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ANTE-HOMERIC SONGS AND BARDS. Many centuries must have elapsed before the poetical language of the Greeks could have attained the splendor, copiousness, and fluency found in the poems of Homer. The first outpourings of poetical enthusiasm were, doubtless, songs describing, in few and simple verses, events which powerfully affected the feelings of the hearers.
Greek Literature and its Divisions. 2. The Language. 3. The Religion. Ante-Homeric Songs and Bards. 2. Poems of Homer; the Iliad; the Odyssey. 3. The Cyclic Poets and the Homeric Hymns. 4. Poems of Hesiod; the Works and Days; the Theogony. 5. Elegy and Epigram; Tyrtaeus; Archilochus; Simonides. 6. Iambic Poetry, the Fable, and Parody; Aesop. 7. Greek Music and Lyric Poetry; Terpander. 8.
They knew nothing indeed of the solitary grandeur of the Jewish muse, or the Nature-myths of the ante-Homeric singers; but they possessed the Iliad and the Odyssey, with their wonderful truthfulness, their clear portraiture of character, their absence of all affectation, their serenity and cheerfulness, their good sense and healthful sentiments, withal so original that the germ of almost every character which has since figured in epic poetry can be found in them.
They knew nothing indeed of the solitary grandeur of the Jewish muse, or the mythological myths of the Ante-Homeric songsters; but they possessed the Iliad and the Odyssey, with their wonderful truthfulness, and clear portraiture of character, their absence of all affectation, their serenity and cheerfulness, their good sense and healthful sentiments, yet so original that the germ of almost every character which has since figured in epic poetry can be found in them.
The name Romaic, which has been applied to modern Greek, is now almost superseded by that of Neo-Hellenic. THE RELIGION. In the development of the Greek religion two periods may be distinguished, the ante-Homeric and the Homeric.
From Egypt, it now appears, were derived the prototypes of the Greek architectural orders, and even their ornaments and conventional designs; thence came the models of the Greek and Etruscan vases; thence came many of the ante-Homeric legends the accusation of the dead, the trial before the judges of hell; the reward and punishment of every man, from the Pharaoh who had descended from his throne to the slave who had escaped from his chain; the dog Cerberus, the Stygian stream, the Lake of Oblivion, the piece of money, Charon and his boat, the fields of Aahlu or Elysium, and the islands of the blessed; thence came the first ritual for the dead, litanies to the sun, and painted or illuminated missals; thence came the dogma of a queen of heaven.
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