rich Ratzel used to deplore the scarcity of such characterizations from the hands of competent writers. And indeed, such appraisals as that of the American character in Bryce's American Commonwealth, or that of the French in Lanson's Histoire de la Littérature Française, or even the suggested characterization of the English in Jespersen's Growth and Structure of the English Language, are rare. Whether any considerable number exists for the Hebrew race I cannot say; one thinks, of course, of Matthew Arnold's 'Hebraism and Hellenism,' and the like, which would hardly content the scholar and the scientist. If the number is large, it would be well to collect them and publish certain excellent specimens. Meanwhile, is it not worth noting that for the Greek race, which would commonly be chosen as typical of humanity, we have very many of these characterizations? So far as I am aware, the present volume, designed in the main for other purposes, constitutes the first attempt to present a body of such material. Finally, I have the pleasant duty of thanking several of my friends and pupils for direct assistance and helpful suggestions, of which I availed myself particularly in the translations; and of expressing my obligations to the authors and publishers who have kindly allowed me to reprint copyright material. These obligations, as I hope, are all fully recorded in the proper places. Ithaca, New York, June 15, 1917. LANE COOPER. CONTENTS John Clarke Stobart, The Legacy of Greece . III. Francis G. and Anne C. E. Allinson, External IV Milton, from Paradise Regained V. John Henry Newman, Attica and Athens VI. Sir Richard Jebb, The Age of Pericles VII. Arthur Elam Haigh, The Attic Audience 85 98 132 156 X. Abby Leach, Fate and Free Will in Greek Literature XII. Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, The Character and Extent of Greek Literature XIII. Gilbert Murray, The 'Tradition' of Greek Literature 168 XIV. Edward Kennard Rand, The Classics in European XVI Samuel Lee Wolff, The Greek Gift to Civilization . 218 XVII. Thaddaeus Zielinski, Our Debt to Antiquity. INTRODUCTION THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CLASSICS 1 BY LANE COOPER 1 The literature of Greece and Rome is a fountain of life, yet the languages are often called 'dead.' What is a 'dead' language? Once it is uttered, all language is dead. The language of Shakespeare, of Milton, and of Tennyson, is dead. The language you uttered half an hour ago is dead, and these words of mine, if spoken, would be dying as fast as they were born. My opening sentence would already have passed away-and my closing one you could not know, since for you it would not yet have come into being. Your language of half an hour ago can easily be revived, and these syllables which I pronounced some two years since, should you read them aloud, would be breathing again this very moment. Thanks to an alphabet which England and America owe to Greece and Rome, the language of Tennyson and Milton likewise can be brought to life again. So, too, with the language of Shakespeare-though here the vitalizing process demands a conscious expenditure of energy. But Chaucer, that well-spring of English undefiled, is 'dead' (which at this point means difficult) to many. And so is Virgil, that fount which for the living Dante spread so broad a stream of speech. 'Why then,' asks Saint Augustine, after mentioning his love of the Aeneid, 'Why then did I hate the Greek language in which like songs are sung?-for Homer also was skilful in weaving the like fables, and is most sweetly-vain; yet was he bitter to my boyish taste. And so I suppose would Virgil be to Grecian children, when forced to learn him as I was the other. Difficulty, in truth, the difficulty of learning a foreign tongue, sprinkled as it were with gall all the sweetness of Grecian fables.' Thus Augustine, in the fourth century of what we call 'our era.' Were he at school to-day, and free to pick 1 For an Introduction to the volume I have adapted an address of mine, delivered before the English Club of Bryn Mawr College, December 13, 1914.-EDITOR. |