Lectures on the History of Literature, Ancient and Modern, Volume 1Thomas Dobson and son, at the Stone House, no. 41 South Second street. William Fry, printer, 1818 |
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9th century Æschylus altogether ancient antiquity appears Aristophanes Aristotle authors beauty Cæsar century character Charlemagne chivalrous poetry Christian Cicero common composition considered corruption Crusades cultivated deities dialects doctrines doubt Egyptians Ennius entirely Europe exerted expression feelings fictions flourishing foreign fulness genius German Gothic Goths Grecian Greece Greek language Greeks guage Hebrews heroes heroic poems Hesiod Homer human idea imitation Indian influence intellect invention language Latin Latin language least legends literature living Lucretius manner means ment middle age mode modern monuments moral mythology nations nature ness Northern Odin opinions original peculiar perfect perhaps period perpetual Persian philosophy Pindar Plato poetical poets political possessed preserved principles racter recollections refinement regard religion remarkable rich Rome Saxon Socrates Solon songs Sophocles soul species spirit style Teutonic thing Thucydides tion traces traditions Trajan true truth universal whole writings
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Page 274 - Such, for example, are the Nibelungen Lied in Germany; the Poema del Cid in Spain ; and the Songs of the Troubadours in France. Hence poetry comes in for a large share in that high eulogy which, in the true spirit of the scholar, a celebrated German critic has bestowed upon letters. " If we consider literature in its widest sense, as the voice which gives expression to human intellect, — as the aggregate mass of symbols, in which the spirit of an age, or the character of a nation, is shadowed forth,...
Page 11 - I 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, energise only in thought and speech, and without requiring any corporeal matter on which to operate, display intellect as embodied 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...
Page 338 - All architecture is symbolical, but none so much so as the Christian architecture of the middle ages. The first and greatest of its objects is to express the elevation of holy thoughts, the loftiness of meditation set free from earth, and proceeding unfettered to the heavens. It is this which stamps itself at once on the spirit of the beholder, however little he may himself be capable of analysing his feelings when he gazes on those far-stretching columns and airy domes. But this is not all ; every...
Page 159 - Within the same period also the science of jurisprudence, the only original intellectual possession of great value to which the Romans can lay undisputed claim, received its first developement, and began to assume the appearance of a science.
Page 17 - Compared with his, the fame of the legislator, among distant nations, and the celebrity of new institutions, appears uncertain and obscure ; while the glory of the conqueror, after a few centuries have sunk into the all-whelming, alldestroying abyss of time, is for ever fading in its lustre, until at length it perhaps affords a subject of exultation to some plodding antiquarian, that he should be able to discover some glimmerings of a name which had once challenged the reverence of the world. It...
Page 338 - ... columns and airy domes. But this is not all; every part of the structure is as symbolical as the whole, and of this we can perceive many traces in all the writings of the times. .The altar is directed towards the rising of the sun, and the three great entrances are meant to express the conflux of worshippers from all the regions of the earth. Three towers express the Christian mystery of the triune Godhead. The choir rises like a temple within a temple with redoubled loftiness. The shape of the...
Page 273 - We often think of and represent to ourselves the middle age, as a blank in the history of the human mind — an empty space between the refinement of antiquity and the illumination of modern times. We are willing to believe that art and science had entirely perished, that their resurrection, after a thousand years sleep, may appear something more wonderful and sublime.
Page 262 - It is formed of a single stone, twentythree feet in height, standing upon a square pedestal ten feet high, with the Indians ; and hence some reject the opinion of others that the rock was inscribed by the hand of a Scandinavian. When we remember that the Phoenicians were for many ages in the undisputed possession of the traffic of the Baltic, around which clustered the Scandinavian nations, and that Runic, or ancient German inscriptions, in Phoenician characters, have been discovered in abundance...
Page 14 - I think, hesitate to admit, that there is nothing so necessary to the whole improvement, or rather to the whole intellectual existence of a nation, as the possession of a plentiful store of those national recollections and associations, which are lost in a great measure during the dark ages of infant society, but which it forms the great object of the poetical art to perpetuate and adorn.
Page 292 - ... but if we talk of their works, then they were all ignorant, slothful Monks, who knew nothing of the world, and therefore could not possibly write histories. Perhaps the very best of all situations for a writer of history is one not widely differing from that of a Monk — one in which he enjoys abundant opportunities of gaining .experimental knowledge of men and their affairs, but is at the same time independent of the world and its transactions, and has full liberty to mature in retirement his...