed by the ancient peoples, whom we +have seen were a learned and cultivated race. + +In the present day the great College of St. Etienne in Jerusalem, +founded by the Dominicans expressly for the study of the Scriptures, +carries on a never ending and widely extended perusal of the subject. +Parties of students are taken over the Holy Places to study the +inscriptions and evidences of Christianity, and the most learned and +brilliant members of the Order are engaged in research and study that +fits them to combat the errors of the Higher Criticism. Their work, +which is of a very superior order, has attracted attention among +scholars of every country in Europe. + +In the ancient development of the world there came a time when there +was danger of truth being corrupted and mingled with fable among those +who did not follow the guidance of God, as did Abraham and the +patriarchs; then the great lawgiver, Moses, was given the divine +commission to make a written record of the creation of the world and of +man and to transmit it to later ages; and because he was thus commanded +and inspired by God, his literature represents the most perfect and +trustworthy expression of the primitive revelations. From the very +beginning, therefore, we trace this interdependence of literature. +Moses, authorized by God, turns to all that is best in the older +Babylonian, Egyptian and Indic literature, and uses it to regenerate +and uplift the Hebrew race, so that we see the things contained in the +Bible remained the same truths that God had been teaching from the +beginning of time. The older Egyptian and Babylonian literature became +lost to the world for thousands of years until in the nineteenth +century modern research in the Pyramids and elsewhere, brought it to +light; but the Hebrew literature was passed down to the Christian era, +and thence to our own times, intact. It excels in beauty, +comprehensiveness, and a true religious spirit, any other writing prior +to the advent of Christ. Its poetry, which ranges from the most extreme +simplicity and clearness, to the loftiest majesty of expression, +depicts the pastoral life of the Patriarchs, the marvellous history of +the Hebrew nation, the beautiful scenery in which they lived and moved, +the stately ceremonial of their liturgy, and the promise of a Messiah. +Its chief strength and charm is that it personifies inanimate objects, +as in the sixty-fourth Psalm, where David says: + +"The beautiful places of the wilderness shall grow fat; and the hills +shall be girded about with joy. The rams of the flock are clothed, and +the vales shall abound with corn they shall shout, yea they shall sing +a hymn." + +And again in the seventeenth Psalm, he says: + +"He bowed the Heavens and came down ... and He flew upon the wings of +the winds ... He made darkness His covert, His pavilion round about +Him: dark waters in the clouds of the air." + +In time the Hebrew language began to be influenced by others, although, +as a people, they rank with the Greeks and Spaniards as being very +little moulded by any outside influence on their literature. From the +time of Abraham to the age of Moses the old stock was changed by the +intermarriage of some of their race with the Egyptians and Arabians. +During this period their literature was influenced by Zoroaster, and by +the Platonist and Pythagorean schools. This is especially noticeable in +the work of Philo of Alexandria, who was born a few years B.C. + +Josephus, who first saw the light in A.D. 37; and Numenius, who lived +in the second century, were Jews, who as such remained, while adopting +Greek philosophy. The learned writings of the Rabbis became known as +Rabbinical literature. It is written in a language that has its roots +in the Hebrew and Chaldaic; though it has also borrowed largely from +the Arabian, Greek and Latin. In the sixteenth century Christian +scholars began to make an extensive study of Hebrew and Rabbinical +literature, and they were not slow to discover the value of these +Oriental works. These writings, however, are subject to change, and it +is in the Bible alone that we find the fundamental teaching of Hebrew +literature. Differing entirely from the Mythological and Oriental +Nations, it taught, as its cardinal principle, the unity of God. Its +historical worth has been recognized by the greatest scholars in all +ages, and it has influenced not only the ancient world, but also the +literature and poetry of the Middle Ages and of modern times. It forms +a contrast to the philosophy of the Greeks, and to that of Europeans of +a later age. When the latter have tried to explain the great mystery of +God and man, they have invariably failed. In the beautiful writings of +the Greeks, wherein we find the height of artistic expression and +polish, there is a subsequent gradual decline; but such is not the case +in the Old Testament. In every age fresh beauty and hidden treasure is +found in its pages. Another phase of the Bible which has had a far +reaching and lasting effect upon all language and literature, is its +prevailing spirit of types and symbols. This is conspicuous both in the +poetical books and in those that are didactic or historical. It has had +the same influence on the thoughts and imagination of all Christian +people and upon the poetry and imitative arts of the Middle Ages (and +nearly the same upon later and more cultivated times) that Homer had +upon the Ancients. For in it we find the standard of all our Christian +images and figures, and it gives us a model of imitation that is far +more beautiful in itself, and far more world-wide in its application +than anything we can borrow from the Greeks. We see this in Dante and +Tasso, and in other Christian poets. To the Hebrew, as the original +custodians of the Old Testament, we are indebted for keeping the faith +pure when all other nations either forgot or abandoned it, or else +mixed it up with errors and idolatry. What Moses records of the +creation of the world and the first ten Fathers, is embodied by the +Persians, Indians and Chinese in whole volumes of mythology, and +surrounded by a host of fanciful traditions. Thus we see in the Hebrew +as the chosen people of God, a nation able to preserve its literature +intact through captivity, dispersion and persecution, for a period of +four thousand years. + + + +SANSKRIT. + +Sanskrit has only recently become known to Europe through the +researches of English and German Oriental scholars. It is now +acknowledged to be the auxiliary and foundation of all civilized +speech, and is important as being the language of an extensive +literature which records the life of a wonderful people from a remote +age nearly to the present time. + +The ancient home of the Aryan, or Indo-European race, was in Central +Asia, whence many of its people migrated to the West, and became the +founders of the Persian, Greek and Roman Nations, besides settling in +Spain and England. Other offshoots of the original Aryans took their +lives in their hands and penetrated the passes of the Himalayas, +spreading all over India. Wherever they went, they seem to have held +themselves superior to the aboriginal people whom they found in +possession of the soil. + +"The history of civilization," says a well-known authority on +literature, "is everywhere the history of the Aryan race. The +forefathers of the Greek and Roman, of the Englishman and the Hindu, +dwelt together in India, spoke the same language, and worshipped the +same gods. The languages of Europe and India are merely different forms +of the original Aryan speech. This is especially true of the words of +common family life. Father, Mother, brother, sister and widow, are +substantially the same in most of the Aryan languages whether spoken on +the banks of the Ganges, the Tiber or the Thames. The word daughter, +which occurs in nearly all of them, is derived from the Sanskrit word +signifying to draw milk, and preserves the memory of the time when the +daughter was the little milkmaid in the primitive Aryan household." + +The Hindu language is founded on the Sanskrit, of which we may name the +books of the Vedas, 1500 B.C. + +All the poetical works of Asia, China and Japan are taken almost +entirely from the Hindu, while in Southern Russia the meagre literature +of the Kalmucks is borrowed entirely from the same source. The +Ramayana, or great Hindu poem, must have had its origin in the +history-to-be of Christ. It has been translated into Italian and +published in Paris. The Hitopadesa, a collection of fables and +apologues, has been translated into more languages than any book except +the Bible. It has found its way all over the civilized world, and is +the model of the fables of all countries. + +The dramas of Kalidasa, the Hindu Shakespeare, contain many episodes +borrowed from the great Epic poems. The Messenger Cloud of this poet is +not surpassed by any European writer of verse. The Ramayon and the +Mahabharata are the two great Epic poems of India, and they exceed in +conception and magnitude any of the Epic poems in the world, surpassing +the Iliad, the Odyssey and the Jerusalem Delivered. The Ramayon, of +seven Cantos, has twenty-five thousand verses, and the hero, Rama, in +his wanderings and misfortunes, is not unlike Ulysses. The Mahabharata +records the doings of gods, giants, and heroes, who are all fighting +against each other. It contains two hundred thousand verses, embodied +in eighteen Cantos, and is thought to be not the work of one man; but +different songs sung from the earliest ages by the people, and +gradually blended into one poem. In it we find the ancient traditions +which nearly all people possess, of a more free, active and primitive +state of nature, whose world of greatness and heroism has been +suppressed in later ages. Among the Hindustans there exists a religion +resembling in part that of Greece, with traces of the Egyptian; and yet +containing in itself many ideas, both moral and philosophical, which in +spite of dissimilarity in detail, is evidently akin to our doctrines of +the Christian religion. In fact, the resemblance between the Hindu and +Christian religion is so remarkable that some scholars think the Hindu +was taken from the Christian. It is more probable that it was of +greater antiquity, and that the similarity between them springs from +the seed of all truth and all Nature implanted in man by God. Indian +and Christian both teach regeneration. In the Indian creed, as soon as +the soul is touched with the love of divine things it is supposed to +drop its life of sin and become "new born." + +In a higher region all these truths in the lower world which have to do +with divine things, are mysteriously akin to each other. It needs only +the first spark of light from above to make them instinct with life. + +The Recluses or Gymnosophists of India are not unlike the first +Recluses of Egypt, and the first hermits of the desert in the Christian +era. + +The doctrines of India first obtained a foothold in Europe through the +dogma of Metempsychosis. It was introduced into the Hellenes by +Pythagoras; but never became popular among the Greeks. This +Metempsychosis (or the transmigration of souls) was believed by the +Indians from the earliest period, and their whole history is built upon +it. A very ancient connection can be traced between India and Egypt, +manifested by Castes, which are found equally in both countries, and by +similiar Mythologies. When Alexander the Great invaded Northern India +from Persia, the Greeks found an Indian Mythology far more like their +own than the Persian or Hebrew. They thought they had met with the same +gods they had been accustomed to worship, though clothed in a different +form and color. They showed their faith in this discovery by the names +of the Indian Hercules and the Indian Bacchus, later so common among +them. + +The worship of Vishnoo and Krishnoo in Hindostan differs very little +from the religion of Buddha and Fo which was established in China and +Thibet during the first century of Christianity. The former retained +caste, while the latter, following the teaching of Buddha, have +repudiated any class distinctions. + +Decimal cyphers originated in Hindostan. + + + +PERSIAN. + +In everything appertaining to their religious belief the Persians bear +a close resemblance to the Hebrew, but the poetical part of their +mythology is more similiar to the Northern theology, while their +manners bear a strong resemblance to the Germans. The spiritual worship +of nature, light, fire, and of other pure elements, is embodied in both +the Zend Avesta (Persian) and the Edda (Scandinavian). The two nations +have the same opinion concerning spirits which rule and fill nature, +and this has given rise to poetical fancies about giants, dwarfs and +other beings, found equally in Persian and Northern Sagas. + +The work of Lokman, existing now only in Arabic, has caused some people +to think that it is of Arabian origin; but it is really Persian, and of +the tenth century B.C. His Apologues are considered the foundation on +which Greek fable was reared. The Code of Zoroaster, in which the two +great principles of the world are represented by Ormuzd (goodness and +light), and Ahriman (darkness and sin) are as old as the creation. + +Ormuzd is worshiped in the sun, the stars, and in fire. Zoroaster +explained the history of man as being one long contest between these +two powers until a time to come when Ormuzd would be victorious over +Ahriman. Ormuzd, as the ruler of the universe, seeks to draw men to the +light, to dispel the darkness of ignorance, and to extend the triumph +of virtue over the material and spiritual world. It may be said of the +Persians, as Tertullian said of the Roman Pagans, "that in their +highest moods and beliefs they were naturally Christian." Among a +Persian sect called the Sufis' there is a belief that nothing exists +absolutely but God; that the human soul is an emanation from His +essence, and will ultimately be restored to Him, and that the supreme +object of life should be a daily approach to the eternal spirit, so as +to form as perfect a union with the divine nature as possible. How +nearly this belief approaches the Christian doctrine, will be easily +seen. + +Persian poetry is nearly all in the form of love stories, of which the +"Misfortunes of Mejnoun and Leila" represent the Eastern Romeo and +Juliet, and may have been known to Shakespeare in the writing of his +own drama. + + + +EGYPTIAN. + +Egypt shared with ancient Babylon and Assyria in the civilization of +its primitive literature. It is from five of its Pyramids, opened in +1881, that valuable writings have been brought to light that carry us +back one thousand years before the time of Moses. + +Their famous "Book of the Dead," of which many copies are found in our +museums of antiquities, is one instance of their older civilization. +These copies of the original, in the form of scrolls, are some of them +over a hundred feet long, and are decorated with elaborate pictures and +ornamentation. The book gives conclusive proof of the teaching of the +Egyptians of a life beyond this. Their belief in the journey of the +soul after death to the Underworld, before it is admitted to the Hall +of Osiris, or the abode of light, is akin to the Catholic doctrine of +Purgatory and Heaven. The Egyptian literature is painted or engraved on +monuments, written on papyrus, and buried in tombs, or under the ruins +of temples, hence, as has been said elsewhere, much of it remained +hidden until nineteenth century research brought it to light. Even at +the present time many inscriptions are still undeciphered. + +Geometry originated with the Egyptians, and their knowledge of +hydrostatics and mechanics (shown in the building of the Pyramids), and +of astronomy and medicine, is of remotest antiquity. The Greeks +borrowed largely from them, and then became in turn their teacher. The +Egyptian priests, from the earliest age, must have preserved the annals +of their country; but they were destroyed by Cambyses (500 B.C.), who +burned the temples where they were stored. + +In the fourth century B.C., Egypt was conquered by Alexander the Great, +who left it under the rule of the Ptolemies. The next century after the +Alexandrian age the philosophy and literature of Athens was transferred +to Alexandria. The Alexandrian library, completed by Ptolemy +Philadelphus, in the third century before Christ, was formed for the +most part of Greek books and it also had Greek librarians; so that in +the learning and philosophy of Alexandria at this time, the Eastern and +Western systems were combined. During the first century of the +Christian era Egypt passed from the control of the Greek Kings to that +of the Roman Emperors, under whom it continued to flourish. In the +seventh century the country was conquered by the Saracens, who burned +the great Alexandrian library. Following them came the Arabian Princes, +who protected literature, and revived the Alexandrian schools, +establishing also other seats of learning. But in the thirteenth +century the Turks conquered Egypt, and all its literary glory +henceforth departed. It has had no further development, and no +influence in shaping the literature of foreign nations. What it might +have been if the literary treasures of Egypt had not been destroyed by +Cambyses and the Saracens, we can only guess. Great literary monuments +must have been lost, which would shed more light on the civilization of +the ancient world. + + + +GREEK. + +A modern writer says of the Greeks: + +"All that could beautify the meagre, harmonize the incongruous, enliven +the dull, or convert the crude material of metaphysics into an elegant +department of literature, belongs to the Greeks themselves, for they +are preeminently the 'nation of beauty.' Endowed with profound +sensibility and a lively imagination, surrounded by all the +circumstances that could aid in perfecting the physical and +intellectual powers, the Greeks early acquired that essential literary +and artistic character which produced their art and literature." + +Whatever the Greeks learned or borrowed from others, by the skill with +which they improved, and the purposes to which they applied it, became +henceforth altogether their own. If they were under any obligation to +those who