Classical Mythology

686 THE SURVIVAL OF CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY

heads in another world." In the same poem he evokes the landscape of Greek

mythology:

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Come to the Isthmus! There, where the open sea roars by Parnassus and the

snow shines on the Delphic cliffs! There, to the land of Olympus, there on the

heights of Cithaeron! There, under the pine trees, under the clusters of grapes,

whence Thebe and Ismenus [flow and] roar in the land of Cadmus below, whence

comes the god and where he points back as he comes!

Hôlderlin evokes the places associated with the great Olympian gods,

Poseidon, Apollo, Zeus, and Dionysus, but "gone are the thrones and the tem-

ples," and Delphi is silent. Yet Greece still was a source of inspiration, and through-

out his work, Hôlderlin used Greek mythology to contrast the excitement and pu-

rity of its world with the harsher reality of his own day. This kind of escapism

was a positive influence on the romantic poets in Germany and England.

ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH AND

NINETEENTH CENTURIES

DRYDEN AND POPE

During the eighteenth century, classical influences reached their zenith in Eng-

lish literary circles. Unlike the fashionable writers who inhabited court circles in

France, the English authors succeeded in keeping the classical tradition alive and

vigorous over a longer period. There were, of course, many jejune uses of clas-

sical myths as ornament or mere allusion. The lack of patronage comparable to

that of the courts of Louis XIV and XV meant less brilliant achievements in paint-

ing and music, but the independence of British authors led to a vigorous use of

classical literature. English taste inclined more to Roman models than to Greek

and to history and satire rather than to epic and tragedy. Of authors after Mil-

ton, Dryden and Pope were especially important influences for the survival of

classical mythology.

John Dryden (1631-1700), although a seventeenth-century figure, exercised

such influence as critic, translator, and poet that he established criteria for po-

etry for the first half of the eighteenth century as well. For our survey, his im-

portance lies especially in his monumental achievements as a translator, mostly

from Latin authors, including much of Ovid's Metamorphoses. His translation of

Vergil, in which other translators collaborated, was published in 1693. Dryden

successfully employed the heroic couplet as the proper meter for the translation

of epic, and the style of his translation certainly affected the way in which his

readers approached classical mythology. Pope described it as follows (Imitations

of Horace: The First Epistle of the Second Book of Horace 267-269):

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... Dryden taught to join
The varying verse, the full-resounding line,
The long majestic march and energy divine.