CHAPTER XXXVLANGUAGE AND WRITING
Evolution
One of the most interesting subjects of scientific study developed during the last century is that of primitive culture and the gradual advancement of primitive man from a state of savagery to comparative civilization. For this study there are no historical documents in the ordinary use of the words “historical” and “document.” The story must be arrived at by analysis, deduction, even by guess-work, supplementing the studies of travelers among tribes which now are in the lowest stages of development and farthest from civilization, and therefore most resemble our remotest human ancestors. Almost the very earliest of writers on evolution, the Roman poetLucretius(Vol. 17, p. 107), who died in 55 B.C., sketched general outlines of the development of this primitive civilization in much the same way as do modern ethnologists. But his description was imaginary and was fashioned to fit his and Epicurus’s evolutionary theories.
The articleCivilization(Vol. 6, p. 403) in the Britannica makes the development of speech the mark of the first period when mankind was in the lower stages of savagery. “Our ancestors of this epoch inhabited a necessarily restricted tropical territory and subsisted upon raw nuts and fruit.” The next higher period in the progress of civilization began with the knowledge of the use of fire (p. 404).
This wonderful discovery enabled the developing race to extend its habitat almost indefinitely, and to include flesh, and in particular fish, in its regular dietary. Man could now leave the forests and wander along the shores and rivers, migrating to climates less enervating than those to which he had previously been confined. Doubtless he became an expert fisher, but he was as yet poorly equipped for hunting.... Primitive races of Australia and Polynesia had not advanced beyond this middle status of savagery when they were discovered a few generations ago.
The next great ethnical discovery was that of the bow and arrow, a truly wonderful instrument.
The possessor of this device could bring down the fleetest animal and could defend himself against the most predatory. He could provide himself not only with food, but with materials for clothing and for tent-making, and thus could migrate at will back from the seas and large rivers.... The meat diet, now for the first time freely available, probably contributed, along with the stimulating climate, to increase the physical vigour and courage of this highest savage, thus urging him along the paths of progress. Nevertheless, many tribes came thus far, and no further, as witness the Athapascans of the Hudson’s Bay Territory and the Indians of the valley of the Columbia.
After the use of fire and the discovery of the bow and arrow came the invention of pottery, the domestication of animals, and the smelting of iron, all successive stages in man’s history which “in their relation to the sum of human progress, transcend in relative importance all his subsequent works,”—and this is even truer if there is included in this period the development of a system of writing, which may be reckoned either the end of the primitive period or the beginning of the period ofcivilization proper. Thesetwo great steps in the story of civilization, language and writing, are closely connected in our minds, though so far separated in time of origin; and their story as told in the Britannica by the world’s greatest authorities, English, American, German, French, Italian, Danish, etc., is an interesting one for the general reader, while the articles are invaluable to the specialist in linguistic study.
Philology
The starting point for a course of reading is the articlePhilology(Vol. 21, p. 414; equivalent to 80 pages in this Guide), of which the first part, a general treatment, is by the greatest of American philologists, William Dwight Whitney, editor-in-chief ofThe Century Dictionary, and author ofLife and Growth of Language, one of the most important scientific contributions to the subject. The second part, on the comparative philology of the Indo-European languages, is by Prof. Eduard Sievers of Leipzig and Prof. Peter Giles of Cambridge. Both these names are well known to students of the subject, the former as that of the author of numerous valuable works on Germanic phonetics and metric, and the latter as a writer on Greek language and as the author ofA Short Manual of Comparative Philology.
The article begins with a definition of “philology,” the science of language, and of “comparative philology,” the comparison of one language with another, in order to bring out their relationships, their structures, and their histories. Prof. Whitney shows how much the recent development of linguistic science owes to the general scientific movement of the age. “No one,” he says, “however ingenious and entertaining his speculations, will cast any real light on the earliest history of speech.” But he notes the obvious analogy between speech and writing, and he puts stress on the “sociality” of man as the prime factor in his development of speech. Other topics in this part of the article are:
Instrumentalities of expression—gesture, grimace, and voice; “language” means “tonguiness”—a mute would call it “handiness”; advantages of voice over gesture.
Imitation as a factor in development of language and of writing; onomatopoetic origin of words.
