Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/101

 A. Vi'. SniLEGEI.'S GENERAL SURVEY OF THE DRAMA. 83 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER Y. A. W. SCHLEGEL'S GENERAL SURVEY OF THE DRAMA IX DIFFERENT AGES AND COUNTRIES. It is well known that about three and a half centuries ago the study of ancient literature was revived by the diffusion of the Greek language (the Latin never became extinct) : the classical authors were brought to light and rendered universally acces- sible by the art of printing ; the monuments of ancient genius were diligently disin- terred. All this supplied manifold excitements to the human mind, and formed a marked epoch in the history of our mental culture; it was fertile in effects, which extend even to us, and will extend to an incalculable series of ages. But at the same time the study of the ancients was perverted to a deadly abuse. The learned, who were chiefly in possession of it, and were incompetent to distinguish themselves by works of their own, asserted for the ancients an unconditional authority ; in fact with great show of reason, for in their kind they are models. They maintained, that only from imitation of the ancient writers is true salvation for human genius to be hoped for ; in the works of the moderns they appreciated only what was, or seemed to be, similar to those of the ancients ; all else they rejected as barbarous degeneracy. Quite otherwise was it with the great poets and artists. Lively as might be the enthusiasm with which the ancients inspired them, much as they might entertain the design of vying with them, still their independence and originality of mind constrained them to strike out into their own path, and to impress upon their productions the stamp of their own genius. Thus fared it, even before that revival, with Dante, the father of modern poetry : he avouched that he took Virgil as his teacher, but produced a work which, of all mentionable works, most differs in its make from the JEneid, and in our opinion very far surpassed his fancied master, in power, truth, compass, and profound- ness. So was it likewise, at a later period, with Ariosto, who has perversely been compared with Homer: nothing can be more unlike. So, in art, with Michel- An gelo and Raphael, who nevertheless were unquestionably great connoisseurs in the antiques. As the poets for the most part had their share of scholarship, the consequence was a schism in their own minds, between the natural bent of their genius, and the obliga- tion of an imaginary duty. "Where they sacrificed to the latter, they were commended by the learned: so far as they followed the bent of the former, they were favourites with the people. That the heroic lays of a Tasso and a Camoens still survive on the lips of their fellow-countrymen is assuredly not owing to their imperfect aflSnity with Virgil, or even with Homer ; in Tasso it is the tender feeling of chivalrous love and honour, in Camoens the glowing inspiration of patriotic enthusiasm. Those ages, nations, and ranks, which found the imitation of the ancients most to their liking, were precisely such as least felt the want of a self- formed poetry. The result was dead school-exercises, which at best can excite but a frigid admiration. Bare imitation in the fine arts is always fruitless of good : even what we borrow from others must, as it were, be bora again within us, if ever it is to issue forth in the 6—2