had lived before them for some few ideas and hints, the great +whole of their intellectual refinement was undoubtedly the work of +their own genius; for the Greeks are the only people who may be said in +almost every instance to have given birth to their own literature. +Their creations stand almost entirely detached from the previous +culture of other nations. At the same time it is possible to trace a +thread running back to remote antiquity, to show that their first hints +of a literature came from Asia. Their oldest traditions and poems have +many points of resemblance to the most ancient remains of the Asiatic +nations. Some writers say that "this amounts to nothing more than a few +scattered hints or mutilated recollections, and may all be referred to +the common origin of mankind, and the necessary influence of that +district of the world in which mental improvement of our species was +first considered as an object of general concern." But this proves at +least that there was an older civilization and literature than the +Greeks, and that that civilization had its root in the East. According +to their own testimony the Greeks derived their alphabet from the +Phoenicians, and the first principles of architecture, mathematical +science, detached ideas of philosophy, as well as many of the useful +arts of life, they learned from the Egyptians, or from the earliest +inhabitants of Asia. + +The essential characteristic of the Greeks as a nation was the +development of their own idea, their departure from whatever original +tradition they may have had, and their far-reaching influence on all +subsequent literature throughout the world. They differed in this from +all other nations; for to quote again: + +"the literature of India, with its great antiquity, its language, which +is full of expression, sweetness of tone, and regularity of structure, +and which rivals the most perfect of those western tongues to which it +bears such a resemblance, with all its richness of imagery and its +treasures of thought, has hitherto been void of any influence on the +development of general literature. China contributed still less, Persia +and Arabia were alike isolated until they were brought in contact with +the European mind through the Crusaders, and the Moorish Empire in +Spain." + +This independence and originality of Greek literature is due in some +measure to the freedom of their institutions from caste; but another +and more powerful cause was that, unlike the Oriental nations, the +Greeks for a long time kept no correct record of their transactions in +war or peace. This absence of authentic history made their literature +become what it is. By the purely imaginary character of its poetry, and +the freedom it enjoyed from the trammels of particular truths, it +acquired a quality which led Aristotle to consider poetry as more +philosophical than history. + +The Homeric poems are in a great measure the fountainhead from which +the refinement of the Ancients was derived. The history of the Iliad +and the Odyssey represent a state of society warlike it is true, but +governed by intellectual, literary and artistic power. Philosophy was +early cultivated by the Greeks, who first among all nations +distinguished it from religion and mythology. + +Socrates is the founder of the philosophy that is still recognized in +the civilized world. He left no writings behind him; but by means of +lectures, that included question and answer, his system, known as the +dialectics, has come down to us. + +Aesop, who lived 572 B.C., was the author of some fables which have +been translated into nearly every language in the world, and have +served as a model for all subsequent writings of the same kind. In 322 +B.C., the centre of learning owing to the conquests of Alexander the +Great, was moved to Egypt in the city that bears his name. Here the +first three Ptolemies founded a magnificent library where the literary +men of the age were supported by endowments. The second Ptolemy had the +native annals of Egypt and Judea translated into Greek, and he procured +from the Sanhedrim of Jerusalem the first part of the Sacred +Scriptures, which was later completed and published in Greek for the +use of the Jews at Alexandria. This translation was known as the +Septuagint, or version of the Seventy; and is said to have exercised a +more lasting influence on the civilized world than any book that has +ever appeared in a new language. We are indebted to the Ptolemies for +preserving to our times all the best specimens of Greek literature that +have come down to us. + + + +THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE GREEK FATHERS. + +The interdependence of Greek literature includes some reference to the +Greek fathers and their writings. + +Many of the books of the Old Testament, regarded as canonical by the +Catholic Church; but known as the Apochrypha among non-Catholics, were +written in Greek. A number of them are historical, and of great value +as illustrating the spirit and thought of the age to which they refer. +The other class of writers includes the work of Christian authors. +Greek and Latin writings wholly different from Pagan literature, began +to appear soon after the first century, and their purifying and +ennobling influence was more and more felt as time passed. The +primitive Christians held these writings of the Greek and Latin fathers +in great esteem, and in the second and third centuries Christianity +counted among its champions many distinguished scholars and +philosophers, particularly among the Greeks. Their writings, biblical, +controversial, doctrinal, historical and homiletical, covered the whole +arena of literature. + +Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius, Athanasius, Gregory +Nazianzen, Basil, and John Chrysostom are only a few of the brilliant +names among Greek and Latin writers, who added a lasting glory to +literature and the Church. + + + +ROMAN. + +To the Roman belongs the second place in the classic literature of +antiquity. The original tribes that inhabited Italy, the Etruscans, the +Sabines, the Umbrians and the Vituli had no literature, and it was not +until the conquest of Tarentum in 272 B.C. that the Greeks began to +exercise a strong influence on the Roman mind and taste; but Rome had, +properly speaking, no literature until the conclusion of the first +Punic war in 241 B.C. + +This tendency to imitate the Greek was somewhat modified by Roman +national pride. We catch sight of this spirit in Virgil and Horace, in +Cicero and Caesar. The graceful softening of language and art among the +imaginative Greeks, becomes in the Romans austere power and majesty, +with a tendency to express greatness by size. These early indications +of race characteristics never died out, as we may see by the contrast +between the Apollo Belvidere of the Greeks, and the Moses of +Michelangelo. The oldest existing example of Latin or Roman literature +is the sacred chant of the Frates Arvales. These latter composed a +college of Priests whose prescribed duty was to offer prayers for +abundant harvests. This took place in the spring, in solemn dances and +processions, not unlike the Bacchic festivals of the Greeks, although +the Roman dances took place in the temple with closed doors. The dance +was called the tripudium from its having three rhythmical beats. The +inscription of this litany of the Frates was discovered in Rome in +1778, and experts have agreed that the monument belongs to the reign of +Heliogabalus, 218 A.D. It is said to contain the very words used by the +priests in the earliest times. + +"Most of the old literary monuments in Rome," says a modern writer, +"were written in Saturnian verse, the oldest measure used by the Latin +poets. It was probably derived from the Etruscans, and until Ennius +introduced the heroic hexameter the strains of the Italian bards flowed +in this metre. The structure of the Saturnian is very simple, and its +rhythmical arrangement is found in the poetry of every age and country. +Macaulay adduces as an example of this measure, the following line from +the well-known nursery song: + + 'The queen was in her parlor, + Eating bread and honey.' + +From this species of verse, which probably prevailed among the natives +of Provence (the Roman Provencia) and into which at a later period, +rhyme was introduced as an embellishment, the Troubadours derived the +metre of their ballad poetry, and thence introduced it into the rest of +Europe." + +Literature with the Romans was not of spontaneous growth; it was +chiefly due to the influence of the Etruscans, who were their early +teachers, they lacked that delicate fancy and imagination that made the +Greeks, even before they emerged from a state of barbarism, a poetical +people. The first written literature of the Romans was in the form of +history, in which they excelled. Like other nations, they had oral +compositions in verse long before they possessed any written +literature. The exploits of heroes were recited and celebrated by the +bards of Rome as they were among the Northern nations. Yet these lays +were so despised by the Romans that we can scarcely see any trace of +their existence except in certain relics which have been borrowed from +true poetry and converted into the half fabulous history of the infant +ages of Rome. That the Romans, as a people, had no great national +drama, and that their poems never became the groundwork of a later +polished literature was due to the incorporation of foreigners into +their nation who took little interest in the traditions of their +earlier achievements. Father Ennius (239-169 B.C.), as Horace calls +him, was the true founder of Latin poetry. He enriched the Latin +language, gave it new scope and power; and paid particular attention to +its grammatical form. What he has done was so well done, that it has +never been undone, although later ages added new improvements to the +language. In fable Rome was an imitator of Greece; but nevertheless +Phaedrus (16 A.D.) struck out a new line for himself, and became both a +moral instructor and a political satirist. Celsus, who lived in the +reign of Tiberius, was the author of a work on medicine which is used +as a textbook even in the present advanced state of medical science. + +The Greek belief in destiny becomes in the Romans stoicism. This +doctrine, found in the writings of Seneca, and in the tragedies +attributed to him, led to the probability that he was their author. +Seneca has had many admirers and imitators in modern times. The French +school of tragic poets took him for their model. + +Corneille and Racine seem to consider his works real tragedy. + +Cicero's philosophical writings are invaluable in order to understand +the minds of those who came after him. Not only all Roman philosophy of +the time; but a great part of that of the Middle Ages was Greek +philosophy filtered through Latin, and mostly founded on that of +Cicero. But of all the Roman creations, the most original was +jurisprudence. The framework they took from Athens; but the complete +fabric was the work of their own hands. It was first developed between +the consulate of Cicero and the death of Trajan (180 years), and +finally carried to completion under Hadrian. This system was of such a +high order that the Romans have handed it down to the whole of modern +Europe, and traces of Roman law can be found in the legal formulas of +the entire civilized world. + +After the fall of the Western Empire these laws had little force until +the twelfth century, when Irnerius, a German lawyer, who had lived in +Constantinople, opened a school at Bologna, and thus brought about a +revival in the West of Roman civil law. Students came to this school +from all parts of Europe, and through them Roman jurisprudence was +carried into, and took root in foreign countries. By common consent the +invention of satire is attributed to the Romans. The originator of the +name was Ennius; but the true exponent of Roman satire was Lucilius, +who lived 148-102 B.C. His writings mark a distinct era in Roman +literature and filled no less than thirty volumes, some fragments of +which remain. After his death there was a decline in satire until fifty +years later, when Horace and Juvenal gave it a new impetus, although +their style was different from that of Lucilius. Doctor Johnson was +such an admirer of the two finest of Juvenal's satires that he took +pains to imitate them. + +Boethius, the last of the Roman philosophers, left a work "on the +Consolations of Philosophy," which is known in all modern languages. A +translation was made into Anglo-Saxon by King Alfred in 900 A.D. Virgil +(70-19 B.C.) has taken Homer as his model in his great national poem of +the Aeneid. In many passages it is an imitation of the Iliad and the +Odyssey. In his didactic poems, known as the Bucolics, Virgil has made +use of Theocritus, while in the Georgics he has chosen Hesiod as his +model. The later didactic poets of all ages have imitated Virgil, +particularly in England, where Thomson's Seasons is a thoroughly +Virgilian poem. It is easy to see in Virgil where borrowed methods end +and native strength begins; for, in spite of being close imitators of +the Greek, there is a character peculiar to the writers of Rome by +means of which they have acquired an appearance of dignity and +worthiness all their own. + + + +HEROIC POETRY. + +The traditions of all nations go back to an age of heroes. Nature, +also, has had her time of stupendous greatness, a period of great +revolutions in nature, of which we can see traces to this day; and of +huge animals, whose bones are still being dug up. The history of +civilization also has its period of great achievements, and poetry has +had its time of the wonderful and gigantic. In numerous heroic poems of +different nations we can trace the unity of all heroic personages, as +in the Iliad and the Odyssey of Greece, the Sagas of the North in the +Nibelungen-lied, and the Ramayon of the Orient. Freedom, greatness and +heroism are embodied in these poems, and many of them breathe a martial +spirit. + +We find the same character, however touched by local color, in all +these beautiful traditions of whatever nation or clime; at the zenith +of success, in the spring-time of youth and hope, on the very eve of +joy unutterable, there often seizes on the soul of man an overwhelming +sense of the hollowness and fleetingness of life. It is this touch of +the spiritual which raises these old heroic poems to such sublime +beauty and power. Poetry of this kind implies a nation, one which is +still, or has been, great; one which has a past, a legendary history, +vivid recollections, and an original and poetical manner of thought, as +well as a clearly defined mythology. + +Poetry of this order--lyric as well as epic--is much more the child of +nature than of art. These great mythological poems for hundreds of +years were never written; but were committed to memory, sung by the +bards, and handed down from one generation to another until in time +they were merged, after the Christian era, into the historical heroic +poems. These in turn were the origin of the chivalrous poetry which is +peculiar to Christian Europe, and has produced such remarkable effect +on the national spirit of the noblest inhabitants of the world. Nor has +this oral poetry entirely died out. In the present day Mr. Stephen +Gwynne has astonished the world by telling of how he heard aged +peasants in Kerry reciting the classics of Irish-Gaelic literature, +legendary poems and histories that had descended from father to son by +oral tradition; and the same phenomena was found by Mr. Alexander +Carmichael among the Gaelic peasants in the Scottish Highlands and +surrounding islands. It has been said that heroic poetry is of the +people, and that dramatic poetry is the production of city and society; +and cannot exist unless it has a great metropolis to be the central +point of its development, and it is only by the study of the literature +of all nations that we see how essentially these heroic poems were the +foundation of all that followed them in later ages. + + + +SCANDINAVIAN. + +The Scandinavian Nation held, during the Middle Ages, the first and +strongest influence over the poetry and thought of Western Europe. The +oldest and purest remains of the poets of German Nations are contained +in the Scandinavian Edda. Its mythology is founded on Polytheism; but +through it, as through the religion of all nations of the world, there +is a faint gleam of the one Supreme God, of infinite power, knowledge +and wisdom, whose greatness and justice could not be represented in the +form of ordinary man. Such was the God of the Pagan Germans, and such +was the earliest belief of mankind. + +Perhaps the poet priests of primitive times, who shaped the imaginative +mythology of the North, were conscious of the one true God; but +considered Him above the comprehension of the rude men of the times, so +they invented the deities who were more nearly akin to the material +forces that these people alone understood. The second part of the first +Edda contains the great Icelandic poems, the first of which is the song +of Voland, the famous northern smith. + +Voland, or Wayland, the Vulcan of the North, is of unknown antiquity; +and his fame, which spread all over Europe, still lives in the +traditions of all the nations of the North. These poems, although +fragmentary, still far surpass the Nibelungen-lied, and in their +powerful pathos and tragic passion they surpass any ancient poetry +except that of Greece. + +The Scandinavians in general, and Icelanders in particular, traveled +over every part of the West, and penetrated into hitherto unexplored +seas, collecting in every quarter the facts and fancies of the age. In +the character of wandering Normans they exerted a strong influence in +shaping poetry, and in developing the Crusades. They brought back with +them to their Northern homes the Christian and chivalrous poems of the +South. In many of these the likeness to the Icelanders own Northern +Sagas was remarkable, suggesting some still more remote age when one +heroic conception must have dominated all peoples. + +After bringing home these poems of Southern Europe, the Scandinavians +proceeded to adapt them to their own use, giving them a new