DEPARTMENT OF LITERATURE.
CHIEF REPRESENTATIVE.
DATE.
CHIEF WORKS.
SOME INFLUENCES ON FOREIGN TRIBUTARIES TO ENGLISH LITERATURE.
SOME EFFECTS ON ENGLISH WRITERS.
Epic Verse
HOMER
Ninth century, B.C.?
ILIAD—martial
O´DYSSEY—romantic
Imitated by Virgil (_Aenéid_), and thence affecting Dante,
Tasso, etc.
The _Iliad_ translated by Chapman (Elizabethan), Pope,
Cowper, etc. Milton’s _Paradise Lost_ is ultimately based
on Homer (+ Virgil + Dante). Abundance of characters, similes,
etc., incorporated by all our literature.
Didactic Verse (Epic metre)
HE´SIOD
Eighth century, B.C.
WORKS AND DAYS—agricultural
THEOGONY—pedigree of the Gods
Imitated by Virgil (_Georgics_)
First model for much (mostly unimportant) didactic work,
_e.g._ Tusser’s _Five Hundred Points of Good
Husbandry_ (Elizabethan), and the verses of Dyer,
Green, Darwin, etc. (eighteenth century).
Lyric Verse
SAPPHO (and Lesbian School)
fl. 610 B.C.
ODES of love (mostly lost)
ANA´CREON
fl. 530 B.C.
ODES of love and wine
Imitated by Catullus and Horace, and thence by Italian and
French lyrists.
In English the influence was chiefly through Horace: Keynote
to many of the Elizabethan and Caroline songs, _e.g._, in
Davidson’s _Poetical Rhapsody_, Herrick, Suckling, etc.
Moore translates _Odes of Anacreon_ (many spurious). Modern
_vers de société_.
PINDAR (Simónides, etc.)
fl. 470 B.C.
ODES of victory (OLYMPIAN, ISTHMIAN, etc.)
One of the models of Horace. Deliberately imitated by Italians,
_e.g._, Chiabrera.
Directly imitated by Cowley (_Pindaric Odes_), Dryden (_Song
for St. Cecilia’s Day_, _Alexanders Feast_), Pope (_Ode
on St. Cecilia’s Day_), Gray (_Progress of Poesy_), etc.
Tragic Drama
AE´SCHYLUS
fl. 490-456 B.C.
PLAYS (7 extant, _e.g._ _Agamemnon_, _Prometheus_).
SO´PHOCLES
fl. 465-405 B.C.
PLAYS (7 extant, _e.g._, _Antigone_, _Ajax_).
EURI´PIDES
fl. 450-406 B.C.
PLAYS (17 extant, _e.g._, _Alcéstis_,_Iphigenía_).
Imitated on wrong principles by Latin writers, _e.g._, Seneca,
from whom false notions of “classical” drama came into France
(Corneille and Racine).
Effect on English drama mostly so far as that drama was
affected by Italian or French influence (pre-Shakespearean
and post-Restoration). Attempts at “classical” drama in
Milton’s _Samson Agonistes_, Addison’s _Cato_,
Swinburne’s _Atalanta in Calydon_. Much use of Greek
subject-matter and characters, _e.g._, by Shelley
(_Prometheus Unbound_), Byron (_Manfred_ and _Cain_,
with character of Prometheus). Browning’s _Balaustion’s
Adventure_ (= Euripides’ _Alcestis_).
Comic Drama
ARISTO´PHANES (and _Old_ comedy)
fl. 425-385 B.C.
PLAYS (11 extant, _e.g._, _Birds_, _Clouds_,
_Frogs_), (political and personal).
MENA´NDER (and _New_ comedy)
fl. 310 B.C.
PLAYS of character and manners (fragments extant).
Adapted by Plautus and Terence, and thence borrowed by Molière.
Shakespeare’s _Comedy of Errors_ from Plautus (_Menaechmi_)
from the Greek. Ben Jonson’s comedies of “humours.” English
translations from Molière (Dryden, Fielding, etc. ) can be
affiliated to Greek. Thence English comedy so far as
determined by French, from Goldsmith to modern adaptations.
