"All that could beautify the meagre, harmonize the incongruous,
enliven the dull, or convert the crude material of metaphysics
into an elegant department of literature, belongs to the Greeks
themselves, for they are preeminently the 'nation of beauty.'
Endowed with profound sensibility and a lively imagination,
surrounded by all the circumstances that could aid in perfecting
the physical and intellectual powers, the Greeks early acquired
that essential literary and artistic character which produced
their art and literature."
Whatever the Greeks learned or borrowed from others, by the skill
with which they improved, and the purposes to which they applied
it, became henceforth altogether their own. If they were under
any obligation to those who had lived before them for some few
ideas and hints, the great whole of their intellectual refinement
was undoubtedly the work of their own genius; for the Greeks are
the only people who may be said in almost every instance to have
given birth to their own literature. Their creations stand almost
entirely detached from the previous culture of other nations. At
the same time it is possible to trace a thread running back to
remote antiquity, to show that their first hints of a literature
came from Asia. Their oldest traditions and poems have many
points of resemblance to the most ancient remains of the Asiatic
nations. Some writers say that "this amounts to nothing more than
a few scattered hints or mutilated recollections, and may all be
referred to the common origin of mankind, and the necessary
influence of that district of the world in which mental
improvement of our species was first considered as an object of
general concern." But this proves at least that there was an
older civilization and literature than the Greeks, and that that
civilization had its root in the East. According to their own
testimony the Greeks derived their alphabet from the Phoenicians,
and the first principles of architecture, mathematical science,
detached ideas of philosophy, as well as many of the useful arts
of life, they learned from the Egyptians, or from the earliest
inhabitants of Asia.
The essential characteristic of the Greeks as a nation was the
development of their own idea, their departure from whatever
original tradition they may have had, and their far-reaching
influence on all subsequent literature throughout the world. They
differed in this from all other nations; for to quote again:
"the literature of India,with its great antiquity, its language,
which is full of expression, sweetness of tone, and regularity of
structure, and which rivals the most perfect of those western
tongues to which it bears such a resemblance, with all its
richness of imagery and its treasures of thought, has hitherto
been void of any influence on the development of general
literature. China contributed still less, Persia and Arabia were
alike isolated until they were brought in contact with the
European mind through the Crusaders, and the Moorish Empire in
Spain."
This independence and originality of Greek literature is due in
some measure to the freedom of their institutions from caste; but
another and more powerful cause was that, unlike the Oriental
nations, the Greeks for a long time kept no correct record of
their transactions in war or peace. This absence of authentic
history made their literature become what it is. By the purely
imaginary character of its poetry, and the freedom it enjoyed
from the trammels of particular truths, it acquired a quality
which led Aristotle to consider poetry as more philosophical than
history.
The Homeric poems are in a great measure the fountainhead from
which the refinement of the Ancients was derived. The history of
the Iliad and the Odyssey represent a state of society warlike it
is true, but governed by intellectual, literary and artistic
power. Philosophy was early cultivated by the Greeks, who first
among all nations distinguished it from religion and mythology.
Socrates is the founder of the philosophy that is still
recognized in the civilized world. He left no writings behind
him; but by means of lectures, that included question and answer,
his system, known as the dialectics, has come down to us.
Aesop, who lived 572 B.C., was the author of some fables which
have been translated into nearly every language in the world, and
have served as a model for all subsequent writings of the same
kind. In 322 B.C., the centre of learning owing to the conquests
of Alexander the Great, was moved to Egypt in the city that bears
his name. Here the first three Ptolemies founded a magnificent
library where the literary men of the age were supported by
endowments. The second Ptolemy had the native annals of Egypt and
Judea translated into Greek, and he procured from the Sanhedrim
of Jerusalem the first part of the Sacred Scriptures, which was
later completed and published in Greek for the use of the Jews at
Alexandria. This translation was known as the Septuagint, or
version of the Seventy; and is said to have exercised a more
lasting influence on the civilized world than any book that has
ever appeared in a new language. We are indebted to the Ptolemies
for preserving to our times all the best specimens of Greek
literature that have come down to us.