force and +beauty. The marvellous in Southern poetry became with them something +fraught with deeper meaning; and the Northern version of the +Nibelungen-lied acquired an ascendency in its strength and poetical +beauty, over the German heroic. Hence, during the Middle Ages, the +Scandinavians in general, and Icelanders in particular, came to possess +a peculiar chivalrous poetry of their own. It was, however, destined to +share the same fate as the great poems of the rest of Europe; first to +be reduced to prose romance, and then broken up into ballads. The chief +cause of this breaking up of the old order of poetry was due to the +Reformation. The national poetry was left to be carried on by the +common people alone, and of course in their hands was corrupted and +mutilated. Scott speaks of this in his Lay of the Last Minstrel, where +he describes the old bard, who + + "'Tuned to please a peasant's ear + The harp a King had loved to hear." + +These Bards, or Scalds, meaning Smoothers of Language, were welcome +guests in the early ages, at the Courts of Kings and Princes. Up to the +twelfth century, when the Monks and the art of writing, put an end to +their profession, these poets continued to come from Iceland and travel +all over the world. In return for their songs they received rings and +jewels of more or less value; but never money. We have a list of 230 +Scalds who made a name for themselves from the time of Dagnar Lodbrok +to that of Vladimir II, or from the end of the eighth to the beginning +of the thirteenth century. When Christianity entered Scandinavia the +spirit of the old tradition still remained with the people, and became +their literature under the name of "Folk Sagas," or as we would call +them, fairy tales. These legends are found not only in modern +Scandinavia, but they have made their way into all the literature of +Europe. Jack the Giant Killer, Cinderella, Blue Beard, the Little Old +Woman Cut Shorter, and the Giant who smelled the blood of an Englishman +(the Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum of our nursery days), were all heroes and +heroines of Scandinavian songs, later adapted in various ways to the +use of different countries. After awhile this lost art revived in the +Romances of chivalry, and in popular ballads. They describe all the +changes in life and society, and are akin to the ballads of the British +Isles. In them we find the common expression of the life and feelings +of a common race. The same stories often influenced the bards of all +countries at different periods. These ballads are all written in the +same form and express a certain poetic feeling which is not found in +the Epic Age. In all countries they had a refrain, or chorus, which +marks the migration of poetry from the Epic to the Lyric form. + +"This simple voice of song," to quote a modern author, "travelled +onward from mouth to mouth, from heart to heart, the language of the +general sorrows, hopes and memories; strange, and yet near to every +one, centuries old, yet never growing older, since the human heart, +whose history it relates in so many changing images and notes, remains +forever the same." + + + +SLAVONIC (RUSSIA). + +Schlegel says of the Russian Nation: + +"Her subjection to the Greek Church was alone sufficient during the +Middle Ages, and is in some measure sufficient even in our own time, to +keep Russia politically and intellectually at a distance from the rest +of the Western world." + +Little if any part was taken by the Slavs in the Crusades. They had +hardly any of the spirit of chivalry, and their belief, during their +period of barbaric heathenism, was not so romantic and ideal as the +Gothic. + +The heroic prose tales of Russia are older and more popular than her +ballads. They are told in the nurseries, and recount the heroic deeds +of Vladimir the Great. The ballads are mostly a recital of the feuds +between the Poles and the Tartars, not unlike the Border ballads of +Scotland. + +Their greatest hero is Yermak, who conquered the Mongols, and in the +fifteenth century won for the Czars the country that is now called +Siberia. Yermak's deeds and praises are sung from one end of Russia to +the other, even at the present day; and the poorest peasants usually +have a colored print representing him on horseback, nailed to the wall +of their cabins. + + + +SERBIAN. + +The popular poetry of the Slavic race, which still survives, is found +in its perfection among the Serbians and Dalmatians, while it is almost +extinct among the other nations. It is of unknown antiquity, and has +been handed down from one century to another. + +The Slavs have always been a singing race, and must have been so from +Pagan times, as their songs abound with heathen gods and customs, +dreams, omens, and a true Eastern fatalism. Love and heroism are the +usual themes, and among the Serbians the peculiar relation of sister +and brother forms the principal subject of interest. + +A Serbian woman who has no brother is considered a fit subject for +sympathy. The Serbian poetry is nearly all Epic, and in this particular +class of verse no modern nation has been so productive. There is a +grand and heroic simplicity in their song, as it recounts their daily +life; the hall where the women sit spinning near the fire, the +windswept mountain side, where the boys are pasturing their flocks, the +village square where youths and maidens dance, the country ripe for the +harvest, and the forest through which the traveller journeys, all +reecho with song. This Serbian poetry first became generally known in +Europe through Goethe and Grimm in Germany, and Bowring and Lytton in +England. + + + +FINNISH. + +The Finnish race reached a high degree of civilization at a very early +period. They have always been distinguished by a love of poetry, +especially for the elegy, and they abound in tales, legends and +proverbs. Until the middle of the twelfth century they had their own +independent kings, since then they have been alternately conquered by +the Russians and Swedes; but like the Poles, they have preserved a +strong national feeling, and have kept their native language. Their +greatest literary monument is the Kalevala, an epic poem. Elias +Lonnrot, its compiler, wandered from place to place in the remote and +isolated country in Finland, lived with the peasants, and took from +them their popular songs, then he wrote the Kalevala, which bears a +strong resemblance to Hiawatha. Max Muller says that this poem deserves +to be classed as the fifth National Epic in the world, and to rank with +the Mahabharata and the Nibelungen-lied. The songs are doubtlessly the +work of different minds in the earliest ages of the nation. + + + +HUNGARIAN. + +The Magyars, or Hungarians as they are called, came into Europe from +Asia, and first settled between the Don and the Dneiper. They possessed +from remote antiquity a national heroic poetry, the favourite subject +of which was their migration and conquests under the Seven Leaders. +They laid claim to Attila as being of their nation, and many of their +most warlike songs recounted his deeds and those of the other Gothic +heroes. The Magyars have never taken kindly to foreign influence, and +when, in the fifteenth century, Mathias Corvin tried to bring Italian +influence to bear on them, the result was a decline in literature, and +neglect of the old poems and legends. During the Turkish invasions the +last remnants of the national songs and traditions disappeared; and +under the Austrian rule the Hungarians have become decidedly Germanized. + +Within the past century Kisfalud has sought to restore the national +legends of his country, and a new impetus has been given to the +restoration and preservation of the Hungarian language and literature. + + + +GOTHIC. + +Gothic poems were sung in the time of Attila; but the Gothic language +and monuments have everywhere perished except in Spain, where the +Spanish Monarchs are anxious to trace their descent from the Gothic +Kings. Attila, Odoascar, Theodoric, and the Amali, with other heroes, +Frankish and Burgundian, all appear in these old poems. The German +songs that Charlemagne had collected and put in writing are undoubtedly +the outcome of these ancient Gothic poems of the first Christian era. +Their substance is found in the Nibelungen-lied and the Heldenbuch. + +As in the legends of Troy and Iceland, so also in the Nibelungen-lied, +the story centres on a young hero glowing with beauty and victory, and +possessed of loftiness of character; but who meets with an early and +untimely death. Such is Baldur the Beautiful of Iceland, and such, +also, are Hector and Achilles of Troy. These songs mark the greatness +and the waning of the heroic world In the Nibelungen-lied the final +event is a great calamity that is akin to a half historical event of +the North. Odin descends to the nether world to consult Hela; but she, +like the sphinx of Thebes, will not reply save in an enigma, which +enigma is to entail terrible tragedies, and lead to destruction the +young hero who is the prey of the gods. + +In this we can trace a similarity to the life's history and death of +Christ. In the Middle Ages a passionate love of poetry developed in the +Teutonic race, and caused them to embody Christianity in verse. The +South Germans, and the Saxons in England, tried to copy the old heroic +poems. + +In the time of Theodoric, the Goths began to influence the Roman +language and literature; and it is at this period that Roman antiquity +comes to an end and the Roman writers from that time are classed as +belonging to the Middle Ages. + +The whole history of literature during the Middle Ages was of a twofold +character. The first, Christian and Latin, was found all over Europe, +and made the protection and extension of knowledge, its chief object. +The other was a more insular literature for each nation, and always in +the language of the people. Theodoric the Goth, Charlemagne, and Alfred +the Great, the chief patrons of the literature of their age, sought to +carry on, side by side, and to improve, these two literatures, the +Latin and the vernacular. They aimed to refine and educate man by the +Latin, and to increase the national spirit by preserving their national +poetry. While these old heroic poems of the different races are full of +interest and charm for us, we must not forget that the Latin kept alive +and preserved from extinction the whole of classical and Christian +antiquity. + +The Middle Ages, so inaptly called "dark," are in truth little +understood. A German writer of the nineteenth century, Friedrich von +Schlegel, says: + +"The nations have their seasons of blossoming, as well as individuals. +The age of the Crusades, of chivalry, romance and minstrelsy, was an +intellectual spring among all the nations of the West. In literature +the time of invention must precede the refinements of art. Legend must +go before history, and poetry before criticism. Vegetation must precede +spring, and spring must precede the maturity of fruit. + +"The succeeding ages could have had no such burst of intellectual +vigor, if the preparing process had not been going on in the Middle +Ages. They sowed and we reaped." + +Hence, it will be seen that what is looked on as a period of stagnation +and ignorance, was in truth, the waiting time, during which the inner +process of development was going on, soon to blossom into glorious +fruit. + + + +CHIVALROUS AND ROMANTIC LITERATURE OF THE MIDDLE AGES. + +From the time of the first Crusade, A.D. 1093, to the end of the +twelfth century, was the golden age of chivalry in Europe. Hence the +poetry of this period partook of the spirit that was abroad in the +world. Of this chivalrous poetry of the Middle Ages there are three +classifications: The first, taken from old legends, shows a style of +verse peopled with the Gothic, Frankish and Burgundian heroes who +flourished in the time of the great Northern emigrations; and for these +there is usually some historical foundation, while they are also +closely knit to the traditions of the old heathenish mythology of the +Gothic Nations. The second subject of chivalrous verse was Charlemagne, +the Saracens and Roncesvalle. These were chiefly composed by the +Normans, who, after the Crusades, gave a new direction to literature. +Marked changes were introduced by them, not only into France, but +throughout Europe. They were filled with the spirit of adventure and +enthusiasm, and in their onward march conquered England and Sicily, and +took the lead in the next Crusade. Essentially a poetic people, the +wonderful was the object of all their admiration and desire. Hence they +sang old war songs, especially of the battle of Roncesvalles in which +Roland dies when the Franks are conquered by the Spaniards and Turks. + +In the tale of a fabulous Crusade, invented in the ninth century, and +which was embodied in poetry by the Normans, the true history of the +Empire became so bewilderingly mixed up with magicians, genii, sultans, +Oriental fables, and comical characters, who met with astonishing +adventures, that it was difficult to distinguish the true from the +false. There was nothing of the romantic and wonderful in the history +of the East, which did not find its way into the poetry that treated of +Charlemagne and Roland, until it lost all traces of the real wars and +achievements of Charlemagne. The third subject of chivalric verse was +Arthur of the Round Table; but this, at the time, was also invested +with Oriental wonders and attachments. Other chivalric poetry of this +epoch had to do with Godfrey of Bouillon, the Crusades, and old French +tales and fabliaux which were brought into Europe by the oral +narratives of the Crusaders. + +The Northern mythology always abounded with mountain spirits, mermaids, +giants, dwarfs, dragons, elves and mandrakes. These reappear in the +songs of the Crusades, and are elements of the old Northern and Persian +superstitions. All that the East contributed to the song of the +chivalric period was a Southern magic, and a brilliance of Oriental +fancy with which some of the poems were clothed. + +A Persian poem that became very popular in Europe in the Middle Ages +was Ferdusi's Book of Heroes. It has had a marked influence on the +Arabian "Thousand and One Nights." In this poem of Ferdusi's we note +the contest between light and darkness (an idea nowhere found in Greek +poetry). It seemed to touch the poetical thought of the age of +chivalry; for we find it reproduced in their songs, mingled with +Scriptural and love scenes. + +Next to Chivalric poetry, the age of the Crusaders was essentially a +period of love songs. They attained their greatest perfection in +Provence, whence they spread over the whole of France, and from there +into Germany in the twelfth century. + +Love poetry in Italy failed to attain any degree of perfection until +the time of Petrarch in the fourteenth century; and its real era in +Spain was not until a century later. Love poetry developed in different +ways in Europe, and, as we have seen, at different times. Except among +the Italians it was not so much borrowed from one nation to another as +had been the case with other branches of literature. + +It is different with Chivalric poetry, which was considered the common +property of all. The form of poetical composition also varied in each +country, and the only thing common to all the nations was rhyme. Almost +all the love poems seem to have been written to be sung, and this was +carried to such lengths that in the reign of Lewis the Pious of +Germany, an edict had to be sent to the nuns of the German Cloisters by +their Bishops, forbidding them to sing their love songs, or Mynelieder. + + + +THE DRAMA. + +The history of the drama may be divided into two classes, the +Christian, which began with the Mystery and Morality plays; and the +Greek, which was eminently classic. These two types were the foundation +of all that came after them. + +The first dawn of the drama was in Greece; for although the Hindus also +had dramatic poetry, it did not arise until there had been a lengthened +intercourse between Greece and India, so that the latter undoubtedly +borrowed from the former. The learned writers of ancient times agree +that both tragedy and comedy were originally choral song. It has been +said that poetry and song are divided into three periods of a nation's +history, that the Epic has to do with the first awakening of a people, +telling of their legends, or of some great deeds in remote antiquity. +This is followed by the second stage, which embraces elegiac and lyric +poetry and arose in stirring and martial times, during the development +of new forms of government, when each individual wanted to express his +own thoughts and wishes; and the third is the drama, which can only be +born in a period of civilization, and which, it has been said, implies +a nation. + +Hence Greek drama arose at the height of Grecian civilization and +splendor. It originated in the natural love of imitation, of dancing +and singing, especially at the Bacchic feasts. The custom at these +feasts of taking the guise of nymphs and satyrs, and of wearing masks +while they danced and sang in chorus, seems to have been the beginnings +of the Greek drama. + +Ancient tragedy was ideal, and had nothing to do with ordinary life; it +arose from the winter feasts of Bacchus, while comedy was the outcome +of the harvest feasts, and the accompanying Bacchanalian processions, +which were more in the nature of a frolic than of real acting. The +influence of the Middle and New Greek comedy, especially, that of +Menander, on the Roman comedy of Terence is well defined. Under Ennius +and Plautus the Roman comedy was fairly original; but Terence wrote for +the fashionable set, like Caecilius and Scipio Africanus, and +consequently imitated Greek models very carefully. The drama in Rome +never attained any noteworthy height although the French tragic poets +took Seneca for their model. + +In the time of Lorenzo the Magnificent there was a great revival in +Italy of the ancient classic drama, of which Poliziano was the most +successful exponent. Both he and the later writers, however, made no +attempt to found any National Italian drama--their works are entirely +an imitation of the tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides, and