Pastoral Idylls
THEO´CRITUS (and his school)
fl. 270 B.C.
IDYLLS of country life (and pastoral “laments” by his
disciples Bion, Moschus).
Imitated by Virgil (_Eclogues_), and thence by Sannazaro, etc.
Pastorals proper by Spenser (_Shepheard’s Calender_), Drayton,
Pope, etc. Mixed with ‘romance’ in Sidney’s _Arcadia_. Pastoral
laments in Milton’s _Lycidas_, Shelley’s _Adonais_, Matthew
Arnold’s _Thyrsis_. Idylls in Tennyson (_Œnone_).
History
HERO´DOTUS
lived 484-428 B.C.
HISTORY (conflict of Asia and Europe).
THUCY´DIDES
lived 471-400 B.C.
HISTORY (of Peloponnesian War)
XE´NOPHON
lived 430-355 B.C.
ANA´BASIS, HELLE´NICA, etc.
Models of Latin historians, _e.g._, Sallust, Livy, Tacitus.
Theoretically English historians emulated Thucydides. In
practice they rather follow the Romans. The influence of
the Greek “inventors” of history is everywhere, but does
not admit of brief specification.
Oratory
DEMOS´THENES (and the “Attic canon,” ISOCRATES, etc.)
lived 384-322 B.C.
SPEECHES (public, _e.g._, _Philippics_, and private).
The Roman orators were avowed students of Greek methods. French
oratory follows.
Influence indirect. _See_ “Conspectus of Latin Literature.”
Philosophy
PLATO
lived 429-347 B.C.
DIALOGUES (ethical, politico-ethical, etc.)—_e.g._,
_Republic_, _Symposium_.
Affects all subsequent philosophy.
Platonic thought and terms are an element in all modern
English philosophy. The thoughts markedly present in many
poets, _e.g._, Shelley, Wordsworth (_Intimations of
Immortality_). Plato’s literary method (dialogue) adopted
by Berkeley (_Alciphron_), Landor, etc. Plato’s _Republic_
the starting point for ideal commonwealths, _e.g._, More’s
_Utopia_, Bacon’s _New Atlantis_.
ARISTOTLE
lived 384-322 B.C.
ETHICS, POLITICS, METAPHYSICS, RHETORIC, etc.
Affects all subsequent thought.
Aristotelian philosophy was a kind of religion with mediaeval
scholars. Its influence at present on the increase. Translated
into Arabic (twelfth century) by Averrhoes, thence into Latin.
Dominates the thinking of the Middle Ages (“schoolmen”). His
literary criticism carried on by Horace, garbled by Boileau.
Literary criticism of Aristotle leads to Puttenham’s _Art
of English Poesie_, Sidney’s _Defense of Poesie_, Dryden’s
_Of Dramatic Poesie_, etc. The erroneous “Aristotelian”
doctrines of Boileau, etc., dominate English style of the
“correct” age (Pope, etc.).
Biography and Essays
PLUTARCH
fl. A.D. 80
PARALLEL LIVES
The model for later writers. French translation by Amyot,
favourite reading of Montaigne.
Starting-point for biographies and biographical essays (_e.g._
of Macaulay). North’s translation of Plutarch’s _Lives_
supplied Shakespeare with subjects and characters (Coriolanus,
Julius Caesar, Brutus, Antony).
MORAL ESSAYS
Greatly read after Revival of Learning.
Humorous and Satirical Essays
LUCIAN
fl. A.D. 160
DIALOGUES AND SKETCHES
Affecting Rabelais, Voltaire.
Effect not reducible to a few words. Swift’s _Gulliver’s
Travels_ takes its rise from Lucian’s _True History_.
Sterne is sometimes called “the English Lucian.”
Fable
Aesop
Sixth century B.C.?
FABLES
Passed on from Phaedrus, etc., to all W. Europe.
Source of the majority of our fables since Alfred (in Caxton,
etc.).
Character Sketches
Theophrastus
fl. 320 B.C.
CHARACTERS
Imitated by La Bruyère
“Characters” of Hall, Overbury, Earle, etc.