Development of sign-making: “Among the animals of highest intelligence that associate with man and learn something of his ways, a certain amount of sign-making expressly for communication is not to be denied; the dog that barks at a door because he knows that somebody will come and let him in is an instance of it; perhaps, in wild life, the throwing out of sentinel birds from a flock, whose warning cry shall advertise their fellows of the threat of danger, is as near an approach to it as is anywhere made.”
Brute speech and human speech: “Those who put forward language as the distinction between man and the lower animals, and those who look upon our language as the same in kind with the means of communication of the lower animals, only much more complete and perfect, fail alike to comprehend the true nature of language, and are alike wrong in their arguments and conclusions. No addition to or multiplication of brute speech would make anything like human speech; the two are separated by a step which no animal below man has ever taken; and, on the other hand, language is only the most conspicuous among those institutions the development of which has constituted human progress.”
Language and culture: “Differences of language, down to the possession of language at all, are differences only in respect to education and culture.”
Development of language signs: the beginning slow, acceleration cumulative.
The root-stage: first signs must have been “integral, significant in their entirety, not divisible into parts.”
Earliest phonetic forms: the simplest syllabic combination a single consonant with a following vowel. See the articleHawaii(Vol. 13, p. 88) for a similar language even now in existence: “Every syllable is open, ending in a vowel sound, and short sentences may be constructed wholly of vocalic sounds.”
Character of early speech: “first language-signs must have denoted those physical acts and qualities which are directly apprehensible by the senses.... We are still all the time drawing figurative comparisons between material and moral things and processes, and calling the latter by the names of the former.”
Development of language as illustrated in Indo-European speech.
Laws of growth and change: internal growth by multiplication of meanings; phonetic change—the principle of economy (euphony); borrowing and mixing of vocabularies.
Classification of languages by structural types: isolating (Chinese); agglutinative (Turkish, etc.); inflective (Indo-European); or—a more elaborate classification:
Indo-European Languages
Indo-European: on which see part II of the articlePhilologyand the articleIndo-European Languages(Vol. 14, p. 495; equivalent to 20 pages of this Guide), by Prof. Peter Giles,—especially interesting for the attempt on a linguistic basis to reconstruct the original civilization and to discover the home of the ancestors of this language-stock which now occupies nearly all of Europe and is so intimately connected with the civilization of the last 2500 years. See:
Greek Language(Vol. 12, p. 496), by Professor Giles, and articlesHomer(Vol. 13, p. 626);Dorians(Vol. 8, p. 423), etc.; but the main treatment of different Greek dialects is in the articleGreek Language(Vol. 12, p. 496), to which the student should refer for Arcadian and Cyprian, Aeolic, Ionic-Attic, and Doric dialects.
Latin Language(Vol. 16, p. 244), by Dr. A. S. Wilkins, late professor of Latin, Owens College, Manchester, and Dr. Robert S. Conway, professor of Latin, University of Manchester, with a peculiarly valuable summary ofThe Language as Recorded, which is a linguistic critique of the style and vocabulary of the great Roman authors and a comparison (p. 253) of Latin and Greek prose. And see the articles on the dialects of ancient Italy:Italy,Ancient Languages and People;Etruria,Language;Liguria,Philology;Siculi;Pompeii,Oscan Inscriptions;Sabini;Falisci;Volsci;Osca Lingua;Iguvium;Brutii;Umbria;Picenum;Samnites, etc., by Prof. Conway, which will serve the student as a foundation for this subject, with more recent revision of all that is known than there is in Prof. Conway’s books, in the works of C. D. Buck, or in other authorities.
Romance Languages
For the descendants of Latin, the articleRomance Languages(Vol. 23, p. 504), by Dr. Wilhelm Meyer-Lübke, Professor of romance philology in the University of Vienna; and the following separate articles:
Italian Language(Vol. 14, p. 888), by Graziadio I. Ascoli, professor of comparative grammar at the University of Milan, and Carlo Salvioni, professor of Romance languages in the same university, with a valuable summary of the dialects of modern Italy.
French Language(Vol. 11, p. 103), by Henry Nicol and Paul Meyer, professor at the Collège de France; particularly interesting because treated comparatively with constant reference to English and French influence on English.
Provençal Languages(Vol. 22, p. 491), by Prof. Paul Meyer.
Spain:Language(Vol. 25, p. 573), by Alfred Morel-Fatio, professor of Romance languages at the Collège de France, andJames Fitzmaurice-Kelly, professor of Spanish, Liverpool University; describing the Catalan as well as the Castilian and the Portuguese.
