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A Short History of Comparative Literature from the Earliest Times To SHORT HISTORY OF COMPARATIVE LITERATURE “ Confronted by so vast a project, 1 am not blind to my own insufficiency. When I reflect on the in¬ exhaustible nature of my subject, the difficulty of the proble?ns it presents, the shortness of life, the distractions of the age, it savours of presumption to begin a book appealing for the commendation of the world. Of Fame, which is the prerogative of genius, I make no pursuit. 1 fulfil a task to which my conscience calls me.” Antoine Frédéric Ozanam. A Facebook community that brings together texts and writers who have never ceased to debate the eternal relationship of words and things. Pî-Kl3 A SHORT HISTORY OF COMPARATIVE LITERATURE First published in 1906 Reissued in 1970 by Kennikat Press Library of Congress Catalog Card No: 74-105803 ISBN 0-8046-1361-3 Manufactured by Taylor Publishing Company Dallas, Texas PREFACE (From the preface to the third French edition, by M. Gréard, Member of- the Academy of France.] Two reflections, which at first sight seemingly contra¬ dictory are only so in appearance, suggest themselves from the perusal of this history of human thought from the earliest times to the beginning of the twentieth century. The first is that civilisation, regarded as a whole, is not the work of any one age. If certain races have contributed more effectually and with more distinction than others, the less famous have also borne their share of the work. In the mingling of races that results from conquest, whether by means of war or peace, the conquered nation, at its own time, exerts a reciprocal influence on its conqueror. In short, it is this constant interchange of ideas and beliefs across the ages that constitutes the only real and vital internationalism. The other reflection, not less suggestive, is that in the general movement which leads the civilised world ever forward to a higher goal, every nationality retains its own vigorous life and its own idiosyncrasies. Orientals, Greeks, Romans, French, Saxons, Anglo-Saxons have severally played the part in the world-drama which only they could play. In the formation of human progress we discern many strata, and by studying them we are enabled to estimate the characteristics of the various peoples who laid them there. The Græco-Roman civilisation we comprehend from history and from the fruitful influences it left behind it. In V 2S205Q VI PREFACE Europe we possess a civilisation established in what were formerly called, by a now obsolete distinction, the old world and the new. Can we grasp the notion of a world-wide civilisation, founded on the mutual respect of different nations, and on the diffusion of those ideas and feelings which are at once its consequences, its consecration, and its guarantee ? Such is the splendid vision which is presented to our imagination by M. Loliée’s History of Comparative Litera¬ ture. To the task of painting this picture of human thought it was not sufficient to bring only the equipment of the critic skilled in grouping and epitomising literary master¬ pieces. It required further the sure hand of the true historian to disentangle the complex relationships ; it required philosophic insight to recapture the spirit of the age. The study of comparative literature—this best of means for promoting what we may term an international education, by diffusing throughout the world enlightened notions of tolerance, harmony, and peace—is now being pursued with enthusiasm both in Britain and in Germany. It is M. Loliée’s distinction, to make use of the fine quotation from Ozanam with which he prefaces his work, that he is the first French scholar to attempt in its entirety “ this vast design.” CONTENTS CHAPTER I Before history—First traces of thought—Egypt at the beginning of the ancient world—Many nurseries of culture appear in the dust of Chaldea—Co-existent civilisations of peoples and races along the Euphrates and Tigris—Far from Asia Minor—Among the inhabitants of the Celestial Empire—On the lofty plateaus of Central America—In the India of the Vedas CHAPTER II The oldest testimonies of Indian genius—Asia and Europe compared —The development of religious and lyric poetry in Sanskrit literature—The Vedas—Historical times—Migrations of the Aryans across the world — Europe — Establishment of the Greeks ...••••• CHAPTER III Greece before the Greeks—Half-fabulous origins of the Hellenic civilisation—Times of the minstrels—The Homeric period—The Iliad and the Rhapsodists • ••••• CHAPTER IV Outside Greece—Voluntary ignorance of other countries as to its whereabouts—Consecutive development of the intellectual centres in India, Persia, Judæa, and Etruria, etc.