the +comedies of Plautus and Terence. + +The Melodrama, which arose in the seventeenth century, is distinctly +Italian and national, and has been extensively produced all over the +civilized world. Alfieri, in the eighteenth century, is the greatest +and most patriotic of the Italian tragedians, and he did as much to +revive the national character in modern times as Dante did in the +fourteenth century. + +In France we have the dramatic representation of the Mysteries in the +twelfth and thirteenth centuries, introduced by the pilgrims who had +returned from the Crusades. At first these performances were given in +the street, but later a company was formed, called the "Confraternity +of the Passion," the suffering of Christ being its chief +representation. This Mystery is the most ancient dramatic work of +modern Europe, and gives the whole Gospel narrative from the birth of +our Saviour until His death. Being too long for a play of one act, it +was continued from day to day. What would seem irreverent on a modern +stage was regarded as perfectly simple and natural in the Middle Ages, +and it was a potent factor in teaching the masses the truths of their +faith. + +Following these Mysteries of the Passion came a host of other plays +taken from the Old Testament, or from the lives of the Saints. The +earliest "Miracle" on record is the Play of St. Catherine, which was +represented at Dunstable about 1119, written in French; it was in all +probability a rude picture of the miracles and martyrdom of the saint. + +The stage was divided into three different floors, with Heaven on top, +hell on the ground floor, and the earth between. Frequently the play +would proceed in all three divisions at once, with angels and devils +ascending and descending by means of ladders, as their help was needed +in the different worlds. + +The Devil generally played the part of clown or jester. The modern +puppet play of Punch is a tradition handed down from these ancient +miracles, in which the Evil One was alternately the conqueror or victim +of the human Buffoon; who was also called by the names of Jester or +Vice. + +These early miracle plays were generally written in mixed prose and +verse. + +The oldest manuscript of a miracle play in English is The Harrowing of +Hell, believed to have been written in 1350. + +The Morality plays were the outcome of the Mysteries; they were either +allegorical or else taken from the Parables, or from the historical +events in the Bible. The chief Moralities were Everyman, Lusty +Juventus, Good Counsel, and Repentance. The oldest English Morality +play now extant is The Castle of Perseverance, written about 1450. It +is a dramatic allegory of human life representing the many conflicting +influences that surround man on his way through the world. Lusty +Juventus depicts in a vivid and humorous way the extravagances and +follies of a young heir surrounded by the virtues and vices, and the +misery which follows a departure from the path of religion and virtue. +Gradually these Moralities were corrupted and became mixed with a +species of comedy called Interludes, a merry and farcical dialogue. The +Four P's, one of the best of these early Interludes, was written by +John Heywood, an entertainer at the Court of Henry VIII. It turns upon +a dispute between a Peddler, a Palmer, a Pardoner and a Poticary, in +which each tries to tell the greatest lie; plays of this kind are seen +in France at the present day. In the fifteenth century the drama in +France became more secularized and included political events and +satire, but the French were undoubtedly the fathers of drama in the +Middle Ages. Their plays were known a whole century before Spain or +Italy had any theater, while the romantic drama in other countries of +Europe was founded on the early French drama. Modern drama in France +during the time of Corneille, Racine and Voltaire was almost entirely +classic. The French regarded the Greek standard as the highest art; and +sought to imitate it faithfully, so much so that the French Academy, +criticizing a tragedy of Corneille, said "that the poet, from the fear +of sinning against the rules of art, had chosen rather to sin against +the rules of nature." + +Comic drama in France from the end of the sixteenth to the middle of +the seventeenth century was borrowed from Spain, and had to do with a +multiplication of trap doors, dark lanterns, intrigues, and puzzling +disguises, until Moliere, in his "Precieuses Ridicules" successfully +attacked these follies of his age. + +The Romantic drama, which arose in the second quarter of the nineteenth +century, holds at present the first place in France. Its chief +exponents have been Victor Hugo, the two Dumases, Sardou and Octave +Feuillet. Between them and the followers of the Classic School there +was for some time a lively war. The latter wanted to exclude the +Romanticists from the Theatre Francais, but without success. In spite +of the beauty of its French, and the polish of its style, this latest +form of the drama in France frequently offends strongly against +morality. In Spain the drama was at all times thoroughly national. Even +when they introduced mythological, Greek or Roman characters, it was +always in a Castilian dress. In this respect Spain stands alone among +the nations of Europe, as it borrowed nothing from France, Italy or +England. Its earliest plays were the Mysteries, which it is supposed to +have obtained from Constantinople, where the ancient theatre of Greece +and Rome was kept up, in a grosser form, far into the Middle Ages. In +later times this Eastern drama became so corrupt that the Christian +Church tried to offset it by introducing the Mysteries, and it became a +common custom every year at Christmas, for the Manger at Bethlehem, the +Worship of the Shepherds, and the Adoration of the Magi, to be +exhibited before the Altar, just as the Mysteries of the Passion were +introduced during Lent. The Passion Play at Oberammergau and the +Creche, representing the Manger at Bethlehem, as seen in Catholic +Churches at Christmas, are the sole survivals of these ancient +Mysteries. + +The second dramatic period in Spain was pastoral and satirical. Nothing +worthy of note adorns this period in the fifteenth century. In the +sixteenth century de Rueda and Lope de Vega founded the true national +drama of Spain. It was unlike anything of an earlier period, and yet, +resting faithfully on tradition, it gave a vivid picture of the +National Spanish life in all classes of society. From the gallantries +of the "dramas of the Cloak and Sword," to the historical plays in +which Dings and Princes figure; down to the manners and incidents of +common life, all is essentially Spanish. A fourth class still +represented Scriptural and sacred scenes. Calderon wrote at the height +of the Spanish drama during the reign of Philip II; and after his time +the drama in Spain declined until, in the eighteen century, it was at +its lowest ebb. At this time plays were still held in open courtyards, +and in the daytime, as in the earlier ages. Efforts were made to +subject it to French and Italian rule, but this had only a limited +success; stiff, cold translation from the French could not please a +people who always found in the Spanish drama an essentially popular +entertainment. + +In Germany traces of the drama first appeared in the thirteenth +century, when rude attempts to imitate the Mystery plays were conducted +in churches by the priests. But when the populace tried to introduce +the Burlesque, the performances were banished to the open fields. +Students in the universities took part in them, and they continued +until after the Reformation. Brought into Europe from Constantinople by +the Crusaders and pilgrims, the Mystery plays became the chief +amusement of an illiterate age. Christianity was first thoroughly +impressed on the mind of Northern Europe by means of them; and the +first missionaries familiarized the rude Goths and Huns with Biblical +incidents at a time when reading was unknown outside of the Cloister. +No change in German drama occurred until the seventeenth century, when +operas after the Italian superseded the Mysteries and Moralities. The +production of this age, however, were characterized by bad taste and +pedantry; and it was not until Goethe brought his genius to bear on the +subject, that the Germans acquired any drama worthy of the name. +Whether in his national play Gotz von Berlichingen or in his classical +drama of Iphigenia, this great German master stands at the summit of +his art. Lessing attacked French drama as enacted in Germany prior to +Goethe, and brought forward the Shakespearian plays as a model. + +Schiller's Wallenstein obtained a worldwide reputation, and among the +Romantic dramatists Werner's Attila and Grillparzer's Ancestress are +the best examples of the extravagant and fertile mind of the German +romanticist. + +Modern German drama has found the highest art it has ever attained in +the compositions of Richard Wagner, whose operas are entirely German +and National, and mostly founded on the old German legends. Tannhauser +is taken from the epic poem of "Parzifal," written by Wolfram von +Eschenbach in the Middle Ages. Lohengrin, which is touched on in the +"Parzifal," Wagner also found in the poem of an obscure Bavarian poet; +and a more complete account of the celebrated "Swan Knight" appears in +a collection of stories edited by the brothers Grimm. Lohengrin is a +Knight of the Holy Grail, so part of the legend is borrowed from +ancient Britain. + +All dramatic effort in England before the sixteenth century was so rude +as to be of little account. The Miracle and Mystery plays were +introduced into England in the reign of Henry VI, and many of them had +a personage called "Iniquity," a coarse buffoon, whose object was to +amuse the audience. After the Reformation the Protestant Bishop Bale +wrote plays on the same plan as the Mysteries, intended to instruct the +people in the supposed errors of Popery. These plays, which deal +largely in satire, became popular and after the era of Henry VIII were +known as Interludes. In the beginning of the sixteenth century real +comedy and tragedy began to exist in a rude form. The oldest known +English comedy, Ralph Royster Doyster, was written by Nicholas Udall, +and describes a character whose comic misadventures are somewhat akin +to Don Quixote. + +The earliest tragedy, Gorboduc, known also Ferrex and Porrex, was +played in the Lower Temple. It is founded on the legends of fabulous +British history. The tragedies of Marlowe and the legendary plays of +Greene come next in order, followed by the golden age of English drama, +from the dawn of the Shakespeare plays in 1585 until the closing of the +theatre in 1645 on the breaking out of the Civil war in England. For a +period of sixty years the splendid genius of the world's greatest +dramatist gave to mankind a series of plays that have no equal in the +literature of any country or age. + +Contemporaneous with Shakespeare, or coming after him, were Beaumont +and Fletcher, Ben Jonson, Massinger, Ford, and Shirley; these +Elizabethan dramatists took their subjects from the stories and legends +of all countries and ages--or else they depicted the national life. For +this reason English drama has been called Irregular, in contrast to the +Greek, which is called the Regular, and that of modern France, founded +upon the Greek. The chief rule of the Regular is the Unity of Time, +Place and Action. In the Greek, the time of action was allowed to +extend to twenty-four hours, and the scene to change from place to +place in the same city; but Shakespeare and his contemporaries +acknowledged no fixed limit either of time, place or action. The +operation of their plays covered many different countries, and the time +extended over many years; but the rule that laid down in the Greek +drama the principle that there should be unity of action (everything +being subordinate to a series of events, which form the thread of the +plot), was adopted by Shakespeare and his contemporaries. It has been +called "unity of impression," as opposed to unity of time and place. + + + +ARABIAN. + +The rise and development of Arabian literature occurs at an epoch when +the rest of Europe was struggling through a period of transition. From +the middle of the sixth to the beginning of the eleventh century, at a +time when the Roman dominions were overrun by Northern hordes, and the +Greek Nation was groaning under the Byzantine power, when both Greek +and Latin literature was exposed to the danger of extinction, the +splendor of Arabian literature reached its zenith and through the +mingling of the Troubadours with the Moors of the Peninsula, and of the +Crusaders with the Arabs, it began to influence the literature of +Europe. + +Arabia, peopled by wandering tribes, had no history other than the +songs of the national bards, until after the rise of Mohammed in the +sixth century. The desire of the prophet was to bring his people back +from idolatry and star worship to the primitive and true worship of +God. He studied the Old and New Testament, the legends of the Talmud +and the traditions of Arabian and Persian mythology, then he wrote the +Koran, which became the sacred book of the Arabians, and in which is +traced in outline the true plan of man's salvation--Death, +Resurrection, the Judgment, Paradise and the place of torment. Good and +evil spirits, the four archangels, Gabriel, Michael, Azrael and +Izrafeel, are all found in the Koran; but clothed with a true Oriental +fancy. Besides the angels there are creatures, partly human and partly +spiritual, called Genii, Peris (or fairies) and Deev (or giants). The +Genii have the power of making themselves seen or invisible at +pleasure. Some of them delight in mischief, and raise whirlwinds, or +lead travellers astray. The Arabians used to say that shooting stars +were arrows shot by the angels against the Genii when they approached +too near the forbidden regions of bliss. + +This fairy mythology of the Arabians was introduced into Europe by the +Troubadours in the eleventh century, and became an important factor in +the literature of Europe. From it, and the Scandinavian mythology +spring all the fairy tales of modern nations. And these romances of the +Koran form the groundwork of the fabliaux of the Trouveres, and of the +romantic epics of Boccaccio, Tasso, Ariosto, Spenser and Shakespeare. +Mohammed's teaching unified the different tribes of Arabia, and +fostered a feeling of national pride, and a desire for learning. So +rapidly did this develop that in less than a century the Arabian power +and religion, as well as its language, had gained the ascendency over +nearly half of Africa, a third of Asia, and a part of Spain; and from +the ninth century to the sixteenth, the Arabian literature surpassed +that of any nations of the same period. + +This people, who, in a barbarous state had tried to abolish all +cultivation in science and literature, now became the masters of +learning, and they drew from the treasure houses of the countries that +they had acquired by conquest, all the riches of knowledge at their +command. + +The learning of the Chaldeans and of the Magi, the poetry and fine arts +of Asia Minor, the eloquence and intellect of Africa, all became theirs. + +Greece counts nearly eight centuries from the Trojan war to the summit +of her literary development. From the foundation of Rome till the age +of Augustus the same number of centuries passed over the Roman world; +while in French literature the age of Louis XIV was twelve centuries +removed from the advent of Clovis; but in Arabian literature, from the +time of the family of the Abassides, who mounted the throne in 750--and +who introduced a passionate love for poetry, science and art--until the +time of Al Mamoun, the Augustus of Arabia, there elapsed only one +hundred and fifty years, a rate of progress in the development of +literature among a nation that has no parallel in history. + +Tournaments first originated among the Arabs, and thence found their +way into France and Italy. Gunpowder was known to them a century before +it appeared in Europe, and they were in possession of the compass in +the eleventh century, and this notwithstanding the fact that a German +chemist is supposed to have discovered gunpowder a century after the +Arabs made use of it, while the compass is more frequently supposed to +be a French or Italian invention of the thirteenth century. + +Botany and chemistry were more familiar to them than they were to the +Greeks or Romans. Bagdad and Cordova had famous schools of astronomy +and medicine, and here in the tenth and eleventh centuries the Arabians +were the teachers of the world. Students came to them from France and +other parts of Europe; and their progress, especially in arithmetic, +geometry and astronomy, was marvellous. The poetry of the Arabs is +rhymed like ours, and is always the poetry of passion and love; but it +is in their prose works, the Arabian tales of the Thousand and One +Nights, that they have become most famous. Their richness of fancy in +these prose tales is different from that of the other chivalric +nations. The supernatural world is identical in both; but the moral +world is different. The Arabian tales, like the old chivalric romances, +take us to the realms of fairyland, but the human beings they introduce +are very unlike. Their people are less noble and heroic, more moved by +love and passion, and they depict women by turn as slaves and +divinities. The original author of the Arabian Nights is unknown; but +the book has become a household possession in every civilized country +in the world. + + + +SPANISH. + +For six centuries before the advent of the Arabs in Spain the country +was under the Roman yoke, and had adopted the language and arts of the +Romans; but in the eighth century the overthrow of the Romans, the +coming of the Arabs, and contact with Arabian civilization--as well as +the struggle against their Moorish invaders--began to develop in the +Spaniards a spirit that was the foundation of their national +literature. No other people have ever possessed in so strong a degree +the true national feeling--no other has produced such a uniformly pure, +deeply