In Memoriam. PERCY GRAEME TURNBULL NATUS EST MAII DIE VICESIMO OCTAVO A. D. MDCCCLXXVIII OBIIT FEBRUARII DUODECIMO A. D. MDCCCLXXXVII. οἷα πρὶν ἀνθῆσαι ῥόδον ὄλλυται, ἐξεμαράνθης, σοῦ δὲ χάριν Μούσαις, ὁσάκις φάος ἔρχεται ἦρος, PREFACE. THE Percy Turnbull Memorial Lectureship of Poetry was established in the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, in 1889, by Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull, in memory of their son, Percy Graeme Turnbull. The first course was given in 1891, by Mr. Edmund Clarence Stedman, on "The Nature and Elements of Poetry," and was followed, in 1892, by the course contained in this volume. The lectures are printed as they were delivered, with the exception of a few very slight changes. Their aim is to exhibit concisely, but clearly, the leading characteristics of the best classical Greek poets, and to illustrate the place of ancient Greece in the general history of poetry. I should like the book to be considered as a member of a series, to which other volumes, by other writers, will doubtless, in due course, be added; a series deriving unity from the Turnbull foundation, and associated with the University, whose place among elder sisters is already one of such peculiar distinction. As these pages will meet the eyes of some among those who heard the lectures given, I may be allowed to renew here the expression of my warm gratitude to that audience at Baltimore whose sympathy, so encouraging at the time, will always be to me one of the brightest of memories. CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND, October, 1893. R. C. JEBB. CONTENTS. The Hellenic mind a novel force in the ancient world Some pre-Hellenic civilizations Homeric poetry as a presage of Greek achievement The highest form of Greek epos is the Homeric Relation of the Epic period to the Lyric |