There are other directions in which the classical revival influenced
writing that need not detain us here. The attempt to transplant
classical metres into English verse which was the concern of a little
group of authors who called themselves the Areopagus came to no more
success than a similar and contemporary attempt did in France. An
earlier and more lasting result of the influence of the classics on new
ways of thinking is the _Utopia_ of Sir Thomas More, based on Plato's
_Republic_, and followed by similar attempts on the part of other
authors, of which the most notable are Harrington's _Oceana_ and Bacon's
_New Atlantis_. In one way or another the rediscovery of Plato proved
the most valuable part of the Renaissance's gift from Greece. The
doctrines of the Symposium coloured in Italy the writings of Castiglione
and Mirandula. In England they gave us Spenser's "Hymn to Intellectual
Beauty," and they affected, each in his own way, Sir Philip Sidney, and
others of the circle of court writers of his time. More's book was
written in Latin, though there is an English translation almost
contemporary. He combines in himself the two strains that we found
working in the Renaissance, for besides its origin in Plato, _Utopia_
owes not a little to the influence of the voyages of discovery.
Pages:
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28