DEPARTMENT OF LITERATURE.
CHIEF REPRESENTATIVES. LATIN NAME. | ENGLISH NAME.
DATE.
CHIEF WORKS.
THEIR RELATION TO GREEK LITERATURE.
SOME INFLUENCES ON FOREIGN TRIBUTARIES TO ENGLISH LITERATURE.
SOME EFFECTS ON ENGLISH WRITERS.
Tragic Drama
Gnaeus NAEVIUS | NAEVIUS
fl. 230 B.C.
Quintus ENNIUS | ENNIUS
fl. 200 B.C.
TRAGEDIES (only fragments extant).
Crudely translated from the Greek, chiefly Euripides.
Lucius Annaeus SENECA | SENECA
ob. A.D. 65
TRAGEDIES, e.g., _Medea_, _Hippolytus_, etc.
Imitating Greek subjects, metres, and treatment (chorus, etc.);
but more rhetorical, epigrammatic, and moralizing.
Served as type for Italian Renaissance drama and for the French
declamatory tragedy of Corneille, Racine, etc.
Little effect on English drama. Addison’s _Cato_ the best
instance of attempt at the Roman “classical.”
Comic Drama
Titus Maccius PLAUTUS | PLAUTUS
fl. 210 B.C.
COMEDIES, _e.g._, _Aulularia_, _Menaechmi_ (20 extant).
From Middle and New comedy, chiefly Menander; almost mere
adaptations, but broader and rougher. The scene is always
in Greek cities.
Type for Italian comedy of Renaissance. Great influence on
Molière, whose _L’Avare_ is from the _Aulularia_, and
his _Amphitryon_ from _Amphitruo_.
Shakespeare’s _Comedy of Errors_ is from Plautus’s
_Menaechmi_. Dryden’s _Amphitryon_ through Molière
from Plautus. So Fielding’s _The Miser_ = _L’Avare_ from
_Aulularia_. French comedy of intrigue (from Plautus and
Terence) reproduced in Congreve, Farquhar, etc.
Publius TERENTIUS AFER | TERENCE
fl. 160 B.C.
COMEDIES, _e.g._, _Phormio_, _Adelphi_, etc. (6 extant).
As with Plautus, but less boisterous.
As with Plautus. Molière’s _École des Maris_ is from the
_Adelphi_, and _Les Fourberies de Scapin_ from the
_Phormio_.
English comedy of intrigue, after the Restoration.
Epic Verse
Quintus ENNIUS | ENNIUS
fl. 200 B.C.
EPIC (on Roman history and legend) called _Annales_.
Copies the Homeric hexameter and borrows the Olympic deities.
Called the “Roman Homer,” but crude and inartistic.
Publius VERGILIUS MARO | VIRGIL
lived 70-19 B.C.
_AENEID_ (epic of Aeneas, legendary founder of Roman people).
Copies _Odyssey_ in first six books (wanderings), and _Iliad_
in last six (battles); borrows images and incidents from all
Greek writers. But more descriptive, philosophical, and
fastidious of expression.
The basis for subsequent epics. Utilized by Dante, Ariosto,
Tasso, etc., in Italy. Model for the French epic, _e.g._,
Voltaire’s _Henriade_.
Translated by Gawain Douglas (1513), Dryden, etc. Very
important for Milton’s _Paradise Lost_, Spenser’s
_Faerie Queene_, and to all modern poets of classical
training. See Tennyson’s poem, “To Virgil.”
Marcus Annaeus LUCANUS | LUCAN
lived A.D. 39-65
_Pharsalia_ (epic of civil wars between Caesar and Pompey).
Departing further from Greek directness. Cleverness in rhetoric,
epigram, description, satire, etc., aimed at. Fondness for
details of horror.
Publius Papinius STATIUS | STATIUS (“Stace” in Chaucer)
fl. A.D. 70
_Thebaid_ (epic of Thebes and its heroes).
Clever and facile verse: elegant simile, etc., of more
importance than the matter.