religious, and elevated tone, in poetry and literature. Their +poetry remained at all times free from any foreign influence, and is +entirely romantic, while the Christian chivalric poetry of the Middle +Ages remained with them longer than with any other nation, and received +from their hands a more finished and elegant polish. + +After the Moorish conquest the Spaniards withdrew to the mountains of +Asturias; they took with them a corrupted form of the Latin language, +as they had received it from the Romans; reaching these mountains, they +found themselves thrown with the Iberians (the earliest of the Spanish +races). These people had remained half barbaric, had resisted both +Romans and Goths, and retained their original or Basque language. +Coming now in contact with them, the Christian Spaniards learned their +language. Later they met with another tribe of their own race who had +remained with the Arabians, known as the Mocarabes, a people of +superior refinement and civilization. Hence a new dialect from these +contending elements was gradually formed, and became known, like the +other languages of southern Europe, as the Romanic. The distinguishing +feature of Spanish literature, from its birth, to the time of Ferdinand +and Isabella, is religious faith and knightly loyalty. Qualities which +sustained the whole nation in its struggle against the infidel Moors. + +The first great Spanish work is the poem of the Cid. It is the only +epic Spain has ever produced, and is the most ancient of any in the +Romance language. It is also valuable as a faithful picture of the +manners and characters of the eleventh century. Indeed, the chief +characteristic of Spanish song and poetry is its delineation of the +national life. It is said that the Cid is the foremost poem produced in +Europe from the thousand years that marked the decline of Greek and +Roman civilization, to the appearance of the Divine Comedy. The Count +Lucanor, a work of the fourteenth century, was one of the earliest +prose writings in the Spanish tongue, as the Decameron, which was +written about the same time, was the first in Italian. Both are +narrative tales; but their moral tone is very dissimilar--the Decameron +was written to amuse, while the Count Lucanor is addressed to a grave +and serious nation. These stories have frequently been dramatized, and +one of them gave Shakespeare the outline of his Taming of the Shrew. + +Alfonso the Wise, in the thirteenth century, was the author of a +legislative code known as Las Sieta Partides, or the Seven Parts. It +forms the Spanish common law, and has been the foundation of Spanish +Jurisprudence ever since; and being used also in the colonies of Spain, +it has, since the Louisiana Purchase, become in some cases the law in +our own country. + +Juan Ruiz, who lived in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, wrote +a poem, partly fiction and partly allegorical, called the Battle of Don +Carnival, which strongly resembles Chaucer; both poets found their +material in northern French verse. + +Santob, a Jew in the fourteenth century, wrote a poem called the Dance +of Death, which became a favourite subject with both painters and poets +for several succeeding ages. + +The literature of Spain may be divided into four classes--the old +Ballads, the Chronicles, the Romances of Chivalry, and the Drama. The +most interesting of the old ballads are historical; but there are also +ballads that have to do with private life wherein appear the effusions +of love, the shafts of satire, the descriptions of pastoral life, and +the oddities of burlesque. One and all, however, faithfully represent +Spanish life. No such popular poetry is found in any other language. +The English and Scotch ballads belong to a more barbarous state of +society, and their verse is less dignified and lofty than that of the +Spaniards, who were uplifted by a deep religious sense, and an +unswerving loyalty to their sovereign. A state of feeling that elevated +them far above the men and events of border feuds, and the wars of +rival Barons. + +The great Spanish heroes, the Cid, Bernardo del Carpo, and Pelayo, are +to this day a vital part of the belief and poetry of the lower classes +in Spain, and are revered as they were hundreds of years ago. The +wandering Mulateers still sing of Guarinos and of the defeat at +Roncesvalles as they did when Don Quixote heard them on his way to +Toboso; and the street showmen in Seville rehearse to this day the same +wonderful adventures that the Don saw in the Inn at Montesinos. The +Chronicles developed among the more refined and educated classes. The +most celebrated is the Chronicle of Spain, written by Alfonso the Wise. +It starts with the creation of the world, and ends with the death of +Alfonso's father, St. Ferdinand. It contains all the time-honored +traditions of the country, as well as exact historical truth. The story +of the Cid is supposed to be taken from this work. + +From the time of Alfonso the Wise to the accession of Charles V (or +from the thirteenth century to the sixteenth), Spain was flooded by +romantic chronicles. The most celebrated is that of Don Roderick, or an +account of the reign of King Roderick in the eighth century, the +conquest of the country by the Moors, and the efforts to wrest it from +them. On this chronicle Robert Southey has founded most of his poem of +Roderic the Last of the Goths. Whether resting on truth or fable, these +old records struck their roots deep down in the hearts of the people; +and their romance, their chivalry, their antique traditions, and their +varied legends, form a rich deposit from which all the nations of +Europe have drawn material for their own literature. It was not until +the fourteenth century that the romances of chivalry--known in France +two centuries earlier in the stories of Arthur and the Round Table, and +the deeds of Charlemagne--found their way across the Pyrenees. + +Spain, so essentially the land of knighthood, welcomed them eagerly, +and speedily produced a number of like romances which were translated +into French and became famous. The most celebrated is Amadis, written +by de Lobeira, a Portuguese. Its sole purpose is to set forth the type +of a perfect knight, sans peur et sans reproche. Amadis is an +imaginative character; but he is the first of a long line of doers of +knightly deeds, culminating in Don Quixote, whose adventures have +charmed and delighted the Spaniards, as well as the men of other +nations. + +Provencal literature began to have an influence on the Spanish in 1113, +after the crown of Provence had been transferred from Arles to +Barcelona by the marriage of the then Provencal heiress to Beranger, +Count of Barcelona. This introduction of the Provencal literature into +northeastern Spain had a beneficial result on the two literatures, +fusing them into a more vigorous spirit. + +Spain had always maintained the closest relations with the See of Rome, +and numerous Spanish students were educated at the Italian +Universities, hence the Italian literature had some influence on the +Spanish, more lasting as a whole than the effects of Provencal +literature. From 1407 to 1454 King John II tried to form an Italian +school in Spain, gathering around him a poetical court. This Italian +influence extended into the sixteenth century. Diego de Mendoza, during +the reign of Charles V wrote a clever satirical prose work called +Lazarillo de Tormes, which became the foundation of a class of fiction +of which Gil Blas, by Le Sage, is the best known and most celebrated +example. + +Except for the Cid, Spain had no historical narrative poems of any +account, and her prose historical works, especially on the discovery +and conquest of America, are of a purely local character, and had no +influence outside of Spain. The beginning of the eighteenth century saw +the accession to the throne of Philip V, a grandson of Louis XIV; and +this brought a strong French influence into the country, which for a +time dominated the national literature. + +A new poetical system founded on Boileau was introduced by Luzan in his +Art of Poetry; but it did not seem to bring about any real advance in +literature; and it was not until Spain threw off this foreign yoke, +that any revival in her literature took place. It is due to a monk, +Benito Feyjoo, in the middle of the eighteen century that a renaissance +in Spanish literature took place. Feyjoo, a devout Catholic, labored to +bring to light scientific truths, and to show how they harmonized with +the true Catholic spirit. In the same century Isla, a Jesuit, undertook +with entire success, to purify the Spanish pulpit, which had become +lowered both in style and tone. His history of Friar Gerund, which +slightly resembles Don Quixote, aimed a blow at bombastic oratory, +causing it soon to die out. Proverbs which Cervantes had styled "short +sentences drawn from long experience," have always been a distinctive +Spanish product, and can be traced back to the earliest ages of the +country. No fewer than 24,000 have been collected, and many more +circulate among the lower classes which have not been recorded in +writing. + + + +PORTUGUESE. + +The earliest imitators in Europe of the bucolic poetry of Virgil, were +the Portuguese; and as a people they thought that the pastoral life was +the ideal model for poetry. This idea is strongly brought out by +Ribeyro in the sixteenth century. + +The great number of Mocarbians that settled in Portugal infused into +them as a nation, a stronger Orientalism than is found elsewhere in +Europe, and their poetry was of an enthusiastic order, more marked than +that of the Spaniards. + +Henry of Burgundy, who married a daughter of Alfonso XI of Spain, in +the eleventh century, introduced Provencal poetry. The Cancioneros, or +courtly ballads, in imitation of the Provencal, were sung by wandering +minstrels, and Portuguese poetry retained its Provencal character until +the end of the fourteenth century. + +In the fifteenth century, the Portuguese invaded Africa, and Vasco de +Gama pointed out to Europe the new and unknown route to India. Fifteen +years later, toward the close of the century, a Portuguese kingdom was +founded in Hindostan, causing a strong counter-current of Orientalism +to invade Portugal. The people awoke to a desire for greatness; and +poetry and the arts flourished. This period, extending into the +sixteenth century, is called the golden age of Portuguese literature. + +The Os Lusiades, an epic poem, that has been called "one of the noblest +monuments ever raised to the national glory of any people," was written +by Luis de Camoens, a Portuguese of the sixteenth century. It is +intensely patriotic, although it is touched by both Greek mythology, +and the Italian style, which during this epoch had been slightly +blended with the Portuguese. Portugal had little or no influence on the +literature of any nation but her own, receiving her strongest +impressions from outsiders. In the eighteenth century she was dominated +both in taste and manners by the French, and the beginning of the +nineteenth century found her a great admirer and imitator of English +literature. + +National songs are known to have been sung in Portugal during the +earliest times; but none of them have come down to us. They were +doubtless similar to the other bardic songs of Europe. + + + +FRENCH. + +It is in the first ages of national existence that the foundations of +national character and poetry are laid; and the farther back that +history is studied, the more closely do we find the different peoples +of the world united in their literature. Its first history in France is +undoubtedly that of the Troubadours. Provence, where it originated, +early became an independent kingdom, while in the north the literature +of the Trouveres became the foundation of the national literature of +France. Latin was the language of the country after its conquest by +Julius Caesar; then came the Northern hordes, when language became +corrupted, until, in the time of Charlemagne, German was the Court +language, Latin the written language, and the Romance dialect, still in +its barbaric state, was the speech of the people. The Gauls in the +North, who used the Romance, were also called the Roman-Wallons; they +were distinguished from Charlemagne's German subjects, while in the +South the natives were called the Romans-Provencaux. + +In the tenth century the Normans invaded France, and infused another +element in the language, which gradually became Norman-French; and from +the twelfth century the two dialects were known as Provencal and +French. The Provencal dialect, although much changed, is still spoken +in Provence, Languedoc, Catalonia, Valencia, Majorca, and Minorca, +while the French was brought, by gradual polish, to its present +perfection. + +The Troubadours who flourished for three centuries, from 950 to 1250, +used the Romance language in their poems. The brilliance of this period +of literature, its sudden rise, and as sudden disappearance, is not +unlike the rise and fall of the Arabian literature. + +Among the thousands of poets who flourished during this time, none ever +wrote anything of any special note. The love, romance and imagination +of these poems breathes that chivalry toward women, amounting almost to +veneration, which was a feature of this class of poetry. It is +therefore to be regretted that as actual tales, shorn of the poetical +and chivalric setting, there was something left to be desired. The +immorality of the incidents, and the coarseness of the language, makes +this "Gay Science," as the Troubadours called it, unfit to be classed +with the best literature. In 1092 the crown of Provence passing to the +Count of Barcelona brought a more refined taste into the Provencal +poetry; the arts and the sciences of the Arabians obtained a foothold +in the country; rhyme--the method used in Arabian poetry, was adopted +by the Troubadours, and from them has been handed down to the nations +of modern Europe. + +This period has been described as "one that shone out at once over +Provence and all the south of Europe, like an electric flash in the +midst of profound darkness, illuminating all things with the splendor +of its flame." + +During the Crusades many of the Troubadours departed for the Holy Land. +In the history of the world there is no event that fired the poetry and +imagination of the people like these holy wars, and religious +enthusiasm began to influence the poetry of the time. When the +Plantagenet kings of England assumed by right the sovereignty over +Languedoc (as Provence was called), a new impetus was given to the +Provencal poetry, as well as a wider scope, when it was introduced into +England. Chaucer, the father of English literature, found in the +Provencal literature all his first models. + +With the decline of the Troubadours occurred the rise of the Trouveres +in northern France. + +In the tenth century Normandy was invaded by Rollo the Dane, who +incorporated himself and his followers with the Normans. They adopted +the Norman-French; but gave it a power and scope it had hitherto +lacked. While the Romance-Provencal in the South was a language of +sweetness and beauty, the Northern language after the advent of Rollo, +was strong and warlike. Its poetry, which differed from the love +chansons of the South, was the song of brave warriors, recounting the +heroic deeds of their ancestors. + +The Langue d'oui, as this Northern speech was called, became, in the +twelfth century, the universal medium of literature. The poets and +story writers called themselves Trouveres, and they invented the +fabliaux, the dramatic mysteries and romances of ancient chivalry. The +first great literary work of this class is a marvellous history of the +early kings of England, commencing with Brutus, a grandson of Aeneas, +who, sailing among many enchanted Isles, at length settles in England, +where he meets Arthur of the Round Table, and the old wizard, Merlin, +one of the most popular creations of the Middle Ages. Born of this +legend were some of the best known of modern romances. The word +romance, which in the early history of France was used to distinguish +the common dialect from the Latin, was later applied to all imaginative +and inventive tales. Of this class was "Tristam de Leonois," written in +1190; the "San Graal," and "Lancelot." In the same century appeared +"Alexander," a poem which became so celebrated that poetry, written in +the same measure, is to this day called Alexandrine verse. + +A poetess known as Marie of France, wrote twelve lays to celebrate the +glories of the Round Table. She addresses herself to a king supposed to +be Henry VI, and has made extensive use of early British legends. +Chaucer and other English poets, have drawn many inspirations from her +poems. + +The Trouveres not only originated the romances of chivalry; but they +also invented allegorical poems. The most celebrated is the "Romance of +the Rose," written in the thirteenth century. It consisted of 20,000 +verses, and although tedious, because of its length, it was universally +admired, and became the foundation of all subsequent allegory among the +different nations. The poetry of the Trouveres was unlike anything in +antiquity, and unlike, too, to what came after it. It dealt with +high-minded love and honor, the devotion of the strong to the weak, and +the supernatural in fiction. All this, which formed part of its +composition, has been attributed to both the Arabians and the Germans; +but it was in truth a peculiar production of the Normans, the most +active and enterprising people in Europe, a nation who pushed into +Russia, Constantinople, England, France, Sicily and Syria. A treasury +of a later date, from which the Trouveres drew their fabliaux in the +thirteenth century, was a collection of Indian tales that had been +translated into Latin in the tenth century. These fabliaux show that +inventiveness, gaiety, and simple, yet delightful esprit, which is +found nowhere but among the French. The Arabian tales, which had found +their way into France, were also turned into verse, while the anecdotes +that were picked up in the castles and towns of France, furnished other +material for the fabliaux. These tales were the common property of the +country at large, and are the source