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A Critical History of the Language and Literature of Antient Greece
A Critical History of the Language and Literature of Antient Greece Author:William Mure Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. Excerpt from book: Section 3CHAP. II. HISTOEICAL VALUE OF GREEK MYTHICAL LEGEND. 1. DISTINCTIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF MYTHOLOGY AND OF HISTORY.—2. GREEK MYTHICAL LEGEND, HOW FAR FOUNDED ON FACT. ARGUMENTS ON THE A... more »FFIRMATIVE SIDE. 3. ANALOGY OF AUTHENTIC HISTORY 4. ARGUMENTS ON THE NEGATIVE SIDE. HERO WORSHIP.—5. HUMAN APOTHEOSIS PECULIAR TO GR-ECO-PELASGIC SUPERSTITION. — 6. BEARINGS OF THE CUSTOM ON THE PRESENT QUESTION.—7. HOMER'g CYCLE OF HEROIC LEGEND. — 8. EPONYME HEROES. MYTHICAL CHRONOLOGY. Distinctive ! The history of every language is inseparable from isticTofr~ *kat of the people by whom it is spoken. Nations mythology may, indeed, be subjected to momentous revolutions andhistory. . »' ., , i . , . , without any sensible change in their mother-tongue: but a language can rarely, if ever, undergo vital alteration, unless in connexion with some parallel vicissitude of political destiny. It is in that earliest period of society to which attention is here more immediately directed, that, in the case of the Greeks, importance mainly attaches to this connexion; an importance, unfortunately, much enhanced by the obscurity in which the subject is involved. A want of classical authorities cannot, indeed, be pleaded. The difficulty lies rather in the shadowy unsubstantial nature of the copious mass at our disposal; still more, perhaps, in the variety of opinions as to the mode in which the historian may be entitled to avail himself of their aid. It becomes, therefore, in some measure necessary, before entering on any such inquiry, to offer some explanation of the principles on which it will be conducted, and of the author's views as to the nature and value of the existing data for its guidance. That the voluminous body of popular Greek tradition, which avowedly forms the sole existing record of this primitive age, is ess...« less