Literature, Ancient and Modern, with Specimens (Volume 17) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1845. Excerpt: ... LITERATURE OF GREECE. As the Greeks, more than any other people, were the originators of their own literature, and have exerted a controlling influence on that of succeeding ages, tit may be proper to preface the following sketch by a few remarks on the general nature and tendency of this potent offspring of human genius. Under the term literature we comprehend all those arts and sciences, and all those mental exertions, which have human life, and man himself, for their object; but which, manifesting themselves in no external effect, energize only in thought and speech, and, without requiring any corporeal matter on which to operate, display intellect as imbodied in written language. Under this are included, first, the art of poetry, and the kindred art of narration, or history; next, all those higher exertions of pure reason and intellect which have human life, and man himself, for their object, and which have influence upon both; and, last of all, eloquence and wit, whenever these do not escape in the fleeting vehicle of oral communication, but remain displayed in the more substantial and lasting form of written productions. See Schlegel's History of Literature. The greatest and most important discovery of human ingenuity is writing; there is no impiety in saying, that it was scarcely in the power of the Deity to confer on man a more glorious present than Language, by the medium of which He himself has been revealed to us, and which affords at once the strongest bond of union, and the best instrument of communication. So inseparable, indeed, are mind and language, so identically one are thought and speech, that although we must always hold reason to be the great characteristic and peculiar attribute of man, yet language also, when we regard its original ...