Anne C. Lynch Botta

by Anne C. Lynch Botta

INTRODUCTION.—1. Greek Literature and its Divisions.—2. The Language.— 3. The Religion.

1. HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE THIRD PERIOD.—At the close of the seventeenth century, a new dawn arose in the history of Italian letters, and the general corruption which had extended to every branch of literature and paralyzed the Italian mind began to be arrested by the appearance of writers of better taste; the affectations of the Marinists and of the so-called Arcadian poets were banished from literature; science was elevated and its dominion extended, the melodrama, comedy, and tragedy recreated, and a new spirit infused into every branch of composition.

John Huss, Jerome of Prague, Tycho Brahe, Kepler, Comenius, and others.

The Bohemian is one of the principal Slavic languages. It is spoken in Bohemia and in Moravia, and is used by the Slovaks of Hungary in their literary productions. Of all the modern Slavic dialects, the Bohemian was the first cultivated; it early adopted the Latin characters, and was developed under the influence of the German language. In its free construction, the Bohemian approaches the Latin, and is capable of imitating the Greek in all its lighter shades.

THE COLONIAL PERIOD.—1. The Seventeenth Century. George Sandys; The Bay Psalm Book; Anne Bradstreet, John Eliot, and Cotton Mather.—2. From 1700 to 1770; Jonathan Edwards, Benjamin Franklin, Cadwallader Colden.

This work was begun many years ago, as a literary exercise, to meet the personal requirements of the writer, which were such as most persons experience on leaving school and “completing their education,” as the phrase is. The world of literature lies before them, but where to begin, what course of study to pursue, in order best to comprehend it, are the problems which present themselves to the bewildered questioner, who finds himself in a position not unlike that of a traveler suddenly set down in an unknown country, without guide-book or map.

1. GREEK LITERATURE AND ITS DIVISIONS.—The literary histories thus far sketched, with the exception of the Hebrew, occupy a subordinate position, and constitute but a small part of the general and continuous history of literature.

INTRODUCTION.—1. French Literature and its Divisions.—2. The Language.

PERIOD FIRST.—1. The Troubadours.—2. The Trouveres French Literature in the Fifteenth Century.—4. The Mysteries and Moralities: Charles of Orleans, Villon, Ville-Hardouin, Joinville, Froissart, Philippe de Commines.

Rey, Bielski, Copernicus, Czartoryski, Niemcewicz, Mickiewicz, and others.

1. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.—Of all the nations which have sprung into existence through the medium of European colonization, since the discovery of America, the United States is the only one having a literature of its own creation, and containing original works of a high order. Its earliest productions, however, are of little value; they belong not to a period of literary leisure, but to one of trial and danger, when the colonist was forced to contend with a savage enemy, a rude soil, and all the privations of pioneer life.