The Literatures of Greece and Israel in the Renaissance

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Stratford Company, 1925 - 61 pages
 

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Page 16 - ... grammatical usage, to trace the stages by which a word acquired its meaning in a special context, to command a full vocabulary of synonyms, to give rules for orthography, and to have the whole Pantheon at his fingers' ends. In addition to this, he was expected to comment upon the meaning of his author, to interpret his philosophy, to point out the beauties of his style, to introduce appropriate moral disquisition on his doctrine, to sketch his biography, and to give some account of his relation...
Page 43 - I long that the husbandman should sing portions of them to himself as he follows the plough, that the weaver should hum them to the tune of his shuttle, that the traveller should beguile with their stories the tedium of his journey.
Page 15 - Church, was effected less by immediate working on the universities than by a gradual and indirect determination of the whole race towards the study of antiquity. In picturing to ourselves the method pursued by the humanists in the instruction of their classes, we must divest our minds of all associations with the practice of modern professors. Very few of the students whom the master saw before him, possessed more than meager portions of the text of Virgil or of Cicero; they had no notes, grammars,...
Page 16 - Poliziano, made the profession of eloquence — for so the varied subject-matter of humanism was often called — a very different business from that which occupies a lecturer of the present century. Scores of students, old and young, with nothing but pen and paper on the desks before them, sat patiently recording what the lecturer said. At the end of his discourses on the Georgics or the Verrines, each of them carried away a compendious volume, containing a transcript of the author's text, together...
Page 16 - ... beauties of his style, to introduce appropriate moral disquisition on his doctrine, to sketch his biography, and to give some account of his relation to the history of his country and to his predecessors in the field of letters. In short, the professor of rhetoric had to be a grammarian, a philologer, an historian, a stylist, and a sage in one. He was obliged to pretend at least to an encyclopaedic knowledge of the classics, and to retain whole volumes in his memory. All these requirements, which...
Page 39 - Melanchthon give us, who, yet a youth, yes almost a boy, deserves equal esteem for his knowledge of both languages ! What sagacity in argument, what purity of expression, what a rare and comprehensive knowledge, what extensive reading, what a delicacy and elegance of mind does he not display ! " Melanchthou attended the University of Heidelberg,!
Page 15 - ... the structure of sentences in detail, to provide copious illustrations of grammatical usage, to trace the stages by which a word acquired its meaning in a special context, to command a full vocabulary of synonyms, to give rules for orthography, and to have the whole Pantheon at his fingers' ends. In addition to this, he was expected to comment upon the meaning of his author, to interpret his philosophy, to point out the beauties of his style, to introduce appropriate moral disquisition on his...
Page 15 - Very few of the students whom the master saw before him, possessed more than meagre portions of the text of Virgil or of Cicero ; they had no notes, grammars, lexicons, or dictionaries of antiquities and mythology, to help them. It was therefore necessary for the lecturer to dictate quotations, to repeat parallel passages at full length, to explain geographical and historical allusions, to...
Page 57 - ... by no means intend that the one spirit should expel or prevail over the other ; all that the needs of culture required was that there should be infusion enough of the classical to make the romantic healthier and truer to life. In the romantic poetry, the materials mastered the man ; he wandered in a wildwood filled with innumerable paths, following now one and now another in forgetfulness of his plan, if he had any ; that sway of reflection which is necessary for the perfection of art was unknown....
Page 13 - But Plautus pleased our sires, the good old folks; They praised his numbers, and they praised his jokes." They did: 'twas mighty tolerant in them To praise where wisdom would perhaps condemn ; That is, if you and I and our compeers Can trust our tastes, our fingers, and our ears, Know polished wit...

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