Rumania:Language(Vol. 23, p. 843).
Teutonic Languages
The general articlesScandinavian Languages(Vol. 24, p. 291), by Dr. Adolf Noreen, professor in the University of Upsala, with sections on Icelandic, Norwegian or Norse, Swedish, and Danish, and the Scandinavian dialects; andTeutonic Languages(Vol. 26, p. 673), by Hector Munro Chadwick, Librarian of Clare College, Cambridge.
More in detail on the Teutonic languages are the articles:
English Language(Vol. 9, pp. 587–600; equivalent to 45 pages of this Guide), by Sir James A. H. Murray, editor-in-chief of the (Oxford)New English Dictionary, and Miss Hilda Mary R. Murray, lecturer on English at the Royal Holloway College.
Dutch Language(Vol. 8, p. 717), by Prof. Johann Hendrik Gallée of the University of Utrecht.
German Language(Vol. 11, p. 777), Dr. Robert Priebsch, professor of German philology, University of London, which deals with modern and ancient, new, middle, and old, high and low German.
For Indo-Iranian languages, see:
Persia and India
Persia:Language and Literature(Vol. 21, p. 246), by Dr. Hermann Ethé, professor of Oriental languages, University College, Wales, dealing with Zend, and Old, Middle and New Persian and modern dialects of Persian.
Indo-Aryan Languages(Vol. 14, p. 487), by George Abraham Grierson, formerly in charge of the Linguistic survey of India, who treats in this article the relations of Pisaca, Prakrit and Sanskrit, and contributes the separate articlesPisaca Languages,Prakrit,Bengali,Bihari,Gujarati and Rajasthani,Hindostani,Kashmiri, andMarathi. More important than these minor dialects areSanskrit Language(Vol. 24, p. 156), by Dr. Julius Eggeling, professor of Sanskrit, Edinburgh University,—an article equivalent in length to 90 pages of this Guide; andPali(Vol. 20, p. 630), by Prof. T. W. Rhys Davids of Manchester University, president of the Pali Text Society.
Armenian Language and Literature(Vol. 2, p. 571), by Dr. F. C. Conybeare, author ofThe Ancient Armenian Texts of Aristotle, etc.
Lithuanians and Letts,Language and Literature(Vol. 16, p. 790);Slavs:Language(Vol. 25, p. 233), by Ellis Hovell Minns, Lecturer in palaeography, Cambridge, with a table of alphabets; and supplementary information in the articlesRussia,Bulgaria,Servia,Poland,Bohemia,Croatia-Slavonia,Slovaks,Slovenes,Sorbs,Kashubes,Polabs.
Albania, Language(Vol. 1, p. 485), by J. D. Bourchier, correspondent ofThe Times(London) in South-eastern Europe.
Semitic
The material on the Semitic group is principally in the articleSemitic Languages(Vol. 24, p. 617), by Theodor Nöldeke, late professor of Oriental languages at Strassburg. This article deals with:
Assyrian—see alsoCuneiform(Vol. 7, p. 629);
Hebrew—see alsoHebrew Language(Vol. 13, p. 167), by Arthur Ernest Cowley, sub-librarian of the Bodleian, Oxford;
Phoenician—see alsoPhoenicia(Vol. 21, p. 449), by the Rev. Dr. George Albert Cook, author ofText Book of North-Semitic Inscriptions, etc.;
Aramaic—and see the separate articleAramaic Languages(Vol. 2, p. 317);
Arabic, Sabaean, Mahri and Socotri, Ethiopic, Tigre and Tigrina, Amharic, Harari and Gurague.
And see the articleSyriac Language(Vol. 26, p. 309), by Norman McLean, lecturer in Aramaic, Cambridge.
Hamitic
The articleHamitic Languages(Vol. 12, p. 893) is by Dr. W. Max Müller, professor in the Reformed Episcopal Seminary, Philadelphia. See also the articleEgypt,Language and Writing(Vol. 9, p. 57), by Dr. Francis Llewelyn Griffith, reader in Egyptology, Oxford; and the articles:Ethiopia(Vol. 9, p. 845), by Dr. D. S. Margoliouth, professor of Arabic, Oxford;Berber,Language(Vol. 3, p. 766) andKabyles(Vol. 15, p. 625) for the Libyan group of the Hamitic languages.
