An Irish Precursor of Dante

An Irish Precursor of Dante - A Study on the Vision of Heaven and Hell ascribed to the Eighth-century Irish Saint Adamnán, with Translation of the Irish Text

IV., VI. THE VOYAGE OF BRAN, SON OF FEBAL, TO THE LAND OF THE LIVING. An old Irish Saga, now first edited, with Translation, Notes, and Glossary by Kuno Meyer. With an Essay upon the Irish Vision of the Happy Otherworld, and the Celtic doctrine of Rebirth, by Alfred Nutt. 2 vols. 1, 1s. XIV. SOHRAB AND RUSTEM. The Epic Theme of a Combat between Father and Son. A Study of its Genesis, Use in Literature and Popular Tradition. By Murray A. Potter, A.M. 1902. xii, 224 pp. 6s. Few, if any, of the great masterpieces of literature, even of those which bear the most unmistakable imprint of an original mind, are original in the vulgar sense of being invented all out of the head of the author. Most frequently they are the development and the sublimation of forms and subjects already current; for, as Dumas pre truly said, it is mankind, and not the individual man, that invents. The wagon of Thespis preceded the stage of schylus, while Thespis himself had predecessors who did not even adopt the wagon. The great dramatic schools of all periods took the greater and better part of their themes from the myth, history, or fiction current in their day. So it has been with most other kinds of literature, and to this rule the Commedia of Dante, though one of the most truly original creations of the human mind, forms no exception. The main subject of the poem, the visit of a living man, in person or in vision, to the world of the dead, and his report of what he had seen and heard there, belongs to a class of world-myths than which few are more widely distributed in place or time, and none have been more[2] fortunate in the place won for them by the masters of literature. After occupying an important place in several of the antique religions it afforded subjects to the genius of Homer, Plato, and Virgil; it was then adopted into the early Christian Church, and afterwards constituted one of the favourite subjects in the popular literature of the Middle Ages, until, finally, Dante exhausted the great potentialities of the theme, and precluded all further developments. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 50021
Author: Boswell, Charles Stuart
Release Date: Sep 20, 2015
Format: eBook
Language: English