from which Boccaccio, La Fontaine, +and others drew their inspiration. Some of them became famous and have +been passed down from one age to another. + +The Renard of Goethe, and the Zaire of Voltaire were taken from the old +fabliaux. In the fourteenth century the coming of the Popes and the +Roman Court to Avignon introduced an Italian element, and the language +of Tuscany took the place of the Provencal among the upper classes. + +La Fontaine, called the "Prince of Fablists," appeared in the +seventeenth century. Many of his fables were borrowed from ancient +sources; but clothed in a new dress. He has been closely imitated by +his Confreres and by the fablists of other nations; but has easily +remained the most renowned of them all. + +The philosophy of Descartes in the sixteenth century prepared the way +for Locke, Newton and Leibnitz; and his system, although now little +used, was really the foundation of what followed. He is said to have +given new and fresher impulse to mathematical and philosophical study +than any other student, either ancient or modern. + +Pascal, a contemporary of Descartes, is renowned for his Provencal +Letters, a book that has become a classic in France. It is full of wit, +and of exquisite beauty of language; but its teaching is pure +sophistry. Pascal first set the example of writing about religion in a +tone of mock levity, especially when by so doing, he could abuse the +Jesuits. In the end this weapon of keen and delicate satire was turned +against Christianity itself, when Voltaire in the eighteenth century +recognized its possibilities, and made use of it. + +The older French literature in the sixteenth century had become so +neglected, and was so lacking in cultivation; so little adapted to +poetry, that the nation seemed in danger of losing all its earlier +traditions. For a hundred years France was given over to profane and +light literature. Montaigne, Charyon, Ronsard and de Balzac are some +of the names of this period. The death of a cat or dog was made the +subject of a poem that was no real poetry. It is due to the women of +France--to Madame de Rambouillet and her confreres, and to the literary +coteries that arose in the middle of the seventeenth century--that +French literature acquired a deeper and more serious tone. This period +was followed by the founding of the French Academy, of which Cardinal +Richelieu was the chief patron. The tragic dramatists, Corneille and +Racine, now appeared on the literary horizon. Racine's language and +versification was said to be far superior to either Milton in English +or Virgil in Latin. + +In tragedy the French stand pre-eminent; but it is matter for regret +that their subjects are never taken from their own nation--they rarely +represent French heroes; and it is a weakness of their literature that +they make no direct appeal to the national feeling. There is a close +connection between the classical dramas of Racine and Corneille, and +such works as Pope's Iliad, Addison's Cato and Dryden's Alexander's +Feast, showing the general interest in Greek and Roman subjects during +their time. + +The older poetry of the chivalric period was entirely discarded, though +it would have been possible to unite the old chivalric spirit, the +freedom and romance of mediaeval times, with the later renaissance, as +was done by other nations. The French literature is more closely formed +on the model of the earlier refined nations of antiquity, as the Roman +was on the Greek. + +The later French poetry of the seventeenth century came into opposition +with the teaching of Rousseau, this gave birth to a taste for English +poetry and the classic poetry of France was a copy of the descriptive +poetry of England. In the eighteenth century prose writings superseded +verse. At this time the English had taken the lead in literature, and +modern French philosophy was built on that of Bacon and Locke. It was +no part of the plan of the English philosophers, however, to inculcate +such ideas as the French philosophers drew from their writings. Bacon, +who was profoundly Christian, believed that man alone was the type of +God, and nature the work of God's hands; but the French leaders in +philosophy went beyond this, they deified nature, and threw aside as +mysticism whatever could not be proved by sense. Voltaire made use of +all the wonderful greatness of science, as revealed by Bacon and +Newton, not to exalt the Creator; but to lower man to the level of the +brute. Like the old Greek sophists, who defended first one side of a +question, and then the one diametrically opposed to it, Voltaire would +write one book in favor of God, and another to deny Him; but it is not +difficult to see which is his real belief. This perverted philosophy of +Voltaire in turn reacted on the English mind, and particularly on +history. We see its workings in both Gibbon and Hume. The "little +philosophy" which "inclineth a man's mind to atheism," led the +eighteenth century philosophers to fancy that Newton's discoveries +meant that everything could be attained without religion, and that the +only true and wide vision could be reached by the senses alone. They +taught a pure materialism, to their own undoing; for it is not possible +to thus lightly throw aside our great links with the past, in which +both Christian and heathen, knowingly and unknowingly, in mediaeval +poetry, in heroic ballad, and in Egyptian prose, testified to the +existence of God. + +The nineteenth century in France has been rich in dramatists, +novelists, historians and poets, as well as in science and learning of +all kinds; but it has had no especial power, or aim, and its opinions +are constantly changing. The early novelists were strongly directed by +the writings of Sir Walter Scott, while later ones have sought to +imitate Victor Hugo and George Sand. The literature of this period has +had no effect outside of France. Poetry has not risen any higher than +Alfred de Musset; and any further greatness in French poetry must come +from a revival of their own ancient poems and legends. + +Poetry that deals only with the present becomes local, and in the end +is influenced by the constant caprice and change of fashion instead of +by the deep, heart-stirring beliefs of a strong and united people. + + + +ITALIAN. + +The first general language of Italy was the Latin, and so strongly was +the Italian mind dominated by the influence of ancient Rome that her +earliest writers sought to keep alive the Roman tradition. This spirit +of freedom led to the establishment of the Italian Republics, and after +the Lombard cities threw off the yoke of Frederick Barbarossa they +turned their chief attention to education and literature. The spirit of +chivalry and chivalric poetry never took such root in Italy as it did +in other European countries. Nevertheless, Italy was not uninfluenced +by the Crusades, and the Arabs, establishing a celebrated school of +medicine at Salerno, gave a new impetus to the study of the classics. +In Bologna was opened a school of jurisprudence, where Roman law was +studied, and these schools, or universities soon appeared in other +parts of Italy. + +The Italians devoted more time to the study of law and history, and to +making translations from the Greek philosophers, than to the +cultivation of chivalric poetry, although many of the Italian poets +wrote in Provencal and French; and Italian Troubadours made journeys to +the European Courts. + +It has been said that the only poetry that has any real power over a +people is that which is written or composed in their own language. This +is especially true of Italy. Following this early Latin period came +Dante, the most glorious, and inventive of the Italian poets, and +indeed one of the greatest masters of verse in the world. He perfected +the Tuscan, or Florentine dialect, which was gradually becoming the +literary language of Italy. Petrarch, who succeeded Dante, is greatest +in his Italian poems, and it is by these that he is best known, while +his Latin works, which he hoped would bring him fame, have been almost +forgotten. + +In the fifteenth century the use of the national language in literature +entirely died out, through the rise of the Humanists, and the craze for +Greek and Latin classics; but toward the end of the fifteenth century, +under Lorenzo de'Medici and Leo X, interest in their own literature +among the Italians began to revive again. Ariosto and Tasso wrote their +magnificent epics; and once more Italian poetry was read and +appreciated, and reached the height of its renown. Again in the +seventeenth century it declined under the influence of the Marini +school; whose bad taste and labored and bombastic style, was +unfortunately imitated in both France and Spain. In the eighteenth +century, under the patronage of Benedict XIV, the Arcadian poets of the +Marini school were banished from literature, and other and more +brilliant writers arose, possessed of the true national feeling. Under +Pope Pius VI, by whom he was liberally patronized, Quirico Visconti +undertook his "Pio Clementine Museum," and his "Greek and Roman +Iconography," said to be the two greatest archaeological works of all +ages. + +With the rise of Napoleon, Italy was flooded with French writings, and +French translations, not always of the best, and even the French +language was used instead of the Italian. The Italian literature again +suffered a decline, and it was not until after the treaty of Vienna in +1815 that the foreign influence was again shaken off. It will thus be +seen that it was when Italian poets wrote in their own language that +their greatest and most lasting success was attained. During the +periods when a craze for imitating foreign works existed, the national +languages deteriorated. In Germany, under the Emperor Maximilian, a +crown was publicly bestowed on any poet who achieved success in Latin +verse, while no reward or emolument was given to those who wrote in +German. The religion of Humanism in Italy went to such lengths that +many seemed to lose not only their belief but also their good sense, as +they considered it vulgar to talk of the Deity in the language of the +Bible. God was spoken of in the plural--gods. The Father was Jupiter, +the Son, Apollo; and the Devil, Pluto; but these various errors had no +lasting or far-reaching influence. The Divine Comedy, the most powerful +and lifelike exponent of the thoughts and feelings of the age in which +Dante lived--an allegory, written in the form of a vision, at a time +when men believed that the things that are unseen are eternal--is the +most perfect and magnificent monument of earthly love, refined and +spiritualized, that has ever been written. It stands alone; for no man +of any country, coming after Dante, has been able to write from the +same motive, and in the same spirit, that he did. Petrarch, the next +greatest after Dante, is chiefly celebrated for his lyrical poems, +which were used as models by all the most celebrated poets of the South +of Europe. They are written in two forms, the canzone taken from the +Provencals, and the sonnet, taken from the Sicilians. Petrarch kept up +a wide correspondence with the literary men of Europe; and through his +influence a sort of literary republic arose which joined together the +literati of many different countries. Boccaccio, next in rank to +Petrarch, evolved a poetry consisting of Norman wit and Provencal love, +joined to an elaborate setting of his own. He took Livy and Cicero for +his models, and tried to combine ancient mythology with Christian +history, the result being that his writings were not so fine as they +would have been had they displayed a greater freedom a of style. His +most celebrated work is the Decameron, the idea of which is taken from +an old Hindu romance which was translated into Latin in the twelfth +century. Most of these tales have also been found in the ancient French +fabliaux, and while Boccaccio cannot be said to have really invented +them, he did clothe them anew, and his tales in their turn have been +translated into all the European languages. + +It is due to Cosmo and Lorenzo de' Medici, and to Pope Leo X, that +there was such a glorious development of the fine arts in the fifteenth +century, an era whose benefits have been felt among the cultivated +nations for over three hundred years. + +At the same time Poliziano created the pastoral tragedy, which served +to revive the study of Virgil. Other poets seizing on the old romance +of the Trouveres, added to them an element of mockery, in place of the +old religious belief. This new spirit was adopted by Ariosto. From the +East he borrowed the magic and sorcery interwoven in the adventures of +his knights and ladies, giants and magicians. It remained for Torquato +Tasso to revive the heroic epic in his Jerusalem Delivered, in which he +depicts the struggle between the Christians and Saracens. Neither the +Siege of Trod, nor the Adventures of Aeneas could compare with the +splendid dramatic element in Tasso's immortal poem, which has been said +to combine the classic and the romantic style in a new and unusual +degree. + +In the sixteenth century Strapparola, an Italian novelist, wrote a +number of fairy tales, which have been a treasure house for later +writers, and to which we are indebted for Puss in Boots, Fortunio, and +other stories which have now become familiar in the nursery lore of +most modern nations. Bandello, in the same century, was a novelist from +whom Shakespeare and other English dramatists have borrowed much +material. + +One thing which is peculiar to Italy, and which has found its way into +nearly the whole civilized world, is Italian Opera or melodrama. It was +an outcome of the Pastoral drama, and first took shape in 1594 under +Rinuccini, a Florentine. But the true father of Italian opera is +Metastasio, who flourished in the eighteenth century. He regarded opera +as the national drama of Italy, and raised it to a plane that it has +ever since retained; though of late years it has become more the +fashion to cultivate German opera. + + + +DUTCH. + +Erasmus said of Ghent at the end of the fifteenth century that there +was no city in Europe that could compare with it in greatness, power, +and the cultivation of its people. The lays of the minstrels and the +chivalric romances of other nations were translated into Dutch. In the +middle of the thirteenth century Reynard the Fox was rendered into the +same language, while this era also saw a translation of the Bible made +into Flemish rhyme. + +The close of the fourteenth century saw the rise of some wandering +poets called Sprekers, who visited the courts of Kings and Princes and +became so popular that in the fifteenth century they were federated +into different societies that became known as "Chambers of Rhetoric," +somewhat similar to the German Guilds of the Meistersingers. These +societies spread rapidly through the country, and from rhyme the +members passed to the mystery plays, and to the beginnings of the drama. + +The Court of Burgundy in the fifteenth century brought a strong French +element into the literature of the Dutch nation, and the poets and +chroniclers of that age are chiefly Flemish. + +The taste for Greek and Latin was introduced into Holland in the +fifteenth and sixteenth centuries by Erasmus and Grotius, the two most +learned men among the Dutch literati of their age. + +Hooft in the seventeenth century made an extensive study of Italian +poetry, and succeeded in imparting to his tragic and lyric verse a +certain quality of sweetness and volume which it has since retained. +His style, which also embraces tragedy, has been extensively imitated +by his own countrymen. + +Nearly the whole of the eighteenth century passed without any +advancement in Dutch literature. The country experienced the French +influence, in common with the rest of Europe; and French works and +translations abounded. Toward the close of this century German taste +began to predominate, and a young Dutchman, Van Effen, founded a +magazine in French, called the "Spectator," which was in imitation of, +and on the same lines as the English magazine of the same name. Many +native writers arose at this time and gained distinction in poetry, +prose and the drama; but the overthrow of the Dutch Republic, and the +confusion attending it, for a time extinguished the national +literature, and the beginning of the nineteenth century saw the country +flooded with poor translations of foreign books, and all the noble +national literature was forgotten. This evil was partly remedied in the +latter part of the nineteenth century; but as a whole, the Dutch +literature, while it has been influenced by foreign taste, has had +little or no weight outside of its own nation, and has not in any way +shaped the literature of other peoples. + + + +GERMAN. + +Germany, like the other Northern nations, had primitive war songs sung +by the bards. Her mythology is akin to the Scandinavian, and like the +latter she assigns a high place to women. Tacitus says: "It is believed +that there is something holy and prophetic about them, and therefore +the warriors neither despise their counsels nor disregard their +responses." + +This German paganism was eminently fanciful--it peopled the earth, air +and sea with supernatural beings--the rivers had their Undines, the +caverns their Gnomes, the woods their Sprites, and the ocean its Nixes. +Besides these, there were a host of mythological figures--the Walkyres +or bridal maidens, the river maids; and the white women, Hertha and +Frigga. These legends have formed a rich treasure house from which +later German authors have freely drawn for song or story. Before the +Christian age Germany had no literature and the first national work +that can be dignified by the name is a translation of the Bible into +Moeso-Gothic by Ulphilas, a bishop of the Goths, in the fourth century +A.D. This is a Catholic work that antedated Luther by a thousand years. + +Bishop Ulphilas invented an alphabet of Runic, Greek and Roman letters, +and this translation of the Bible remained the only literary monument +of the Germans for four hundred years. The minstrel lays of this period +were later collected by Charlemagne, of which two specimens have come +down to us. Like the Icelandic, Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian, old