movements or events has it participated? These things exert a powerful influence on the intellectual development of a people. It is this agency that divides the history of a literature into periods.
4. Personality. — The personality of the writers who produce a literature is not the least of the agencies that determine its character. The individuality, the "personal equation," of the makers of masterpieces, is something that defies analysis, yet it is this that gives life to the writings of a nation. Without it the agencies of race, environment, and epoch would tend to produce an unvarying product. This element gives diversity to a literature.
The Early History of all literatures is much the same. The evolution from barbarism to civilization is always slow. The language, at first limited and barren, yet sufficient to voice all the needs and emotions of savage life, becomes more expressive. War brings contact with other nations; conquest adds foreign elements. At length the rude shoutings over war and victory become rhythmical, and literature begins. The first notes are always in verse, rude and unmetrical, yet nevertheless verse, for childhood takes naturally to metres. The bloody song of Lamech to his wives, Gen. iv. 23, 24, is the first poem of which the world has a record. Beowulf, a terrible tale of war and carnage, is the first note in the grand chorus of English song.
American Literature. — The term a literature may be defined as "all the literary productions in a given language."
