The Classical Tradition  

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Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore,
Th at gently, o’er a perfumed sea,
The weary, wayworn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.
On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece
An the grandeur that was Rome.

--epigraph


"When the Roman empire fell civilization was nearly ruined. Literature and the arts became refugees, hiding in outlying areas or under the protection of the church. Few Europeans could read during the Dark Ages. Fewer still could write books. But those who could read and write did so with the help of the international Latin language, by blending Christian material with Greek and Roman thoughts.

New languages formed themselves, slowly, slowly. The first which has left a large and mature literature of its own is Anglo-Saxon, or Old English. After it came French; then Italian; and then the other European languages. When authors started to write in each of these new media, they told the stories and sang the songs which their own people knew. But they turned to Rome and Greece for guidance in strong or graceful expression, for interesting stories less well known, for trenchant ideas.

As these languages matured they constantly turned to the Greeks and Romans for further education and help. They enlarged their vocabulary by incorporating Greek and Roman words, as we are still doing: for instance, television. They copied and adapted the highly developed Greco-Roman devices of style. They learned famous stories, like the murder of Caesar or the doom of Oedipus. They found out the real powers of dramatic poetry, and realized what tragedy and comedy meant. Their authors modelled themselves on Greek and Roman writers. Nations found inspiration for great political movements (such as the French Revolution) in Greece and Rome."--The Classical Tradition: Greek and Roman Influences on Western Literature (1949) by Gilbert Highet


"Towards the end of his life (1833- ) when he had abandoned the ideals of patriotism and progress, he wrote a Supplement to the Battle of Frogs and Mice (Paralipomeni della batracomiomachia), which, under the inspiration of Casti's Talking Animals, satirized the attempts of the Italians to free themselves from the Austrians, and at the same time poured scorn on Germanic culture."--The Classical Tradition: Greek and Roman Influences on Western Literature (1949) by Gilbert Highet

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The Classical Tradition (1949) is a book by Gilbert Highet.

Blurb:

Originally published in 1949, Gilbert Highet's seminal The Classical Tradition is a herculean feat of comparative literature and a landmark publication in the history of classical reception. As Highet states in the opening lines of his Preface, this book outlines the chief ways in which Greek and Latin influence has moulded the literatures of western Europe and America. With that simple statement, Highet takes his reader on a sweeping exploration of the history of western literature. To summarize what he covers is a near-impossible task. Discussions of Ovid and French literature of the Middle Ages and Chaucer's engagement with Virgil and Cicero lead, swiftly, into arguments of Christian versus pagan works in the Renaissance, Baroque imitations of Seneca, and the (re)birth of satire. Building momentum through Byron, Tennyson, and the rise of art of art's sake, Highet, at last, arrives at his conclusion: the birth and establishment of modernism. Though his humanist style may appear out-of-date in today's postmodernist world, there is a value to ensuring this influential work reaches a new generation, and Highet's light touch and persuasive, engaging voice guarantee the book's usefulness for a contemporary audience. Indeed, the book is free of the jargon-filled style of literary criticism that plagues much of current scholarship. Accompanied by a new foreword by renown critic Harold Bloom, this reissue will enable new readers to appreciate the enormous legacy of classical literature in the canonical works of medieval, Renaissance, and modern Europe and America.

