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"Were I to pray for a taste which should stand me in stead under everyvariety of circumstances, and be a source of happiness and cheerfulness tome during life, and a shield against its ills, however things might goamiss and the world frown upon me, it would he a taste for reading….Give a man this taste, and the means of gratifying it, and you can hardlyfail of making him a happy man; unless, indeed, you put into his hands amost perverse selection of Books. You place him in contact with the bestsociety in every period of history,—with the wisest, the wittiest, thetenderest, the bravest, and the purest characters who have adornedhumanity. You make him a denizen of all nations, a contemporary of allages. The world has been created for him."—SIR JOHN HERSCHEL. Addresson the opening of the Eton Library, 1833.
Preface of the Translator.
Author's Preface.
Memoir of the Life of Augustus William Schlegel.
Introduction—Spirit of True Criticism—Difference of Taste between the
Ancients and Moderns—Classical and Romantic Poetry and Art—Division of
Dramatic Literature; the Ancients, their Imitators, and the Romantic Poets.
Definition of the Drama—View of the Theatres of all Nations—Theatrical
Effect—Importance of the Stage—Principal Species of the Drama.
Essence of Tragedy and Comedy—Earnestness and Sport—How far it ispossible to become acquainted with the Ancients without knowing OriginalLanguages—Winkelmann.
Structure of the Stage among the Greeks—Their Acting—Use of Masks—Falsecomparison of Ancient Tragedy to the Opera—Tragical Lyric Poetry.
Essence of the Greek Tragedies—Ideality of the Representation—Idea of
Fate—Source of the Pleasure derived from Tragical Representations—Import
of the Chorus—The materials of Greek Tragedy derived from Mythology—
Comparison with the Plastic Arts.
Progress of the Tragic Art among the Greeks—Various styles of Tragic Art
—Aeschylus—Connexion in a Trilogy of Aeschylus—His remaining Works.
Life and Political Character of Sophocles—Character of his different
Tragedies.
Euripides—His Merits and Defects—Decline of Tragic Poetry through him.
Comparison between the Choephorae of Aeschylus, the Electra of
Sophocles, and that of Euripides.
Character of the remaining Works of Euripides—The Satirical Drama—
Alexandrian Tragic Poets.
The Old Comedy proved to be completely a contrast to Tragedy—Parody—
Ideality of Comedy the reverse of that of Tragedy—Mirthful Caprice—
Allegoric and Political Signification—The Chorus and its Parabases.
Aristophanes—His Character as an Artist—Description and Character of hisremaining Works—A Scene, translated from