Other Tongues
On the mono-syllabic languages seeChina,Language(Vol. 6, p. 216), by Dr. H. A. Giles, professor of Chinese, Cambridge, and Lionel Giles, assistant Oriental Department, British Museum;
Japan,Language(Vol. 15, p. 167), by Captain Frank Brinkley, late editor of the JapanMail; and
Tibeto-Burman Languages(Vol. 26, p. 928), by Dr. Sten Konow, professor in the University of Christiania.
The articleUral-Altaic(Vol. 27, p. 784), by Dr. Augustus Henry Keane, late professor of Hindustani, University College, London, gives a general account of the relationship of Turkish, Finno-Ugrian, Mongol and Manchu; and is supplemented by the articlesTurks,Language(Vol. 27, p. 472), by Sir Charles Eliot, vice-chancellor of Sheffield University;Finno-Ugrian(Vol. 10, p. 388), on language of Finns, Lapps and Samoyedes,HungaryLanguage(Vol. 13, p. 924), on Magyar, both by Sir Charles Eliot; andMongols,Language(Vol. 18, p. 719), by Dr. Bernhard Jülg, late professor at Innsbruck.
On the non-Aryan languages of Southern Africa see the articleTamils(Vol. 26, p. 388), by Dr. Reinhold Rost, late secretary of the Royal Asiatic Society.
For languages of Malay-Polynesia and other Oceanic peoples seeMalays,Language(Vol. 17, p. 477), by Sir Hugh Charles Clifford, colonial secretary of Ceylon, and joint-author ofA Dictionary of the Malay Language; and the articlesPolynesia,Samoa,Java,Hawaii, etc.
On the Caucasian language seeGeorgia(Vol. 11, p. 758) andCaucasia(Vol. 5, p. 546).
On other European languages seeBasques(Vol. 3, p. 485), by the late Rev. Wentworth Webster, author ofBasque Legends, and Julien Vinson, author ofLe Basque et les langues Mexicaines; and for the Etruscan languageEtruria(Vol. 9, p. 854), by Professor R. S. Conway.
On African languages seeBantu Languages(Vol. 3, p. 356), by Sir H. H. Johnston;Bushmen(Vol. 41, p. 871) andHottentots(Vol. 13, p. 805); and, for the intermediate group, the articleHausa(Vol. 13, p. 69).
On the languages of the North American Indians see the articleIndians, North American(especially p. 457 of Vol. 14), by Dr. A. F. Chamberlain, professor of anthropology, Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts.
Alphabet
This list of articles will serve the student as a guide for the purely linguistic articles. Besides the general treatment in the articlePhilologyfrom which we started, he should read articles on such general subjects asPhonetics(Vol. 21, p. 458), by Dr. Henry Sweet, author ofA Primer of Phonetics,A History of English Sounds since the Earliest Period, etc. This leads to a study of the articleAlphabet(Vol. 1, p. 723), equivalent to 30 pages of this Guide, written by Professor Peter Giles of Cambridge and illustrated with a plate and various fac-similes of early alphabets. This article is supplemented by Professor Giles’s articles on all the letters of the alphabet, which deal with the history and form of the symbol, the character of the sound it stands for and, particularly, the developmentand change of the sound in English and its dialects. For instance the article on the letterNdescribes four different sounds, of which there are two in English—usually distinguished asnandng; explains that in the early Indo-European language somen’sandm’scould sometimes be pronouncedas vowels; describes the opposite process, the nasalization of vowels, especially in French; and closes by saying: “It is possible to nasalize some consonants as well as vowels; nasalized spirants play an important part in the so-called Yankee pronunciation of Americans.”
Artificial Languages
From alphabets the student may well turn to ideal languages in the articleUniversal Languages(Vol. 27, p. 746), by Professor Henry Sweet, which criticizes Volapük and Esperanto and the Idiom Neutral as being unscientific, not really international—even from a European point of view, and still less when one considers the growing importance of Japan and China in world-trade and world-history. Their being based on national languages Dr. Sweet thinks is a disadvantage. But in their comparative success he sees proof that a universal language is possible. See also Prof. Sweet’s separate articlesVolapük(Vol. 28, p. 178) andEsperanto(Vol. 9, p. 773).
