The Unity of Civilization by Various
page 10 of 319 (03%)
page 10 of 319 (03%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
Roman Law conceptions prevail. Forces making for unity: the notion of a
'law of nature'; the pursuit of common ends. International law, private and public. CHAPTER VI. THE COMMON ELEMENTS IN EUROPEAN LITERATURE AND ART The question of the place of nationality in art and literature. It has little or no place in the Middle Ages. The mediaeval epic; its character. The mediaeval romance. Modern European art and literature transcends national conditions. The characteristics of the new European literature of the fourteenth century: Dante, Boccaccio, Chaucer. The drama of England and Spain in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Painting and sculpture from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century. The classical mind, and the principle of good taste and common sense. The realism of Defoe and Hogarth, and the Spanish Picaresque novel. Sentimentalism in the eighteenth century. The poetry and painting of nature. The great revolution and the romantic movement. Great literature and art are not national but human. CHAPTER VII. SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY Western civilization possesses a certain unity (1) in the sense of unity of character, (2) in the fact that it has a common origin, ultimately in the Greco-Roman civilization but more immediately in mediaeval Christendom, and (3) in the sense that its parts have maintained a constant intercommunication of ideas. (4) The different qualities of German, French, and English thinkers have in large measure complemented one another, (5) and the history of science and of speculative |
|