English, +and old Saxon, they are in a measure called alliteration, that is, a +repetition of the sound without the regular rhyme at the end of lines, +or such as we call rhyme. This circumstance made Klopstock, at a later +period, try to banish rhyme as not being correct according to ancient +usage. One of these poems, the Hildebrand-lied, belongs to the time of +Theodoric the Great. The songs collected by Charlemagne, were later +remodelled and have come down to us as the Heldenbuch and the +Nibelungen-lied. The intellectual light in Germany went out with the +death of Charlemagne, except in the cloisters. + +The Normans on the West and the Hungarians in the East menaced the +country, and the only important literary work of the time is a poem +written by a monk at the close of the ninth century. It is called +"Ludwig's Lied;" and celebrates the triumph of Louis over the Normans. +Roswitha, a nun in the tenth century, wrote some Christian dramas in +Latin that are remarkable as coming from the pen of a woman in the +Middle Ages. + +The invasions of the Hungarians and Slavs in the eleventh century +effectually prevented the blossoming of any literary effort, except for +some poems known as the Lombard Cycle, in which the rude pagan legends +of antiquity were blended with the dawnings of Christianity. But in +1138, when Conrad III became Emperor of Germany, his accession was +followed by the Crusades, which spread a flame of enthusiasm and +chivalry among the Germans. + +In 1149 Conrad and Louis VII of France joined forces to lead a Crusade +to the Holy Land, and thus the German and French nobility became +intimately acquainted, and Provencal poetry soon began to have an +effect on German literature. + +Emperors and nobles held court and received their foreign guests with +splendid display and hospitality. Poets and singers were welcomed, and +the chivalric literature was soon taken up by the Suabian minstrels who +became known as the Minnesingers. + +From 1150 to 1300 was the golden age of Suabian literature and German +chivalry. During this period numerous romances of chivalry were +translated into German. + +They have been divided into different classes, or cycles. + +The first, and most ancient, have to do with Arthur and the Knights of +the Round Table. Their origin is Anglo-Norman, and they were probably +taken from old Welsh chronicles in an early age, and were known in +Britain and Brittany before the poets began to put them in rhyme. + +The most popular of these romances was the San Graal, or Holy Grail, a +subject that has engaged some of the best poets of all countries. In +this legend the Cup, which was supposed to have been used at the Last +Supper, in some way is brought to Golgotha during the Crucifixion, and +is used to preserve some of the blood that flows from Christ's side, +when it is opened by the soldier's spear. Joseph of Arimathea is +thought to have brought this precious Cup to Europe, and to have given +it into the keeping of Sir Parsifal. Knowledge of its whereabouts was +then lost, so that knights and heroes make it the object of long and +fruitless quests. + +The second cycle of romance has to do with Charlemagne, and is mostly +in the form of translations from French literature. + +The third, or classic cycle, relates to the great ones of ancient +times, presented in the role of chivalry. These embrace stories of +Alexander the Great, the Aeneid, and the Trojan war. During this period +there were two classes of songs in Germany; the minstrelsy, most in +favor with the nobility; and the old ballads, which were most popular +with the people. The latter were gradually collected by different poets +of the time, especially by Wolfram of Eschenbach and put into epic +verse, in which form they have come down to us as the Heldenbuch (or +book of heroes), and the Nibelungen-lied. + +The Heldenbuch relates the deeds of Theodoric and Attila and the +outpouring of the Goths into the Roman Empire. In the Nibelungen-lied +the hero is Siegfried, the Achilles of the North, the embodiment of +beauty, courage and virtue. The same personages are met with in these +German legends, as in the Scandinavian mythology, only in the latter +they take on a more godlike form. The German Brunhild, in the +Scandinavian story becomes a Valkyriur. + +The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries witnessed the decline of the +romanticists, the loss of most of the Southern culture, and all the +literature of this time is at a low ebb, partly owing to the wars of +the Germans against the Huns. + +The fourteenth century was productive of one class of literature that +was common to all Europe; namely, simple and humorous fables and +satires. "Reynard the Fox" was one of the earliest of these fables, and +remained a great favorite with the Germans, being finally immortalized +by Goethe. The same author has made us familiar with a personage who +figures in an interesting legend of the fifteenth century. Doctor +Faust, or Faustus, is a magician who by unlawful arts gains a mastery +over nature. This legend became the foundation of a number of stories +and dramas, and was put into verse by Christopher Marlowe, the English +dramatist. + +The end of the sixteenth century saw a craze for Latin in Germany. The +national tongue was neglected and national poetry was translated into +Latin verse. German poets wrote in the same classic language, and the +university lectures were all delivered in the same tongue. The +seventeenth century saw the Thirty Years' War, during which all +literary activity was completely paralyzed, and in the course of these +thirty years a whole generation, especially among the lower classes, +had grown up unable either to read or write. But after the Treaty of +Westphalia matters began to improve, and a desire to cultivate the +native language awoke. In 1688 German superseded Latin in the +universities. Novels were published; and about this time appeared a +German translation of Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe" that became very +popular. Poets wrote plays in the style of Terence, or copied English +models; and even in the present day the Germans recall with pride the +fact that the Shakespearean plays were appreciated by them during and +after the Elizabethan age much more than they were by the English +Nation. + +Science under Leibnitz also began to take shape in this century, while +Opitz wrote operas in imitation of the Italian style; and translations +from the Italian Marini came into vogue. In the eighteenth century +arose the Saxonic and Swiss schools of literature, neither of which was +devoted to national works. Gottsched, the founder and imitator of +French standards in art and poetry, is known as the leader in the +Saxonic school at Leipsic, and an advocate of classical poetry. + +Bodmer cultivated the English style, and retired to Switzerland with +his friends, where they founded the Swiss school. The English lyric and +elegiac poets had a wonderful influence in Germany. The followers of +this school who were, or pretended to be, poets, began to write +"Seasons" in imitation of Thomson; and the novels of the time were full +of shepherds and shepherdesses. The craze spread to France, where the +French Court took up the fad of living in rustic lodges, and Marie +Antoinette posed as a shepherdess tending sheep. Each of these poets +had numerous followers, of whom Rambler is known as the German Horace. + +Frederick the Great preferred French works, and no one seems to have +thought of starting a German school except Klopstock, who stands almost +alone in the literature of his time and country. A man of lofty ideals, +he believed that Christianity on the one hand and Gothic mythology on +the other, should be the chief elements in all new European poetry and +inspiration. Had he been encouraged by the German Court he would have +been as powerful for good in German literature during the eighteenth +century, as Voltaire was powerful for evil in France. Wielland, a +friend of Klopstock, and a romantic poet, might have been the German +Ariosto had he not abandoned poetry for prose. He tried to copy the +Greek, in which he failed to excel. During this conflict in Germany +between the French and English school, German literature was much +influenced by Macpherson's Ossian, and Scotch names are found in a +great many German works of this period. The literature of Germany +attained its highest beauty and finish in the eighteenth and nineteenth +centuries; and its people may well be proud of the splendid names that +adorn that period. The Gottingen School, which embraced Goethe and +Schiller, includes love, philosophy and the classics for its theme, +with a touch of the bucolic, modelled after Virgil, as in the "Louise" +of Voss. But it remained for the Romantic School, founded by Novalis, +the two Schlegels and Tieck, to oppose the study of the classic antique +on the ground that it killed all native originality and power. They +turned to the Middle Ages, and drew from its rich stores all that was +noblest and best. The lays of the Minnesingers were revived--the true +German spirit was cultivated, and the romantic German imagination +responded readily, so that during the dark period of the French +invasion, the national feeling was preserved pure and untouched by +means of these stirring and patriotic songs of the past. + +About the same time as the advent of the Romanticists in Germany +appeared Walpole's "Castle of Otranto" in England, which is supposed to +belong to the same school of literature and to have been influenced by +the German. Scott was also numbered in this class; and it is from these +old German legends of the Minnesingers that Richard Wagner has drawn +the material for Lohengrin, Parsifal, and others of his magnificent +operas. In one department German scholars have attained a high +standard, and that is as historians of ancient classical literature. + +Their researches into the language, religion, philosophy, social +economy, arts and sciences of ancient nations, has brought to light +much for which the student of literature will always be their debtor. + + + +LATIN LITERATURE AND THE REFORMATION. + +It has been said that the literati of the Middle Ages--the monks and +schoolmen--sought to keep the people in ignorance by writing in Latin. +Those who so think can ill have studied the trend of events in Europe +for several hundred years before the Reformation, or its bearing on +literature. + +After the fall of the Roman Empire vast hordes of barbarians invaded +Europe. In every country the language was in a state of transition. One +nation often spoke two or three different dialects according to +locality. In England the Gaelic, Anglo-Saxon, the Cymric (or Welsh) and +the Norman-French all had their day. Under these circumstances it was +impossible to have a literature in the language of the people until, in +the course of time, the national languages were formed, and during this +period of transition the Latin was the language of literature, the one +medium of communication between the literati of different countries; +and had it not been for the preservation of learning in the cloisters +during these ages, all knowledge, and literature, and even Christianity +itself, would have been lost. The monks, therefore, deserve more credit +than is usually meted out to them by hasty or superficial critics. + +In the earliest ages Ireland was the seat of the greatest learning in +Europe. While England was still plunged in barbarism, and France and +Germany could boast of no cultivation, Ireland was full of monasteries +where learned men disseminated knowledge. The Latin language thus +became a means for preserving the records of history, and it has also +been a treasure house of stories, furnishing material for much of the +poetry of Europe. One of these legends gave Scott the story of the +combat between Marmion and the Spectre Knight. + +It has been said that the Ancients did not know how to hold converse +with nature, and that little or no sign of it can be found in their +writings. Matthew Arnold has traced to a Celtic source the sympathy +with, and deep communing with nature that first appeared among European +poets. Under the patronage of Charlemagne the cloisters and +brotherhoods became even more learned and cultivated than they had been +before. Whatever the people knew of tilling the soil, of the arts of +civilization, and of the truths of religion, they learned from the +monks. By their influence States were rendered more secure, and it is +to the monks alone that Western Europe is indebted for the superiority +she attained over the Byzantines on the one hand (who were possessed of +far more hereditary knowledge than she), and over the Arabs on the +other, who had the advantage of eternal power. The cloisters were +either the abode, or the educators, of such men as the Venerable Bede, +Lanfranc and Anselm, Duns Scotius, William of Malmesbury, Geoffrey of +Monmouth (who preserved the legends of Arthur, of King Lear, and +Cymbeline), of Geraldus Cambrensis, of St. Thomas a Kempis, of Matthew +Paris, a Benedictine monk, and of Roger Bacon, a Franciscan friar, who +came very near guessing several important truths which have since been +made known to the world by later scholars. + +The Bible was protected and cherished from age to age in these +cloisters, where it was, in fact, preserved solely by the labors of the +monks, who translated it by hand, with illuminated border and text. +When a new religious house was opened, it would obtain from some older +monastery a copy of one of these priceless copies of the Sacred +Scriptures; and then this new house in its turn, would set to work to +multiply the number of Bibles, through the labor of its monks and +brothers. + +The German translation of the Bible was made in classic High Dutch, and +many later writers have fashioned their style from it, although modern +scholars, Catholic and Protestant, have found many faults in it, +especially whole passages, wherein Luther has erred. This craze for +High Dutch caused the historians of both Denmark and Sweden to utter a +vigorous protest against the influx of High Dutch literature into their +respective countries in the sixteenth century. They averred it was +ruining the native language and literature; but, in spite of this, +Lutheranism got a firm foothold in both these nations. + +In the sixteenth century the poetry of all Southern Europe was affected +by the upheaval caused by Luther and his teachings, while in the +Northern countries it was even worse; for, as a great German author +(von Schlegel), has said: + +"The old creed could not be driven into contempt without carrying along +with it a variety of images, allusions, poetic traditions and legends, +and modes of composition, all more or less connected with the old +faith." + +The struggle that we can trace (in all the works Luther has left) of +his own internal conflict between light and darkness, faith and +passion, God and himself, is a type and indication of what took place +in literature during the Reformation, when the old was in opposition to +the new. + + + +SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURY PHILOSOPHY. + +Eighteenth century philosophy in France, Germany and England was a very +different thing from the philosophy of the Ancients. The latter, says a +profound German writer, "recognized in time and space an endless +theatre for the display of the eternal, and of the living pulsation of +eternal love. By the contemplation of such things, however imperfect, +the natural, even the merely sensible man, was affected by a stupendous +feeling of admiration, well calculated to prepare the way for religious +thoughts. It extended and ennobled his soul to thus regard the past, +present, and future." + +French philosophy took its rise in the seventeenth century, but the +philosophers of that age--Descartes, Bayle and others--assumed the soul +of man to be the starting point in all investigations of physical +science. The eighteenth century philosophers went a step further and +rejected all idea of God and the soul. Voltaire, De Montesquieu, +D'Holbach, D'Alembert, Diderot, Helvetius and the Abbe Raynal, are the +chief minds who shaped the thought of France in the eighteenth century, +and by their cynicism, sensuality, and contempt for law and order, +helped to pave the war for the horrors of the French Revolution. What +they offered to the world the lower classes could only grasp in its +most material sense, and they wrested it indeed to their own, and to +others, destruction. + +Voltaire, Diderot, D'Holbach and their school in France, with Hume, +Bolingbroke and Gibbon in England, formed a coterie whose desire it was +to edit a vast encyclopaedia, giving the latest discoveries, in +philosophy and science in particular, and in literature in general. +These men became known as the Encyclopaedists, and their history is +fully set forth by Condillac. They rejected all divine revelation and +taught that all religious belief was the working of a disordered mind, +and that physical sensibility is the origin of all our thoughts. +Alternately gross or flippant, or else both, the French philosophers +offered nothing pure or elevating in philosophic thought. Their +teaching spread to England, where the philosophy of the eighteenth +century, less gross than the French, is chiefly distinguished for being +cold and indifferent, rather than actively opposed, to religion. Hume +is a type of the class of thinkers whom we find uncertain and unworthy +of confidence. The histories of Hume, Robertson and Gibbon are the +offspring of this degraded material philosophy of the eighteenth +century. They surpassed the histories of other nations in +comprehensiveness and power, and became standard works in France and +Germany, but in all of them we can trace a lack of true philosophy, due +to the blighting influence of the eighteenth century skepticism; for, +as the greatest minds, in which Christianity and science are blended, +have agreed--"without some reasonable and due idea of the destiny and +end of man, it is impossible to form just and consistent opinions on +the progress of events, and the development and fortunes of nations. +History stripped of philosophy becomes simply a lifeless heap of +useless