Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/148

Rh  (A. S. W.)

  The history of Greek literature has had three great stages&thinsp;:&mdash;the, from the earliest times to 529&thinsp;A.D., when the edict of Justinian closed the schools of pagan philosophy&thinsp;; the, from 529&thinsp;A.D. to the taking of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453&thinsp;; and the , which may be said to have begun with the satirical poetry of Theodorus Prodromus in the 12th century.

  The Old Literature, to 529&thinsp;A.D., falls into three periods. I. The Early Literature, to about 475&thinsp;B.C. Epic, elegiac, iambic, and lyric poetry&thinsp;; the beginnings of literary prose. II. The Attic Literature, 475-300&thinsp;B.C. Tragic and comic drama&thinsp;; historical, oratorical, and philosophical prose. III. The Literature of the Decadence, 300&thinsp;B.C. to 529&thinsp;A.D., which may again be divided into (1) the Alexandrian period, 300-146&thinsp;B.C., and (2) the Græco-Roman period, 146&thinsp;B.C. to 529&thinsp;A.D.

It is not the purpose of the present article to enter into details regarding particular works or the lives of their authors. These will be found in the separate articles devoted to the principal Greek writers. The object of the following pages will be to sketch the literary development as a whole, to show how its successive periods were related to each other, and to mark the dominant characteristics of each.

I. The Early Literature. A process of natural growth may be traced through all the best work of the Greek genius. The Greeks were not literary imitators of foreign models ; the forms of poetry and prose in which they attained to such unequalled excel lence were first developed by themselves. Their literature had its roots in their political and social life ; it is the spontaneous expression of that life in youth, maturity, and decay ; and the order in which its several fruits are pro duced is not the result of accident or caprice. The series of its seasons is as much the result of natural laws as the sequence of spring, summer, and autumn. Further, the old Greek literature has a striking completeness, due to the fact that each great branch of the Hellenic race bore a characteristic part in its development. lonians, Julians, Dorians, in turn contributed their share. Each dialect corresponded to a certain aspect of Hellenic life and char acter. Each found its appropriate work.

The lonians on the coast of Asia Minor a lively and genial people, delighting in adventure, and keenly sensitive to everything bright and joyous created artistic epic poetry out of the lays in which ^Eolic minstrels sang of the old Achamn wars. And among the lonians arose elegiac poetry, the first variation on the epic type. These found a fitting instrument in the harmonious Ionic dialect, the flexible utterance of a quick and versatile intelligence. The yKolians of Lesbos next created the lyric of personal passion, in which the traits of their race its chivalrous pride, its bold but sensuous fancy found a fitting voice in the fiery strength and tenderness of /Eolic speech. The Dorians of the Peloponnesus, Sicily, and MagnaGrrecia then perfected the choral lyric for festivals and religious worship ; and here again an earnest faith, a strong pride in Dorian usage and renown, had an apt interpreter in the massive and sonorous Doric. Finally, the Attic branch of the Ionian stock produced the drama, blending elements of all the other kinds, and developed an artistic literary prose in history, oratory, and philosophy. It is in the Attic litera ture that the Greek mind receives its most complete inter pretation. A natural affinity was felt to exist between each dialect and that species of composition for which it had been specially used. Hence the dialect of the Ionian epic poets would be adopted with more or less thoroughness even by epic or elegiac poets who were not lonians. Thus the yEolian Hesiod uses it in epos, the Dorian Theognis in elegy, though not without alloy. Similarly, the Dorian Theocritus wrote love-songs in yEolic. The Attic Tyrtaeus used Doric forms for his inarching songs. All the faculties and tones of the language were thus gradually brought out by the co-operation of the dialects. Old Greek literature has an essential unity the unity of a living organism; and this unity comprehends a number of distinct types, each of which is complete in its own kind.

Extant Greek literature begins with the Homeric poems. These are works of art which imply a long period of antecedent poetical cultivation. Of the pre-Homeric poetry we have no remains, and very little knowledge. Such glimpses as we get of it connect it with two different stages in the religion of the prehistoric Hellenes. The first of these stages is that in which the agencies or forms of external nature were personified indeed, yet with the consciousness that the personal names were only symbols. Some very ancient Greek songs of which mention is made may have Songs belonged to this stage as the songs of Linus, lalemus, and of "" Hylas. Linus, the fair youth killed by dogs, seems to be se the spring passing away before Sirius. Such songs have been aptly called "songs of the seasons." The second stage is that in which the Hellenes have now definitively personified the powers which they worship. Apollo, Demeter, Dionysus, Cybele, have now become to them beings with clearly conceived attributes. To this second stage belong the hymns connected with the names of the legendary bards, Uymi such as Orpheus, Musa^us, Eumolpus, who are themselves associated with the worship of the Pierian Muses and the Attic ritual of Demeter. The seats of this early sacred poetry are not only " Thracian " i.e., on the borders of northern Greece but also "Phrygian" and "Cretan." It belongs, that is, presumably to an age when the ancestors of the Hellenes had left the Indo-European home in central Asia, but had not yet taken full possession of the lands which were afterwards Hellenic. Some of their tribes were still in Asia; others were settling in the islands of the yEgean ; others were passing through the lands on its northern sea board. If there was a period when the Greeks possessed no poetry but hymns forming part of a religious ritual, it may be conjectured that it was not of long duration. Already in the Iliad a secular character belongs to the 