History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed/Introduction
HISTORY
OF THE
LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE.
INTRODUCTION.
In undertaking to write a history of Grecian literature, it is not our intention to enumerate the names of those many hundred authors whose works, accumulated in the Alexandrine Library, are reported, after passing through many other perils, to have finally been burnt by the Khalif Omar—an event from which the cause of civilisation has not, perhaps, suffered so much as many have thought; inasmuch as the inheritance of so vast a collection of writings from antiquity would, by engrossing all the leisure and attention of the moderns, have diminished their zeal and their opportunities for original productions. Nor will it be necessary to carry our younger readers (for whose use this work is chiefly designed) into the controversies of the philosophical schools, the theories of grammarians and critics, or the successive hypotheses of natural philosophy among the Greeks—in short, into those departments of literature which are the province of the learned by profession, and whose influence is confined to them alone. Our object is to consider Grecian literature as a main constituent of the character of the Grecian people, and to show how those illustrious compositions, which we still justly admire as the classical writings of the Greeks, naturally sprung from the taste and genius of the Greek races, and the constitution of civil and domestic society as established among them. For this purpose our inquiries may be divided into three principal heads:—1. The development of Grecian poetry and prose before the rise of the Athenian literature; 2. The flourishing era of poetry and eloquence at Athens; and, 3. The history of Greek literature in the long period after Alexander; which last, although it produced a much larger number of writings than the former periods, need not, consistently with the object of the present work, be treated at great length, as literature had in this age fallen into the hands of the learned few, and had lost its living influence on the general mass of the community.
In attempting to trace the gradual development of the literature of ancient Greece from its earliest origin, it would be easy to make a beginning, by treating of the extant works of Grecian writers in their chronological order. We might then commence at once with Homer and Hesiod: but if we were to adopt this course, we should, like an epic poet, place our beginning in the middle of the history; for, like the Pallas of Grecian poetry, who sprang full-armed from the head of Jupiter, the literature of Greece wears the perfection of beauty in those works which Herodotus and Aristotle, and all critical and trust-worthy inquirers among the Greeks, recognised as being the most ancient that had descended to their times. Although both in the Iliad and Odyssey we can clearly discern traces of the infancy of the nation to which they belong, and although a spirit of simplicity pervades them, peculiar to the childhood of the human race, yet the class of poetry under which they fall, appears in them at its full maturity; all the laws which reflection and experience can suggest for the epic form are observed with the most refined taste; all the means are employed by which the general effect can be heightened; no where does the poetry bear the character of a first essay or an unsuccessful attempt at some higher poetical flight; indeed, as no subsequent poem, either of ancient or modern times, has so completely caught the genuine epic tone, there seems good reason to doubt whether any future poet will again be able to strike the same chord. It seems, however, manifest, that there must have been many attempts and experiments before epic poetry could reach this elevation; and it was, doubtless, the perfection of the Iliad and Odyssey, to which these prior essays bad led, that buried the productions of former bards in oblivion. Hence the first dawn of Grecian literature is without any perfect memorial; but we must be content to remain in ignorance of the connexion of literature with the character of the Greek races at the outset of their national existence, if we renounced all attempt at forming a conception of the times anterior to the Homeric poems. In order, therefore, to throw some light on this obscure period, we shall first consider those creations of the human intellect which in general are prior to poetry, and which naturally precede poetical composition, as poetry in its turn is followed by regular composition in prose. These are language and religion. When these two important subjects have been examined, we shall proceed, by means of allusions in the Homeric poems themselves, and the most credible testimonies of later times, to inquire into the progress and character of the Greek poetry before the time of Homer.