| There may have been a time when, besides the epic | | | | commanding the utmost respect. |
| and the two species of poetry Hesiod represented, | | | | It was a long time before the old poetry gave way to |
| the Greeks had only folk songs with refrains. Following | | | | new forms, this event occurring only after all |
| this mythopoeic, religious, seasonal, and festival art, the | | | | imaginable contents had been poured into the old |
| lyric arose as a spontaneous creation, not like the | | | | forms. Greek poetry grew slowly and consistently, |
| poetry of Occidental nations that at the very least had | | | | each order giving way when its season of fruition was |
| Latin church hymns as models. The elegy may well | | | | over. No foreign literature, no religion with foreign |
| have appeared as a great innovation, even as a kind | | | | imagery, interrupted this development; hence we shall |
| of debasement. | | | | proceed in accordance with the development of the |
| Modern lyric poetry contrasts most sharply with the | | | | various forms. |
| Greek, recognizing hardly any set limits or laws and | | | | A large number of poets enjoyed renown from the |
| seeking to escape discipline for pleasure. Greek lyric | | | | outset, and though their works were topical and |
| poetry on the other hand was, by its connection with | | | | involved in contemporary affairs, their names endured. |
| singing and conviviality, with dancing and instrumental | | | | Complete collections of their works were made early, |
| music, bound to detailed standards of composition and | | | | and it is a misfortune that apart from Pindar and the |
| performance, being thereby protected against | | | | tragedians so little has survived. Later Greeks |
| sublimation into nothingness. | | | | possessed these works intact and consciously |
| Our discussion of Greek poetry does not claim to be a | | | | treasured them as significant cultural developments. |
| clearly arranged literary survey; we shall deal with | | | | Poetry accorded with the life of the individual as well |
| poesy only as a free expression of life and as a | | | | as with that of the nation; it was not faced with a |
| cultural force in the nation. The individual states and | | | | division into the educated and the uneducated, being |
| social castes took part in many ways, now here, now | | | | accessible to every freeborn Greek. Its original source |
| there, now stressing this aspect, now that. Beginning | | | | was the body of myths known to rich and poor alike, |
| with the epic bards, poetry fell into all sorts of hands | | | | as were the rites of worship; yet it remained a sublime |
| but remained a high art nonetheless, its forms | | | | art. |