materials, without either inward unity, right purpose, or +worthy result; while philosophy severed from history results in a +disturbed existence of different sects, allied to formality." + +The originator of English philosophy was John Locke, whose teachings +were closely allied to the sensual philosophy of the French. It +remained for the Scottish school under Thomas Reid to combat both the +sensualistic philosophy of Voltaire and Locke, and the skepticism of +Hume. Reid was a sincere lover of truth, a man of lofty character, and +his philosophy, such as it is, is the purest that can be found, more +akin to the profound reasoning of Plato. + +In Italy, during the eighteenth century, the theory that experience is +the only ground of knowledge, as taught by Locke and Condillac, gained +some followers; but none of them were men of any great influence. +Gallupi in the beginning of the nineteenth century endeavored to reform +this philosophy; others took up his work, and the result was a change +of thought similar to that brought about by Reid in England and +Scotland. + +The earlier German philosophers were influenced by the grosser forms of +the science, as found in Locke and Helvetius. Leibnitz and Wolf taught +pure Idealism, as did Bishop Berkeley in England. It remained for Kant +to create a new era in modern philosophy. His system vas what has +become known as the Rationalistic, or what we can know by pure reason. +Kant was followed by Lessing, Herder, Hegel, Fichte, and a host of +others. + +These German philosophers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries +have had a powerful influence in shaping literature in England, France, +Denmark, Sweden and America. The mystic and profound German mind has +often been led astray; but its intellectual strength cannot be +questioned. Schelling was the author of theories in philosophy that +have been adopted and imitated by both Coleridge and Wordsworth, while +Van Hartmann teaches that there is but one last principle of +philosophy, known by Spinoza as substance, by Fichte as the absolute +I., by Plato and Hegel as the absolute Idea, by Schopenhauer as Will, +and by himself as a blind, impersonal, unconscious, all-pervading Will +and Idea, independent of brain, and in its essence purely spiritual, +and he taught that there could be no peace for man's heart or intellect +until religion, philosophy and science were recognized as one root, +stem and leaves all of the same living tree. + +It is curious to trace how these various philosophies, recognized by +Van Hartmann under different names to be one, can be merged into the +sublime Christian philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, who taught that +religion, philosophy and science were indeed one--root, stem and leaves +of the one life-giving tree, which is God. + +All that is deepest and most profound is to be found in this modern +German philosophy, which is diametrically opposed to the flippant and +sensual philosophy of the Voltarian school. However far the German +philosophers are from true philosophy as seen in the light of Christian +truth, they command a respect as earnest thinkers and workers, which it +is impossible to accord the eighteenth century French school. + + + +ENGLISH. + +No country in the beginning owed so much to the language and literature +of other nations as the English. + +Anglo-Saxon, Latin, Norman-French, Cymric and Gaelic have all been +moulded into its literature. + +Three periods stand out in its history--the first beginning with the +end of the Roman occupation, to the Norman conquest--this includes the +literature of the Celtic, Latin and Anglo-Saxon tongues. The second +from the Norman conquest to the time of Henry VIII, embracing the +literature of the Norman-French, the Latin and Anglo-Saxon; the gradual +evolution of the Anglo-Saxon into English; and the literature of the +fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. + +The third period includes the Reformation, and the golden age of +Elizabethan literature; followed by the Restoration, Revolution, and +the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. + +Another division is called the Old English, Early English, and Middle +English. The latter was used by Chaucer, and with a little care in +reading can readily be understood by any educated person at the present +day, though it contains many words nationalized from the French. It is +a curious fact that the Anglo-Saxons, who in the present day, through +their descendants, the English, have the strongest national life and +literature, cannot boast of such a treasure house of ancient literature +as is possessed by the Irish and Welsh. + +Ireland has its bardic songs and historical legends older than the +ninth century, at which time appeared the "Psalter of Cashel," which +has come down to the present day. + +There are also prose chronicles, said to be the outcome of others of a +still earlier period, and which give a contemporary history of the +country in the Gaelic language of the fifth century. There is no other +modern nation in Europe that can point to such a literary past. The +Scotch Celts had early metrical verse, of which the Ossian, wherein is +related the heroic deeds of Fingal, was supposed to have been sung by +all the ancient Celtic bards. In the eighteenth century, Macpherson, a +Scotchman, found some of these poems sung in the Highlands of Scotland; +and, making a careful study of them, he translated all he could find +from the Gaelic into English, and gave them to the world. At the time +of publication, in 1762, their authenticity was questioned, and even at +the present day scholars are divided in their opinion as to their +genuineness. The literature of the Cymric Celts, the early inhabitants +of Britain, has given us the glorious legends of King Arthur and the +Knights of the Round Table. All the bardic songs refer to this mighty +prince, who resisted the Saxon invaders, and whose deeds were sung by +all the Welsh Britons. Some of these people took refuge in France, and +gradually the fame of their legends spread all over Europe, and were +eagerly seized upon and rendered into song, by the chivalric poets of +all countries. From these tales Geoffrey of Monmouth in the twelfth +century compiled a Latin historical work of Britain, while in later +times Tennyson in England, and Richard Wagner in Germany, have made the +deeds of Arthur and his Knights the theme of some of their most +magnificent creations. + +Other ancient Welsh writings are still extant, among them the Triads, +which is a work that has come down from primitive times. It comprises a +collection of historical and mythological maxims, traditions, +theological doctrines, and rules for constructing verse. + +The Mabinogi, or "Tales of Youth," are old Welsh romances similar to +the Norse Sagas, which are supposed by critics to date from a very rude +and early age. + +The Anglo-Saxon is very different from these ancient literatures. It +has no legends or romances, no national themes, and its early prose and +verse were written more in the style of religious narrative, and to +give practical information, than to amuse. + +The poems of Beowulf, a thorough Norse Saga, embodies the doings of the +Anglo-Saxons before they emigrated to England, and must have been +written long before they set foot on English soil. Older than Beowulf +is the lyric poem of Widsith, which has some historical interest as +depicting the doings of kings, princes and warriors. It contains traces +of the epic, which in Beowulf, whose English poem is next in point of +time, is more markedly developed. + +During the fifth and sixth centuries the Germanic tribes who emigrated +to Britain brought with them a heathen literature. The oldest fragment +now extant are the Hexenspruche and the Charms. They have elements of +Christian teaching in them, which would seem to imply that the Church +tried to give them a Christian setting. In some respects they resemble +the old Sanskrit, and are supposed to be among the earliest examples of +lyric poetry in England. + +Alfred the Great improved the Anglo-Saxon prose and soon after his time +a translation of the Bible in that language was made, forming the +second known copy in a national language, the first being the +Moeso-Gothic of Bishop Ulphilus. The Saxon Chronicles, dating from the +time of Alfred to 1154 were copies of the Latin Chronicles kept in the +monasteries. + +The twelfth and thirteenth centuries saw the age of the Crusades, which +added a new impulse to learning through the co-mingling of different +races. French poetry was translated into English, which, in the +thirteenth century, in its evolution from the Anglo-Saxon became a +fixed language. Classical learning in this age was generally diffused +through the schoolmen, of whom Lanfranc, Anselm, John of Salisbury, +Duns Scotius, William of Malmesbury, and other great names of this +period, mentioned elsewhere, are instances. + +In the thirteenth century appeared also the Gesta Romanorum, a +collection of fables, traditions, and various pictures of society, +changing with the different countries that the stories dealt with. The +romance of Apollonius in this collection gave Chaucer the plots for two +or three of his tales, and furnished Cowers with the theme for most of +his celebrated poem, the Confessio Amantis. This poem, in its turn, +suggested to Shakespeare the outlines for his characters of Pericles, +Prince of Tyre, and the Merchant of Venice. Other and less celebrated +works are also taken from the Gesta Romanorum. + +After the accession of the Norman kings of England, the chief literary +works in England for two centuries are those of the Norman poets. Wace +in the twelfth century wrote in French his "Brut d'Angleterre." Brutus +was the mythical son of Aeneas, and the founder of Britain. The Britons +were settled in Cornwall, Wales and Bretagne, and were distinguished +for traditionary legends, which had been collected by Godfrey of +Monmouth in 1138. They formed the groundwork for Wace's poem, which was +written in 1160, and from that time proved to be an inexhaustible +treasury from which romantic writers of fiction drew their materials. + +From this source Shakespeare obtained King Lear; Sackville found his +Ferrex and Porrex; and Milton and other poets are also indebted to +these legends. They furnished, also, the romances of chivalry for the +English Court, and have had an effect on English poetry that can be +seen even in the present day. The six romances of the British cycle, +celebrating Arthur, his Knights, and the Round Table, were written in +the last part of the twelfth century, at the instigation of Henry II. +They were the work of Englishmen; but were composed in French, and from +them the poets of France fashioned a number of metrical romances. + +Geoffrey Chaucer in the fourteenth century borrowed freely from French, +Latin and Italian works. The comic Fabliaux and the allegorical poetry +of the Trouveres and Troubadours furnished him with many of his +incidents and characters. The Romance of the Rose was taken from a +French poem of the thirteenth century. + +Troilus and Cressida is regarded as a translation from Boccaccio, and +Chaucer's Legend of Good Women is founded on Ovid's Epistles. John +Lydgate, a Benedictine monk in the fifteenth century, wrote poetry in +imitation of Chaucer, taking his ideas from the Gesta Romanorum, while +Thomas Mallory, a priest in the time of Edward IV, has given us one of +the best specimens of old English in the romantic prose fiction of +Morte d'Arthur, in which the author has told in one tale the whole +history of the Round Table. + +The "Bruce" of the Scotch John Barbour in the same century, gives the +adventures of King Robert, from which Sir Walter Scott has drawn +largely for his "Lord of the Isles." + +The close of the fifteenth century saw a passion develop for Scotch +poetry, which speedily became the fashion. Henry the Minstrel, or Blind +Harry, wrote his "Wallace," which is full of picturesque incident and +passionate fervor. + +Robert Henryson wrote his Robin and Makyne, a charming pastoral, which +has come down to us in Percy's Reliques. + +Gavin Douglas, Scotch Bishop of Dunkeld in the beginning of the +sixteenth century, translated the Aeneid into English. This is the +earliest known attempt in the British Isles to render classical poetry +into the national language. + +In the sixteenth century Erasmus gave a new impulse in England to the +study of Latin and Greek, and Sir Thomas More in his "Utopia" (wherein +he imagines an ideal commonwealth with community of property), +unconsciously gave birth to a word (utopia), which has ever since been +used to designate the ideally impossible. + +Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, in the same century made a translation of +the Aeneid and wrote sonnets and lyrical poems. The sonnet he borrowed +from Petrarch, giving it the amatory tone common to the Italians. He +also took from the Italian poets the blank verse of his Aeneid, a style +in which the best poetry of England has since been written. + +The genius of John Milton has been greatly hampered by the +self-inflicted laws under which he labored, conditions which did not +affect Dante and Tasso, who were his models; for Milton denied in a +great measure the use of history, tradition and symbolism. Of this +defect he was sensible, so he tried to make amends for it by borrowing +fables and allegories out of the Koran and Talmud. English poetry has +inclined more to the style of Milton than to that of Spenser, who was +thoroughly embued with the romantic spirit of the Teutons and the +Troubadours, though, like Milton, he was influenced by Tasso; and +unlike him, by Ariosto. His Faerie Queene, Gloriana, is supposed to be +the beloved of the courtly Arthur of the British legends. + +The English poets of the Elizabethan age were under deep obligations to +the Italian poets, especially Tasso; and this is particularly true of +Spenser, many critics think his eighty-first sonnet is almost a literal +translation of Tasso. Be that as it may, the obligations of many +English poets of the age to the Italians, is unmistakable. + +After the Puritan period the English language and literature was +strongly influenced by the French, and in both Pope and Addison there +is a marked leaning toward French poetry. Pope's translation of Homer +while it lacks the simple majesty and naturalness of the original (a +trait which Bryant in the nineteenth century happily caught), +nevertheless gave to the English world the opportunity to become +somewhat acquainted with the incomparable poet of antiquity. + +Thomson's descriptive poetry of nature found many imitators in Germany +and France, and a taste for outdoor life and simplicity became the +rage, so that some years after the author of the "Castle of Indolence" +had passed away, Marie Antoinette in her rustic bower, "Little +Trianon," pretended to like to keep sheep and pose as a shepherdess, as +has been said elsewhere. + +Percy's Reliques of ancient English poetry, in 1765 opened a storehouse +of the fine old English ballads, which speedily became popular through +the patronage of Scott, who made them his textbook for a variety of +subjects. These poems, with Macpherson's "Fingal" introduced a new +school of poetry into England. The originals of Scott were these +romances of chivalry, and even Byron has not disdained to follow the +same trend in the pilgrimage of his "Childe Harold." The nineteenth +century poets and novelists do not seem to have borrowed especially +from any foreign element; but in history Niebuhr's researches in +Germany have greatly influenced Arnold in his "Roman History." The +close of the nineteenth century and opening of the twentieth is chiefly +remarkable for the interdependence of literature through the magazines +and reviews. Translations of any striking or brilliant articles are +immediately made, and appear in the magazines of different countries +almost as soon as the originals, so that the literature of the future +bids fair to become more cosmopolitan, and perhaps less strongly +directed by racial and social influence than in the past. + +And yet--in studying the literature of ancient and modern times--we are +struck by the unity in diversity of its history, just as a world-wide +traveller comes to see the similarity of nature everywhere. In +literature strange analogies occur in ages and races remote from each +other, as, when the mother in the old North country Scotch ballad sings +to her child, and says: + + "The wild wind is ravin,' thy minnies heart's sair, + The wild wind is ravin,' but ye dinna care." + +And we find nearly the same verse in the song of Danae to the infant +Perseus: + + "The salt spume that is blown o'er thy locks, + Thou heedst not, nor the roar of the gale; + Sleep babe, sleep the sea, + And sleep my sea of trouble." + +There is also the story of the Greek child who in ancient times sang +nearly the same invocation for fair weather that we used in our nursery +days, when, with noses flattened against the window pane, we uttered +our sing-song: + + "Rain, rain, go to Spain." + +And in blindman's buff, perhaps the most ancient of games, we have +words that have come down from remote times. The blindfolded one says: + + "I go a-hunting a brassy fly." + +To which the others answer: + + "A-hunting thou goest; but shalt not come nigh." + +And there are the marvellous stories of the Giant Killer, and the +wonders of Puss in Boots and Cinderella, which have descended to us +from that vast cloud-country of bygone ages; that dreamland of fairy +imagery, which is as real to the little maid in the twentieth century +as it was to her young sisters in the shadow of the Pyramids, on the +banks of the Tiber and the Ganges, in the neighborhood of solemn Druid +Temples, or among the fjords and floes of the far-off Icelandic +country, in centuries long since gone by. + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Interdependence of Literature, by +Georgina Pell Curtis + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INTERDEPENDENCE OF LITERATURE *** + +***** This file should be named 3778.txt or 3778.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/7/3778/ + +Produced by Dianne Bean. 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