Acknowledgments

George Allen and Unwin Ltd., London, from Lord Russell's A History of Western Philosophy; Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., New York, from The Art of History, by J. B. Black; Artemis-Verlag, Zurich, from Carl Spitteler's Olympischer Friihling; The Atlantic Monthly Press, Boston, from E. J. Simmons's Leo Tolstoy; C. H. Beck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Munich, from Oswald Spengler's Der Untergang des Abendlandes; Cambridge University Press, from E. M. Butler's The Tyranny of Greece over Germany; A. S. F. Gow's A. E. Housman: a Sketch; A. E. Housman's Introductory Lecture of 1892 and his preface to his edition of Juvenal; J. E. Sandys's A History of Classical Scholarship; and A. A. Tilley's The Literature of the French Renaissance; Jonathan Cape, Ltd., London, from A. E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad; Chatto and Windus, London, from Lytton Strachey's Books and Characters; The Clarendon Press, Oxford, from W. J. Sedgefield's King Alfred's Version of the Consolation of Boethius; Columbia University Press, New York, from D. J. Grout's A Short History of Opera; S. A. Larrabee's English Bards and Grecian Marbles; E. E. Neff's The Poetry of History; and G. N. Shuster's The English Ode from Milton to Keats; J. M. Dent & Sons, London, from the Everyman's Library editions of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and R. K. Ingram's translation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; Dieterich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Wiesbaden, from W. Rehm's Griechentum und Goethezeit (Das Erbe der Alten, 2nd series, no. 26); E. P. Dutton & Co. Inc., New York, from the Everyman's Library editions of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and R. K. Ingram's translation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; Editions Bernard Grasset, Paris, from Jean Cocteau's La Machine infernale and Jean Giraudoux's Electre and La Guerre de Troie n'aura pas lieu; The Encylop~dia Britannica, Chicago, from J. B. Bury's article 'Roman Empire, Later' and D. F. Tovey's article 'Gluck'; Faber & Faber, Ltd., London, from T. S. Eliot's poems and S. Gilbert's James Joyce's 'Ulysses' ; Henry Frowde, London, from E. J. Dent's 'The Baroque Opera', in The Musical Antiquary for Jan. 1910; ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xi Gallimard, Paris, from Andre Gide's CEdipe and Paul VaIery's Poesies; Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., from D. Bush's Mythology and the Romantic Tradition in English Poetry (Harvard Studies in English 18); Harcourt, Brace & Co., Inc., New York, from Lytton Strachey's Books and Characters; William Heinemann Ltd., London, from E. Gosse's Father and Son; Henry Holt & Co. Inc., New York, from A. E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad and R. K. Root's Classical Mythology in Shakespeare; Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, from S. Gilbert's James Joyce's 'Vlysses'; Librairie Ancienne et Editions Honore Champion, Paris, from E. Faral's Les Arts poetiques du XII- et XIII- siecie (Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes, sciences historiques et philologiques, fasc. 238); Librairie Armand Colin, Paris, from the Histoire de la langue et de la litt&ature jranfaise, edited by L. Petit de J ulleville; Librairie Hachette, Paris, from A. Meillet's Esquisse d'une histoire de la langue latine and H. Taine's Histoire de la litt&ature anglaise; Little, Brown & Co., Boston, from E. J. Simmons's Leo Tolstoy; Longmans, Green & Co., Ltd., London, from G. P. Gooch's History and Historians in the Nineteenth Century; K. S. P. McDowall, Esq., for the quotation from E. F. Benson's As We Were, published by Longmans, Green & Co. ; Macmillan & Co. Ltd., London, from C. M. Bowra's The Heritage of Symbolism; J. W. Cunliffe's The Influence of Seneca on Elizabethan Tragedy; and M. Belloc Lowndes's Where Love and Friendship Dwelt; The Macmillan Company, New York, from C. M. Bowra's The Heritage of Symbolism; R. Gamett's and E. Gosse's English Literature, an Illustrated Record; A. S. F. Gow's A. E. Housman: A Sketch; and A. E. Housman's Introductory Lecture (1892); Methuen & Co. Ltd., London, from J. B. Black's The Art of History; John Murray, London, from Lady Gregory's Gods and Fighting Men; New Directions, Norfolk, Conn., from H. Levin's James Joyce and from the poems of Ezra Pound; Nouvelle Revue Fran~aise, Paris, from Andre Gide's Reponse a une enqu€te de 'La Renaissance' sur le classidsme; Nouvelles Editions Latines, Paris, from Andre Obey's Le Viol de Lucrece; Oxford University Press, London, from G. L. Bickersteth's lecture 'Leopardi and Wordsworth', and to the British Academy, before which the lecture was delivered; from C. M. Bowra's A Classical Education; H. Cushing's Life of Sir William Osier; T. S. Eliot's The Classics and the M an of Letters; T. E. Lawrence's translation of the Odyssey; H. Peyre's Louis Minard (Yale Romanic Studies- 5); W. L. Phelps's Autobiography with Letters; Grant Richards's Housman I897-I936; A. J. Toynbee's A Study of History; and J. Worthington's Wordsworth's Reading of Roman Prose (Yale Studies in English 102); Pantheon Books Inc., New York, from Andre Gide's Thesee; Paul, Paris, from J. Giraudoux's Elpenor; ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Picard, Paris, from G. Guillaumie's J. L. Gmz de Balzac et la prose fratlf(lise ; Princeton University Press, from J. D. Spaeth's Old English Poetry; Putnam & Co., Ltd., and G. P. Putnam's Sons, London and New York, from J. H. Robinson's and H. W. Rolfe's Petrarch, the First Modern Scholar and Man of Letters; Random House, Inc., New York (The Modem Library), from Constance Gamett's translation of Tolstoy's Anna Karemna, and James Joyce's Ulyssl!s; Rheinverlag, Zurich, from W. Rilegg's Cicero u:nd tier Humanismus; W. E. Rudge's Sons, New York, from J. S. Kennard's The Italian Theatre; Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, from Nicholas Murray Butler's Across the Busy Years; Simon and Schuster, Inc., New York, from Lord Russell's History of Western Philosophy; The Society of Authors, London, as literary representative of the trustees of the estate of the late A. E. Housman, for quotations from A Shropshire Lad; The State University of Iowa, from J. Van Home's Studies on Leopardi (Iowa University Humanistic Studies, v. I, no. 4); Stock, Paris, from Jean Cocteau's OrpMe; B. G. Teubner Verlagsgesellschaft, Leipzig, from U. von WilamowitzMoellendorff's 'Geschichte der Philologie', in Einleitung in die AltertumsfDissenschaft, ed. Gercke and Norden, and from T. Zielinski's Cicero im Wandel der Jahrhunderte; University of California Press, Berkeley, Cal., from G. Norwood's Pindar (Sather Classical Lectures, 1945); University of Chicago Press, Chicago, from H. T. Parker's The Cult of Antiquity and the French Revolutionaries; Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville, Tenn., from C. M. Lancaster's and P. T. Manchester's translation, The Araucaniad; The Viking Press Inc., New York, from James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man; The Warburg Institute, London, from the Vortriige tier Bibliothek Warburg, ed. F. Saxl; Yale University Press, New Haven, Conn., from H. Peyre's Louis Menard (Yale Romanic Studies 5) and J. Worthington's Wordsworth's Reading of Roman Prose (Yale Studies in English 102); and to any other authors and publishers whose names may have been inadvertently omitted, and to whom I am indebted for similar courtesies.

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