There was movement, but it was not always
forward movement. And if progress was illusory in some instances, may it
not, possibly, have been so in all? It is at least worth inquiry how far
the fine arts have ever been in a state of true progress, going forward
regularly from good to better, each generation building on the work of
its predecessors and surpassing that work, in the way in which science
has normally progressed when material conditions were favorable.
If, with a view to answering this question, we examine, however
cursorily, the history of the five great arts, we shall find a somewhat
different state of affairs in the case of each. In the end it may be
possible to formulate something like a general rule that shall accord
with all the facts. Let us begin with the greatest and simplest of the
arts, the art of poetry.
In the history of poetry we shall find less evidence of progress than
anywhere else, for it will be seen that its acknowledged masterpieces
are almost invariably near the beginning of a series rather than near
the end. Almost as soon as a clear and flexible language has been formed
by any people, a great poem has been composed in that language, which
has remained not only unsurpassed, but unequalled, by any subsequent
work. Homer is for us, as he was for the Greeks, the greatest of their
poets; and if the opinion could be taken of all cultivated readers in
those nations that have inherited the Greek tradition, it is doubtful
whether he would not be acclaimed the greatest poet of the ages.
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