CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY IN LITERATURE AND ART 689"Hebraism" and "Hellenism" as the inspiration of modern ideals. The latter, he
said, aimed at seeing "things as they really are." Nevertheless, there were many
creative uses of the classical myths. Arnold himself was a very good classicist
and translator and a gifted critic and poet, who looked back to the classical world
for the "moral grandeur" that he found to be missing in his own age.
Many other poets used the classical myths for their own purposes; in Ulysses
(1833, published in 1842) Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1883) used the hero set-
ting forth once more "to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield," as an exam-
ple for the poet who must continue "going forward and braving the struggle of
life." The epic Life and Death of Jason (1867) by William Morris was unusual in
scale, since most authors, poets, and novelists (of whom George Eliot was per-
haps the most imbued with knowledge of the classics) preferred to use themes
from classical literature for shorter poems, allegory, or allusion. The influence
of Homer was especially strong in the ideals of English education, where the
arete of Achilles was thought to inspire physical courage and manly vigor. At
the same time, the aristocratic milieu of Homeric action appealed to the senti-
ment of educated Victorians, who had little sympathy for the Homeric Thersites.
Nevertheless, it was not so much the individualism of Achilles as the group dis-
cipline of Sparta that proved to be a more important influence, and lessons were
learned more from classical history than from mythology.
Classical mythology also became the object of serious study by linguists and
anthropologists, of whom Max Miiller (1823-1900), professor of comparative
philology at Oxford, was the earliest and in some ways the most influential and
most misleading (see p. 7). Once scholars began to develop unitary theories of
mythology, the creative use of classical mythology was threatened. Yet, as we
have seen in the twentieth and now in our own century, the myths have refused
to die, and they still inspire writers, artists, and musicians.
CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY IN AMERICA
THE SEVENTEENTH THROUGH THE NINETEENTH CENTURIESThe hard life and grinding work ethic in colonial America left little opportunity
for the study of classical mythology, even though Sandys' translation of Ovid
was largely written in Virginia. Americans in colonial times read Homer (in
Pope's translation), Vergil (more in Dryden's translation than in Latin), and Ovid
(both in Latin and in Sandys' translation and in the literal prose translation of
John Clarke, published in London in 1742) and included Vergil and Ovid in the
school curriculum, not always with approval. Cotton Mather (1663-1728) be-
lieved that classical poetry was frivolous and dangerous for the soul: "Preserve
the chastity of your soul from the dangers you may incur, by a conversation
with the Muses, that are no better than harlots," he said in 1726. The great Boston
teacher, Ezekiel Cheever, warned his pupils not to be charmed by Ovid's Meta-