Two favourite writers in the early middle ages. Statius
affected by Dante and Boccaccio (who founds his _Teseide_
upon him).
Lucan and “Stace” were among the chief Latin reading of
Chaucer’s day. [_The Knight’s Tale_ (of Palamon and
Arcite, modernized by Dryden) is from the _Thebaid_.]
Comparatively little read in modern times. Addison’s
_Campaign_ has clear traces of Lucan; so has Drayton’s
_Barons’ Wars_.
Lyric Verse
Gaius Valerius CATULLUS | CATULLUS
lived 84-54 B.C.
POEMS (odes, epigrams, and occasional pieces—especially
love-poems to “Lesbia”).
Imitates metre and style of Greek lyrists (Sappho, etc.) and
Alexandrian elegists (Callimachus, etc.). Most Greek of all
Romans in his simplicity and spontaneity.
His works lost during Middle Ages, and always less read than
Horace.
Quintus HORATIUS Flaccus | HORACE
lived 65-8 B.C.
_ODES AND EPODES_ (love, politics, _vers de société_,
moralizings).
Avowed imitation of Sappho, Alcaeus, Pindar, Anacreon. Adapts
Greek lyrical metres. Deft but unimpassioned.
The model for lyrists and writers of social verse in France
and Italy.
These combined are the type for all such English odes and
short pieces as are addressed to “Lesbia,” “Delia,” “Celia,”
etc. (Ben Jonson). Horace in particular was imitated by the
seventeenth-century “cavalier” poets (Suckling, Herrick,
etc.), and (unconsciously) guides later writers of
_pièces de circonstance_.
Elegiac Verse
Albius TIBULLUS | TIBULLUS
Sextus Aurelius PROPERTIUS | PROPERTIUS
fl. 20 B.C.
ELEGIES (of affection and sentiment).
Direct imitations of Alexandrian Greek elegists.
Exerted an influence similar to that of Ovid, but in a less
degree.
Publius OVIDIUS Naso | OVID
fl. 43 B.C.-A.D. 17.
VARIOUS POEMS, _e.g._, _Heroides_ (in the form of
letters). _Tristia_, _Amores_, etc.
The Greek models are less epigrammatic. Ovid affects pointed
couplets (compare Pope).
Ovid was a favourite author even in the early Middle Ages. His
love-elegies were particularly affected (as in the _Romance
of the Rose_), and are best represented (in a shorter form)
by the sonnet of the Italians and of the sixteenth-century
English. The Italian painters and poets of the Renaissance
made great use of him, and Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, Pope
are much indebted to him. The favourite work, however, was
his _Metamorphoses_, which is not in elegiac, but in
heroic verse, being narrative.
Satiric Verse
Gaius LUCILIUS | Lucilius
fl. 120 B.C.
SATIRES on politics, literature (fragments), etc.
Quintus HORATIUS Flaccus | HORACE
65-8 B.C.
_SATIRES AND EPISTLES_ (genial).
Aulus PERSIUS Flaccus | Persius
fl. A.D. 60
SATIRES (crabbed style)
Decimus Junius JUVENALIS | JUVENAL
fl. A.D. 120
_SATIRES_ (polished, terse, trenchant).
A native Latin growth (Greek satire takes a different form and
medium).
Models for much Italian satire (Aretino, etc.), and French
(Regnier, _Satyre Ménippée_, Boileau, etc.).
In English the best examples out of many are the _Moral
Essays_ and _Imitations of Horace_ by Pope, his
_Dunciad_, and the satires of Dryden (_MacFlecknoe_,
etc.). Compare Byron’s _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_.
Johnson copies Juvenal in _London_ and _Vanity of Human
Wishes_.
Didactic (and “philosophical”) Verse
Titus LUCRETIUS CARUS | LUCRETIUS
fl. 60 B.C.
_DE RERUM NATURA_ (“the Constitution of Nature”).
In form follows old Greek philosophical poets, and in matter
expounds the philosophy of Epicurus.
