ORIGIN OF LITERARY FORMS. 679 



From this phase dates amorous poetry, which was destined to 

 take so large a development. There are good grounds for sup- 

 posing that women may have especially participated in the crea- 

 tion of this lyric of the erotic kind. This is still the case in some 

 Slavic countries and in Kabylia; and it is possible that in Greece 

 Sappho only gave a brilliant personification to a more especially 

 feminine literature, of which few specimens have come down to 

 us. The lyric poetry of men is less confined to the domain of the 

 amorous feelings. It touches more varied subjects and those of a 

 more general interest, notably mythical and historical legends, 

 capable of interesting a whole virile population, but possible to 

 be versified and sung by isolated artists. 



To accompany these individual songs of every kind, suitable 

 instruments were needed, not noisy enough to drown the voice of 

 the singer, but of sufficiently extensive register to follow all the 

 shadings and modulations. Stringed instruments happily ful- 

 filled this purpose; and thus all the superior races have in- 

 vented or adopted them, while in Greece, one of them, the lyre, 

 served to give a name to passionate and personal poetry. 



By virtue of their improvement, literary arts, song, poetry 

 and instrumental music became difficult of practice. To perform 

 them required a special education, while in principle everybody 

 could participate in the execution of the primitive choruses. 

 Then appeared those popular artists, of whom the Hellenic rhap- 

 sodists, the Scandinavian skalds, and the Celtic bards are the best- 

 known types, but of whom we find a few everywhere, even in 

 tropical Africa, in Polynesia, and among the Tartar, Kabyle, Fin- 

 nish, and Slavic populations. 



At first these barbaric songsters limited themselves to follow- 

 ing their own inspiration ; but they were not slowly subjected to 

 powerful influences. The priests on one side and the kings 011 the 

 other attached them to themselves, and required them to sing the 

 mythical legends or the achievements of their heroes and princes. 

 Outside of these official subjects the professional bards took for 

 the themes of their compositions everything of interest to their 

 fellow-citizens that presented itself, and became thus the poetic 

 annalists of all notable events. These poets, most frequently 

 wanderers, were the first to give precise form to the popular tra- 

 ditions current among the people, and their songs, transmitted 

 from generation to generation, constituted the material for the 

 epics composed much later by less inspired but more skillful 

 artists, at a period when epic customs were only a recollection. 



We find many occasions showing how closely literature de- 

 pends on the social and political state. At the origin of societies, 

 during the age of the communistic clan, literature, always very 

 poor, is the exact expression of what might be called the collective 



