market-place and camp, in palace and in garden, wherever the Greek tongue brought the civilization of that broad colonizing nation. And quite in the same way the poetic tales, epics, and sagas of East and North developed also. Presently, the poet, who had secured his training by compiling and arranging the heroic poems which were the property of his entire nation, began to invent story-poems and recite them for public entertainment-as well as for his own private gain. From this it was only a short step to the creation of poems expressive of the singer's personal aspirations and so the lyric was engendered. Thus music and dancing and poetry share a common ancestry, and that ancestry a mingling of religion, war, and community life. Just how deeply the poets of Asia-particularly those of India and Palestine-left their impress upon Greek life and character it is impossible to say, but certain definite marks are not wanting to prove that Asiatic conceptions of life, standards of conduct, and theistic beliefs influenced Greek ideals very potently. But which land was the earliest in coming to national poetic expression, no one has yet conclusively demonstrated. # Everywhere music, dancing, poetry, and oratory have preceded prose in what may be termed the artistic development of a people, and undeveloped races today are interesting examples of the persistence of this same order of growth. 2. The Spread of Poetry as Art The almost coincident rise of the Greek epic and the Hebrew national poetry marked the definite genesis of the literatures of these emotional peoples. And both laid their impress upon that newer nation whose conquering heel they felt-Rome. Next, as Roman domination carried her customs and learning to the provinces, the savage poetry of subjugated races was modified, and what we may call classical standards appeared in the remoter lands. And successively in France, England, Spain, Germany, and throughout all Europe, this process was worked out, just as centuries later the Revival of Learning carried classical standards to the ultimate parts of the earth. But if the growth of poetic expression in all lands has been from the communal to the personal-that is, from the crude ritualistic and warlike and hunting chant through legendary, epic, and dramatic poetry, down to the milder and entirely individualistic lyric—the subject matter and the ethical ideals of poetry have undergone a similar evolution. Moral ideals reached a higher, because a more unselfish, plane much earlier in Judea than in Greece. But the austere Jew was ever a lonely and remote soul and kept his pure ideals much to himself; while the beauty-loving, joyous Greek diffused his life wherever he went. So it . came about that when Rome conquered Judea, the Jew brought no large teaching to his subjugator, while when Greece felt the yoke, she subtly captured her captor in every conceivable form of life. Thus it was not until, centuries later, the religion of Jesus spread through the Empire that the Judaistic conceptions of morals began to touch cosmopolitan Rome. Thenceforward, European poetry, in common with all artistic expression, began to exhibit moral impulse. Greek poetry was true to our dictum-it mirrored Greek life. A refined sensuality, a delicate appreciation of the beautiful, a worshipful pursuit of joy, an exaltation of the body, a profound yet light-hearted stoicism-these were the Grecian tones. The early philosophy of Rome was much the same, though a deeper moral consciousness was there; but Rome eventually became pessimistic, and plunged into excesses, all the while calling her mad whirl Life. Even the infusion of Christianity did not avail to put lofty and heroic ideals into the moribund body-for this, the added element of the North was required with its hardihood and its vital, though pagan, religious mysticism. 3. Poetry Today Thus the poetry of all these lands most clearly reflects their varying and climbing ethical standards, and nothing is more patent today than that our present age is mirrored as completely and as perfectly in its poetry as in any other of its varied forms of artistic expression. Every age has had its despairing prophets. Elijah repined in ignorance of the four thousand faithful ones; Edmund Spenser, in the very brightest dawn of English poetry, bewailed its deepening night; and plainly may be heard today the lament of those who see in the larger attention given to fiction, history, and science, the certain presage of disaster for poesy. But if the epic days are gone, because communal life is too self-conscious for its reproduction in heroic verse, the poetic drama is pluming itself for higher flights, and the lyrical poem was never so vitally concerned with the problems and expressions of its age as it is today. Poetry is doubtless feeling the depressing damps of commercialism and noxious morals, but it is also inbreathing the higher airs of a dawning era of human brotherhood and love. EXERCISES FOR CLASS USE AND SELF-INSTRUCTION 1. Why, in your opinion, has the earliest expression of every literature been marked by the rhythm and repetition characteristic of poetic form? 2. Briefly trace the progress of poetry geographically from east to west. 3. As they mirror various races and religions, name some of the differentiating characteristics of Asiatic, Greek, and Roman poetry. 4. What single influence has done most to raise the moral ideals of poetry? 5. Would you consider the communal chant of primitive races, with its many impromptu variations, proof that the poetic form of expression is inherent in mankind? 6. Can you associate this with any practises of children today? 7. Is oratory or prose the more closely related to poetry? Why? 8. Write about one hundred words upon the influence of the Revival of Learning on literature. |