Writing
The articleWriting(Vol. 28, p. 852) deals, chiefly from the anthropological standpoint, with primitive attempts to record ideas in an intelligible form, for example with “knot-signs,” “message-sticks,” picture-writing and the like. The needs, which led to the invention of these primitive forms of writing, were: mnemonic, recalling that something is to be done at a certain time—the primitive “tickler” was a knotted string or thong, like our knotted handkerchief as a reminder, and these knot-strings were finally used for elementary accountings, commercial or chronological, like the use of the abacus in little shops, or of the similar system in scoring games of pool; to communicate with some one at a distance, for which marked or notched sticks, engraved or coloured pebbles, wampum belts, etc., were used; and, third, to distinguish one’s own property or handicraft whence cattle-brands, trade-marks, etc. In Assyria, Egypt and China picture-writing developed into conventional signs: on these seeEgypt(Vol. 9, p. 60), andChina(Vol. 6, p. 218). All of these are of great interest to the general reader, but the articleCuneiform(Vol. 7, p. 629) by Dr. R. W. Rogers, professor of Hebrew and Old Testament exegesis, Drew Theological Seminary, Madison, New Jersey, has the sort of entertainment in it that there is in a good detective story, since it tells how the meaning of the mysterious wedge-shaped inscriptions on the rocks at Mount Rachmet in Persia was discovered.
The subject of writing is treated, also, in the articles:
Inscriptions(Vol. 14, p. 618);Semitic, aside from the Cuneiform, by Arthur Ernest Cowley, sub-librarian of the Bodleian, Oxford;Indian inscriptions, by John Faithfull Fleet, author ofInscriptions of the Early Gupta Kings, etc.;Greek, by Edward Lee Hicks, Bishop of Lincoln, author ofManual of Greek Historical Inscriptions, etc., and George Francis Hill, author ofSources for Greek History, etc.; andLatin, by Emil Hübner, late professor of classical philology at Berlin, author ofRomische Epigraphik, etc., and Dr. W. M. Lindsay, of the University of St. Andrews, author ofThe Latin Language, etc.
Palaeography(Vol. 20, p. 556), equivalent to 75 pages of this Guide, by Sir Edward Maunde Thompson, late librarian of the British Museum and author ofHandbook of Greek and Latin Palaeography, etc. The article is illustrated with 50 fac-similes of typical handwritings.
Manuscript(Vol. 17, p. 618), equivalent to 20 pages of this Guide, by the same author, with a description of the various forms of manuscripts, of the mechanical arrangement of writing in MSS., and of writing implements and inks. See, also,Illuminated Manuscripts,Papyrus,Paperand other articles mentioned in the chapter in this GuideFor Printers.
Text Criticism
The student of language and literature and of writing will also find much valuable information in the articleTextual Criticism(Vol. 26, p. 708), equivalent to 25 pages of this Guide, by Professor J. P. Postgate of the University of Liverpool, well-known to Latinists as the brilliant editor of Tibullus and Propertius. The article gives examples of the classes of errors occurring in texts and the methods of restoring true readings—largely of course by conjecture—and illustrates such errors and their correction by the very poorly printed first editions of the English poet Shelley.
In the study of language and writing as in courses on other sciences and arts, the reader will find an additional interest in supplementing general and abstract articles by biographical sketches of the great men in the science.
The following is a partial list of the articles in the Britannica on great philologists:
Contributors
The student of literature, like the student of painting, finds it as necessary to examine the great examples of the art as to study the laws which guide the artist, for the history of their development, and he will find that the articles which discuss literature in the Britannica arethemselves literature, models of the form of artistic expression which they describe. A list of these contributors who deal with literary topics might, indeed, easily be mistaken for a list of such articles on the great contemporary writers as the student would most desire to read. Among these contributors are, for example: Edmund Gosse, Theodore Watts-Dunton, Swinburne, A. C. Benson, John Morley, Austin Dobson, Arthur Symons, J. Addington Symonds, Frederic Harrison, Walter Besant, William Sharp (“Fiona Macleod”), Professor George Saintsbury, Sir Arthur T. Quiller-Couch (“Q”), William Archer, Israel Gollancz, Robert Louis Stevenson, Andrew Lang, Sir Leslie Stephen, E. V. Lucas, Arthur Waugh, Mrs. Craigie (“John Oliver Hobbes”), Alice Meynell, Mrs. Humphry Ward, and—among American names,—George E. Woodberry, Henry Van Dyke, Edward Everett Hale, T. W. Higginson, Brander Matthews, W. P. Trent, Charles Eliot Norton, Charles William Eliot, George W. Cable, Lyman Abbott, Edmund Clarence Stedman, John Burroughs, Thomas Davidson, Horace E. Scudder, and Charles F. Richardson.
