PROBLEMS OF CLASSICAL LITERATURE 395 



a result of abstract metaphysical conceptions, but concretely from 

 a study of all accessible materials and models of the particular art, 

 whether of poetical criticism as by Aristotle, or of oratory as in the 

 tradition that emerges to view in the lesser writings (e. g.) of Dionysius 

 of Halicarnassus, or of plastic art as in the series of writings be- 

 ginning with Xenocrates and Antigonus of Carystus. But vast addi- 

 tions have been made to the wealth of literary expression since the 

 days of Greece and Rome, and these additions must be considered by 

 him who to-day would lay down the canons of universal literary art; 

 Aristotle, were he alive now, would be the first to recognize that no 

 theory of epic poetry would be complete that omitted Virgil, or the 

 Niebelungenlied or Dante, no theory of tragedy that failed to con- 

 sider Shakespeare and Moliere and Goethe. As Aristotle's theory of 

 the state was founded on studies of a vast number of special states, 

 Greek and non-Greek, a theory that he used effectively in the 

 criticism and illumination of the history of the Athenian and Spartan 

 states in particular, so must every theory of literary criticism that 

 is to be applied to the elucidation of ancient literary history be 

 a comprehensive one and be based on a consideration of all that 

 deserves the name of literature, whether ancient, medieval, or 

 modern. 



As an historical science comparative literature has at least these 

 three functions: (1) Comparison of similar forms of literature as 

 these are cultivated by different people, with different languages, 

 different traditions of all sorts, attention being drawn to resemblances 

 and contrasts: such as forms of the narrative, whether in the epos 

 or in romance, and the manifold forms of dramatic and lyric art. 

 Obscure passages in the history, within a given literature, of one of 

 these forms may receive something of illumination from the history 

 of it in another, though here an ignis fatuus has often been taken as 

 an authentic flame. (2) A second function is the study of the history 

 of the treatment of special literary motifs in different literatures, 

 motifs which often crop out absolutely independently in various 

 parts of the world, to the bewilderment of the scholar. (3) A third 

 function is that of tracing the history of the influence of literary 

 ideals and models, and of individual authors and individual works 

 belonging to one literature, upon the literature or literatures of 

 subsequent times; or, turned about, of making inquiries wherein 

 the varied phenomena of one literature are followed up to their 

 sources in another or in several others. 



Obviously, in a derived literature, or in one whose elements are 

 to a very large extent inherited or borrowed, the necessity of tracing 

 these inherited or borrowed elements to their originals will be im- 

 perative, and of that form of activity may consist in large measure 

 the investigation of the historv of those literatures. 