—Hellenism Vlll CONSENTS PAGE and “ barbarism”—Growth and decline of a unique literature— Displacement of Greek genius—Pergamos and Alexandria—Up to the year 540 before our era . • *24 CHAPTER V Before the Græco-Latin fusion—Beginning of their union—Early Latin poetry—Ruin of Punic civilisation—The times of Sylla— The “ Age of Augustus ”—The entire work of civilisation— Greatness and decline—Renaissance of philosophical studies . 40 CHAPTER VI The Silver Age of Latin literature—Portrait of Trajan—Rome at the height of her rule—General view of the known world in the reign of Trajan—Rapid decline—The latest period of Greek and Roman literature—Alexandria, the metropolis of the East— The Alexandrian philosophers—Parallel and rival development of Alexandrianism and Christianity—Supreme effort of trans¬ formed paganism—Julian—The fourth century . .57 CHAPTER VII Artistic decadence seems suspended—Decadence hastened by the barbarian invasions—Some wreckage—Moral and social state of the peoples of Europe from the fifth to the eighth centuries— Legends and folksongs of the Germans and Scandinavians— Origin of the Eddas—Débris of classical antiquity—In the Eastern Empire a practical cessation of literary effort. 75 CHAPTER VIII Charlemagne’s Renaissance—Striving towards civilisation—Charle¬ magne, Alcuin, Rabanus Maurus—Disorder at the end of the ninth and beginning of the tenth centuries—The feudal world— Ignorance once more overshadows Europe . -87 CHAPTER IX Contrast between this general absence of culture and the brilliant state of learning in Asia—Even in the extreme East—China, CONTENTS IX PAGE Japan, the land of the Khmers, and Persia in the tenth century —Arab learning from the eighth century onwards—View of this civilisation—Introduction of Arab books to the West 95 CHAPTER X The nationalities and languages of Europe are formed—Dogma dominates the world—Early struggles of popular and national poetry to be free of it—Rise of the songs in praise of heroic action (chansons de geste)—These unconsciously give place to sentimental tales of adventure and chivalry—Cycle of the Round Table—Its origin—The tales of the Round Table exert extra¬ ordinary influence on the aesthetic ideas of rising European literatures and on the general outlook . • • I05 CHAPTER XI General aspect of the thirteenth century—Essential unity of literatures in the initial stages—Simultaneous development of letters and arts in France, England, Germany, and among the peoples of Southern Europe—“Trouvères” and “Troubadours —Anglo-Saxon minstrels—German “ Minne singers” Popular poetry shakes off the predominance of ecclesiasticism and feudal abuses ...••••• CHAPTER XII Birth-struggle of a new age—Grave aspects of the fourteenth cen¬ tury_Violent transformation of peoples and ideas—Forerunners of the Reformation—Wiclif—John Huss—Jerome of Prague— Predominance of political and social facts over the uncertain movement of letters—Fall of the Eastern Empire This catastrophe brings Greek literature from Constantinople to Italy—Fall of Arab civilisation in Spain—Relative sterility of the French genius—The torch of civilisation passes into the hands of Italy—The dawn of the Renaissance . • .127 CHAPTER XIII Social troubles abroad—Wonderful expansion of arts and literature in Italy—The revival of ancient learning—Two great historical X CONTENTS PAGE facts : the renaissance of letters and the reformation of religion —The link uniting them—Their parallel advance—Luther, Erasmus, and Melancthon—Distant re-echo of the Reformation in literature ........ 140 CHAPTER XIV Violent party and doctrinal conflicts—Calvin at Geneva—John Knox and Presbyterianism in Scotland—The social and religious counter-revolution—Ignatius Loyola—The Council of Trent— Prodigious mental activity despite the numberless evils which crushed the nations of Europe and elsewhere—A moment’s consideration of the ruin of two exotic civilisations : Peru and Mexico—Public calamities do not check the progress of letters in the Italy of Tasso and Ariosto ; nor in the England of Shakespeare ; nor in the Spain of Cervantes ; nor in Portugal, the birthplace of Camoens ; nor even in Turkey, whose “ golden age ” it is—Return to the development of French literature ........ 151 CHAPTER XV Dawn of the great classical period—Troublous times still—Vagaries of slavish imitation of Italy and Spain—Unsteadiness of purpose in literature—“ Concettism,” “ Cultism,” pedantry—Marinism, Gongorism, and Estilo Culto—Reaction of good taste and com¬ mon sense—The seventeenth century at its zenith in France, in England—State of society after the sombre days of Puritanism— Complete reaction in favour of licence at the Restoration ; striking outburst of the comic vein—State of Italian culture— Spain, Holland, and Germany—After the Thirty Years’ War- Grave moral distress—The Franco-German period—Most European nations evince a similar love for imitation . .178 CHAPTER
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