Before discussing the articles in which these and many other distinguished contributors deal with various aspects of literature, attention may be directed to the treatment of religious literature in the Britannica. The Bible is the subject of a separate chapter in this Guide onBible Study, to which the reader is also referred for the whole literature of Biblical criticism. Religious literature based upon the Bible is discussed in the articlesLiturgy(Vol. 16, p. 795), by the Rev. F. E. Warren;Sermon(Vol. 24, p. 673), by Edmund Gosse, andHymns(Vol. 14, p. 181), by Lord Selborne, equivalent to 35 pages of this Guide. The medieval miracle plays and mysteries, presenting incidents from Scripture, are described in the section on theMedieval Drama(Vol. 8, p. 497) of the articleDrama. On the literature of other religions, see the chapterFor Ministers.
General Articles
The student of literature in general may begin his course of reading with the articleLiterature(Vol. 16, p. 783), a concise critical summary by Dr. James Fitzmaurice-Kelly, professor of Spanish language and literature, Liverpool University, best known as the editor of Cervantes. Read, after the articleLiterature, the same contributor’s articleTranslation(Vol. 27, p. 183). The student who does not wish to approach literature from the philosophic side need not read the articlesAestheticsandFine Arts; but even such a one should read the articleStyle(Vol. 25, p. 1055), by Edmund Gosse, essayist, poet, biographer and librarian of the House of Lords, and the articleProse(Vol. 22, p. 450), by the same contributor.
There is a well-known and perfectly authentic anecdote of Edmund Gosse’s predecessor as librarian of the House of Lords, who was once asked in the course of a newspaper symposium on education, “What were the principal factors in your education?” He replied by putting second only to his university training “the articles in the Encyclopaedia Britannica and in theAthenaeumby Theodore Watts-Dunton.” Certainly the student will be well repaid by repeated study and analysis of Watts-Dunton’s articlePoetry(Vol. 21, p. 877; equivalent to 45 pages of this Guide). The same author’s articlesSonnet(Vol. 25, p. 414),Matthew Arnold(Vol. 2, p. 635), andWycherley(Vol. 28, p. 863) should be studied with the articlePoetryas supplementing his literary philosophy.
The greatest of literary forms is amply represented by the space and the authority given to it in the Britannica. The articleDrama(Vol. 8, p. 475; equivalent to 225 pages of this Guide) is mainly the work of Prof. A. W. Ward, master of Peterhouse, Cambridge, editor of theCambridge History of English Literatureand of theCambridge Modern History; but some parts of the article are by William Archer, the dramatic critic, and by Auguste Filon (“Pierre Sandrié”). This elaborate article should be supplemented by the short articleComedy(Vol. 6, p. 759) and by the biographical and critical sketches of the great dramatists.
Among the many other articles in the Britannica on the forms of literature are:Satire(Vol. 24, p. 228), by Richard Garnett, late librarian British Museum, with which the student may well combine the articlesHumourandIrony, the articlesBallade,Ballads(Lang),Bucolics,Pastoral,Cento,Chant Royal(with Gosse’s first English chant royal, “The Praise of Dionysus,” transcribed in full),Descriptive Poetry,Elegy,Epic Poetry,Epithalamium,Heroic Verse,Idyl,Limerick,Lyrical Poetry,Macaronics,National Anthems,Ode,Ottava Rima,Pantun,Rime Royal,Rondeau,Rondel,Sestett,Sestina,Song,Triolet,Vers De Société,Vilanelle,Virelay, and—a few of the prose forms,Biography,Conte,Criticism,Epistle,Essay,Euphuism,Novel,Pamphlet,Picaresque Novel,Romance,Tale,Tract,—nearly all these being by Edmund Gosse. Two articles of the utmost importance areDictionaryandEncyclopaedia. Read the general articleRhetoric.
Periodical Publications
Periodical publications, especially those in the English and French languages, have contained a great part of the best literary criticism of miscellaneous essays published since the first French review appeared in 1665 and since the first English review, consisting wholly of original matter, was established in London in 1710. The latter was indebted to France not only for its model, but for its editor, who was a French Protestant refugee. Benjamin Franklin founded the first American monthly, the PhiladelphianGeneral Magazinein 1741. The articlePeriodicals(Vol. 21, p. 151), by H. R. Tedder, librarian of the Athenaeum Club, London, contains separate sections on the reviews and magazines ofEngland, theUnited States,Canada,South Africa,West India and the British Crown Colonies,India and Ceylon,France,Germany,Austria,Switzerland,Italy,Belgium,Holland,Denmark,Norway,Sweden,Spain,Portugal,Greece,Russia,Bohemia,HungaryandJapan.