Seen directly in the philosophical verse-essay (Pope’s
_Essay on Man_, Akenside’s _Pleasures of the
Imagination_, etc.): but Lucretius has also been the
favourite reading of many poets, _e.g._, Shelley.
Compare Tennyson’s Poem on “Lucretius,” Wordsworth’s
_Excursion_.
Publius VERGILIUS MARO | VIRGIL
lived 70-19 B.C.
_GEORGICS_ (poems on husbandry).
The idea taken from Hesiod.
[See HESIOD in the Greek Table.]
Quintus HORATIUS Flaccus | HORACE
lived 65-8 B.C.
_ARS POETICA_ (an essay in literary criticism).
An ill-digested _rechauffé_ of Aristotle and later Greek critics.
The source of the shallow criticism of Boileau and his school.
And of Pope and his school.
Pastoral Verse
VIRGIL
_BUCOLICS_ (or _ECLOGUES_).
From Theocritus, but moralized and sometimes artificial.
Imitated by Mantuan and Sannazaro in Italy, and Marot in
France.
Spenser’s _Shepheard’s Calender_ etc. [_See_ Greek
Table: PASTORAL.]
Epigram
Marcus Valerius MARTIALIS | MARTIAL
fl. A.D. 90.
_EPIGRAMS_ (various subjects).
The conception of Greek epigram is polish and delicacy. Of Latin
it is chiefly point and sting.
The modern conception of epigram is entirely taken from the
Latin form. Martial is the one model.
History
Gaius Julius CAESAR | CAESAR
lived 100-44 B.C.
_COMMENTARIES_ (on the Gallic and the Civil Wars; simple,
straightforward narrative).
Gaius SALLUSTIUS Crispus | SALLUST
fl. 45 B.C.
_Catilina_ and _Jugurtha_
Attempts to imitate Thucydides. A commonplace moralizer.
Titus LIVIUS Patavinus | LIVY
Ob. A.D. 17
_HISTORY_ (of Rome); (rich style, ample, pathetic).
Adopts the Greek custom of putting _verbatim_ speeches
into the mouths of his characters.
Gaius Cornelius TACITUS | TACITUS
fl. A.D. 100
_HISTORIES_ and _ANNALS_ (of Emperors); (epigrammatic,
terse, satirical).
Aims at the condensation of Thucydides.
It is impossible to estimate the great influence of these
writers on later historians. Livy (with Cicero) is the model
(in point of style) followed by Gibbon. [Compare remark in
Greek Table: HISTORY.]
Oratory
Marcus TULLIUS CICERO | CICERO (and “Tully.”)
lived 106-43 B.C.
SPEECHES (59 extant, _e.g._, _Philippics_,
_Against Verres_, etc.).
Follower of Demosthenes, but in a more rotund and loaded style.
The model of most French oratory and preaching (Bossuet,
etc.) (Otherwise Seneca is followed).
The model of speakers and preachers of seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries (Jeremy Taylor, etc., to Burke, etc.).
The “Johnsonian” style is based on Cicero.
Marcus Fabius Quintilianus | Quintilian
fl. A.D. 100
_The Training of the Orator._
Letter-Writing
CICERO
106-43 B.C.
LETTERS (“To Atticus,” “To Friends”).
Gaius PLINIUS Secundus | PLINY (the Younger.)
fl. A.D. 100
LETTERS (to friends, to Trajan, etc.).
A specially Roman department of literature.
Type followed in France (Madame de Sévigné, etc.).
The model for published letters like those of Horace Walpole
and Pope.
Philosophy
CICERO
_Academica_, _De Officiis_, etc.
A reproducer of Greek systems in popular expositions.
SENECA
A brilliantly epigrammatic moralizer on old lines of thought.
Seneca was favourite reading of moralizers of all European
countries after the Renaissance.
Fable
Phaedrus | PHAEDRUS
fl. A.D. 15
FABLES
Reproducer of Aesop
_See_ “Aesop” in Greek Conspectus.
Encyclopaedic
Gaius Plinius Secundus | PLINY (the Elder.)
fl. A.D. 70
_Natural History_
Storehouse of mediaeval science.