A history of criticism and literary taste in Europe, from the earliest texts to the present day. Volume 1 (of 3), Classical and mediæval criticismSaintsbury, George
History
A history of criticism and literary taste in Europe, from the earliest texts to the present day. Volume 1 (of 3), Classical and mediæval criticism
Saintsbury, George
Criticism -- History; Literature -- History and criticism; Literature, Medieval
A very thankless wretch would he be who was not grateful for any
legitimate excuse to wander once more through the length and breadth of
the enchanted gardens of the Anthology. But the reperusal can only
strengthen the opinion already formed that on the actual “evaluation of
π” in criticism the Greek mind, whether wisely or unwisely, was not
strongly set. Nothing can be clearer than that the forms, the range, the
etiquette, so to speak, of the compositions which are here grouped,
invited criticism in the graver way as thorough as that which Ben Jonson
gives to Shakespeare, Camden, and a dozen others; in the lighter as
sharp, and at the same time as piercing, as that of Piron on La
Chaussée. But it was not the mode, and they were not in the vein. With
rare exceptions they obeyed the classical principle of taking the
accepted, the obvious, the orthodox, and dressing it up in their best
way. It by no means follows that they were not right; but it does follow
that they leave us a little unsatisfied. To tell us that Homer is great,
Sappho lofty, Sophocles perfect, Aristophanes witty, is (to use the old
comparison of George Gascoigne) to praise the “crystal eye” and the
“cherry lip” of any gentle-woman. And so we may turn to the division of
Greek literature most opposite to the Anthology itself.
Before considering in some, at least, representative detail the vast and
arid province of the technical Greek Rhetoric, it may be [Sidenote: _The
Rhetoric of the Schools._] well, or rather is absolutely necessary, to
resume the consideration of what Rhetoric really meant. As we have seen,
it was at the beginning a strictly practical Art of Persuasion by
Oratory; and if it tended to embrace and absorb all or most other arts
and sciences, this was partly because the orator would certainly have to
deal with many, and might have to deal with all, of these, partly
because it was always more or less a political art, an art of public
business. For the Greek politician, like others, was expected to be a
Jack-of-all-trades.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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