Newspapers(Vol. 19, p. 544), equivalent to 140 pages of this Guide, is an article in which the student will find a full account of the most fertile, if not the most studied, form of modern literature in all parts of the world. See also the chapter in this GuideFor Journalists and Authors.
The reader should note that of the many articles on literary forms and rhetorical figures, only a few are given above, but they are listed more fully in the Index Volume, p. 929, where there are more than 350 such titles. He must remember also that there are more than 3,000 biographical and critical articles on authors in different languages and different periods. The following are “key” articles on national literatures:
National Literatures
English Literature, by Henry Bradley, joint-editor of theNew English Dictionary; Prof. J. M. Manly, University of Chicago; Prof. Oliver Elton, University of Liverpool; Thomas Seccombe, author ofThe Age of Johnson.
American Literature, by G. E. Woodberry, formerly professor in Columbia University.
German Literature, by Prof. J. G. Robertson, University of London, author ofHistory of German Literature.
Iceland,Literature, Classic, by Prof. Frederick York Powell of Oxford;Recent, by Sigfús Blöndal, librarian of Copenhagen University.
French Literature, by George Saintsbury.
Provençal Literature, by Paul Meyer, Director of the École des Chartes, Paris, and Prof. Hermann Oelsner, Oxford, author of aHistory of Provençal Literature.
Anglo-Norman Literature, by Prof. Louis Brandin of the University of London.
Spain,Literature, by Prof. J. Fitzmaurice-Kelly of the University of Liverpool, and A. Morel-Fatio, author ofL’Espagne au XVIe et au XVIIe siècles.
Portugal,Literature, by Edgar Prestage, editor ofLetters of a Portuguese Nun, etc.
Italian Literature, by Prof. Hermann Oelsner, Oxford, and Prof. Adolfo Bartoli of the University of Florence, author ofStoria della letteratura Italiana.
Switzerland,Literature, by Prof. W. A. B. Coolidge.
Hungary,Literature, by Emil Reich, author ofHungarian Literature, and E. Dundas Butler, author ofHungarian Poems and Fables for English Readers, etc.
Poland,Literature, by W. R. Morfill, late professor of Slavonic Languages, Oxford, author ofSlavonic Literature, etc.
Russia,Literature, also by Prof. Morfill.
Arabia,Literature, by the late Prof. M. J. de Goeje, University of Leiden, and the Rev. G. W. Thatcher, warden of Camden College, Sydney, N. S. W.
Persia,Literature, by Prof. Karl Geldner, Marburg University, and Prof. Hermann Ethé, University College, Wales.
China,Literature, by H. A. Giles, professor of Chinese, Oxford.
Japan,Literature, by Capt. Brinkley.
Hebrew Literature, by Arthur Cowley, sub-librarian of the Bodleian, Oxford.
Armenian Literature, by F. C. Conybeare, author ofThe Ancient Armenian Texts of Aristotle.
Syriac Literature, by Norman McLean, lecturer in Aramaic, Cambridge.
Hindostani Literature, by Sir Charles James Lyall.
Sanskrit,Literature, by Prof. Julius Eggeling, Edinburgh.
Classics, by Dr. J. E. Sandys, Cambridge,author ofHistory of Classical Scholarship.
Greek Literature:Ancient, by Sir R. C. Jebb, author ofCompanion to Greek Studies;Byzantine, by Prof. Karl Krumbacher, editor ofByzantinische ZeitschriftandByzantinisches Archiv; andModern, by J. D. Bourchier, correspondent ofThe Times(London) in South-Eastern Europe.
Latin Literature, by Prof. A. S. Wilkins, of Owens College, Manchester, and Prof. R. S. Conway, of the University of Manchester.
Celt,Literature, to which W. J. Gruffydd, lecturer in Celtic, University College, Cardiff, contributes the section onWelshliterature; and E. C. Quiggin, lecturer in Celtic, Cambridge, contributes the sections onIrish,Manx,BretonandCornishliteratures.