The Project Gutenberg EBook of Euphorion, by Vernon Lee

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Title: Euphorion
Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the
Renaissance - Vol. I

Author: Vernon Lee

Release Date: February 17, 2010 [EBook #31303]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EUPHORION ***

Produced by Marc D'Hooghe

EUPHORION:

BEING STUDIES OF THE ANTIQUE AND THE MEDIAEVAL IN THE RENAISSANCE

BY

VERNON LEE

_Author of "Studies of the 18th Century in Italy," "Belcaro" etc._

VOL. I.

WALTER PATER,
IN APPRECIATION OF THAT WHICH, IN EXPOUNDING THE
BEAUTIFUL THINGS OF THE PAST, HE HAS ADDED TO
THE BEAUTIFUL THINGS OF THE PRESENT.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

Introduction
The Sacrifice
The Italy of the Elizabethan Dramatists
The Out-Door Poetry
Symmetria Prisca

INTRODUCTION.

_Faustus is therefore a parable of the impotent yearnings of the
Middle Ages--its passionate aspiration, its conscience-stricken
desire, its fettered curiosity amid the tramping limits of
imperfect knowledge and irrational dogmatism. The indestructible
beauty of Greek art,--whereof Helen was an emblem, became, through
the discovery of classic poetry and sculpture, the possession of
the modern world. Mediaevalism took this Helen to wife, and their
offspring, the Euphorion of Goethe's drama, is the spirit of the
modern world._--J.A. Symonds, "Renaissance In Italy," vol. ii. p.
54.

Euphorion is the name given by Goethe to the marvellous child born of
the mystic marriage of Faust and Helena. Who Faust is, and who Helena,
we all know. Faust, of whom no man can remember the youth or childhood,
seems to have come into the world by some evil spell, already old and
with the faintness of body and of mind which are the heritage of age;
and every additional year of mysterious study and abortive effort has
made him more vacillating of step and uncertain of sight, but only more
hungry of soul. Postponed and repressed by reclusion from the world, and
desperate tension over insoluble problems; diverted into the channels of
mere thought and vision