Studies of the Greek Poets (Vol 2 of 2)

STUDIES

OF

THE GREEK POETS


BY

JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS

AUTHOR OF "SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN SOUTHERN EUROPE" ETC.

    _Im Ganzen, Guten, Schönen
    Resolut zu leben_

IN TWO VOLUMES

VOL. II.

[Illustration]

NEW YORK

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS

FRANKLIN SQUARE

1880




CONTENTS OF VOL. II.


                             CHAPTER XIV.

                    _GREEK TRAGEDY AND EURIPIDES._

Two Conditions for the Development of a National Drama.--The
Attic Audience.--The Persian War.--Nemesis the Cardinal Idea of
Greek Tragedy.--Traces of the Doctrine of Nemesis in Early Greek
Poetry.--The Fixed Material of Greek Tragedy.--Athens in the Age
of Euripides.--Changes introduced by him in Dramatic Art.--The
Law of Progress in all Art.--Æschylus, Sophocles, Euripides.--The
Treatment of #eupsychia# by Euripides.--Menoikeus.--The Death of
Eteocles and Polynices.--Polyxena.--Medea.--Hippolytus.--Electra and
Orestes.--Injustice done to Euripides by Recent Critics.          Page 9

                              CHAPTER XV.

          _THE FRAGMENTS OF ÆSCHYLUS, SOPHOCLES, EURIPIDES._

Alexandrian and Byzantine Anthologies.--Titles of the Lost Plays
of Æschylus.--The _Lycurgeia_.--The Trilogy on the Story of
Achilles.--The Geography of the _Prometheus Unbound_.--Gnomic Character
of the Sophoclean Fragments.--Providence, Wealth, Love, Marriage,
Mourning.--What is True of the Sophoclean is still more True of the
Euripidean Fragments.--Mutilated Plays.--_Phaëthon_, _Erechtheus_,
_Antiope_, _Danaë_.--Goethe's Restitution of the _Phaëthon_.--Passage
on Greek Athletes in the _Autolycus_.--Love, Women, Marriage, Domestic
Affection, Children.--Death.--Stoical Endurance.--Justice and the
Punishment of Sin.--Wealth.--Noble Birth.--Heroism.--Miscellaneous
Gnomic Fragments.--The Popularity of Euripides.                  Page 74

                             CHAPTER XVI.

               _THE FRAGMENTS OF THE LOST TRAGIC POETS._

Apparent Accident in the Preservation of Greek Poetry.--Criticism
among the Ancients.--Formation of Canons.--Libraries.--The Political
Vicissitudes of Alexandria, Rome, Constantinople.--Byzantine
Scholarship in the Ninth Century.--The Lost MS. of Menander.--Tragic
Fragments preserved by the Comic Poets and their Scholiasts; by
Athenæus, by Stobæus.--Aristotle.--Tragedy before Æschylus.--Fragments
of Aristarchus.--The _Medea_ of Neophron.--Ion.--The _Games_
of Achæus.--Agathon; his Character for Luxurious Living.--The
_Flower_.--Aristotle's Partiality for Agathon.--The Family of
Æschylus.--Meletus and Plato among the Tragic Playwrights.--The
School of Sophocles.--Influence of Euripides.--Family of
Carkinus.--Tragedians Ridiculed by Aristophanes.--The _Sisyphus_
of Critias.--Cleophon.--Cynical Tragedies ascribed to
Diogenes.--Extraordinary Fertility of the Attic Drama.--The Repetition
of Old Plots.--Mamercus and Dionysius.--Professional Rhetoricians
appear as Playwrights.--The School of Isocrates.--The _Centaur_ of
Chæremon.--His Style.--The _Themistocles_ of Moschion.--The Alexandrian
Pleiad.--The _Adonis_ of Ptolemy Philopator.                    Page 113

                             CHAPTER XVII.

                     _ANCIENT AND MODERN TRAGEDY._

Greek Tragedy and the Rites of Dionysus.--A Sketch of its Origin and
History.--The Attic Theatre.--The Actors and their Masks.--Relation
of Sculpture to the Drama in Greece.--The Legends used by the Attic
Tragedians.--Modern Liberty in the Choice of Subjects.--Mystery
Plays.--Nemesis.--Modern Tragedy has no Religious Idea.--Tragic
Irony.--Aristotle's Definition of Tragedy.--Modern Tragedy offers
no #katharsis# of the Passions.--Destinies and Characters.--Female
Characters.--The Supernatural.--French Tragedy.--Five
Acts.--Bloodshed.--The Unities.--Radical Differences in the Spirit of
Ancient and Modern Art.                                         Page 145

                            CHAPTER XVIII.

                            _ARISTOPHANES._

Heine's Critique on Aristophanes.--Aristophanes as a Poet of the
Fancy.--The Nature of his Comic Grossness.--Greek Comedy in its
Relation to the Worship of Dionysus.--Greek Acceptance of the Animal
Conditions of Humanity.--His Burlesque, Parody, Southern Sense of
Fun.--Aristophanes and Menander.--His Greatness as a Poet.--Glimpses
of Pathos.--His Conservatism and Serious Aim.--Socrates, Agathon,
Euripides.--German Critics of Aristophanes.--Ancient and Modern
Comedy.--The _Birds_.--The _Clouds_.--Greek Youth and Education.--The
Allegories of Aristophanes.--The _Thesmophoriazusæ_.--Aristophanes and
Plato.                                                          Page 171

                             CHAPTER XIX.

                        _THE COMIC FRAGMENTS._

Three Periods in Attic History.--The Three Kinds of Comedy: Old,
Middle, New.--Approximation of Comedy to the Type of Tragedy.--Athenæus
as