Facts you should know about the classics
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| Facts you should know about the classics |
Men learned the art of writing, or began to express their ideas to each other by (at first) drawing little pictures of objects, about six thousand years ago, but none of the works which we call "classics" goes back to more than three thousand years ago.
We should not expect to find many writings surviving from a date earlier than that, and as a matter of fact, except for business purposes writing was chiefly left to the priests. From ancient Egypt alone we have a few specimens of small books written by laymen; especially the Maxims of Ptah-Hotep, a very interesting series of counsels and reflections on conduct by a middleclass Egyptian of four thousand or more years ago.
This, however, is not great literature. For the older civilizations we have to consider only their religious literature, as certain collections of ritual and other sacred writings which, on the analogy of the Hebrew collection, we may call their "bibles." The oldest is what we call The Book of the Dead of the Egyptians, parts of which go back thousands of years before Christ. It is not what we should describe as fine literature.
Contents
I, Classics of the Ancient World j 1. Greek Literature 9 2. Roman Works 18 3. Early Christian Classics 25 II. Classics of the Middle Ages %l 1. Arab and Persian Writers 2$ 2. Dante and the Middle Ages 2$ 3. Heralds of the Renaissance 3(> 4. The New Age in Italy and France. 32 6. Cervantes and the New Spain 36 6. Shakespeare and the English Rebirth 38 HI. Classics of the Modern Period 44 1. Voltaire and French Classics 45 2. Germany, Russia and Scandinavians 3. Modern English Writers 53 4. American Classics
