Charles Editors

CHAPTER I

THE SAVAGE’S DREAD OF INCEST

PRIMITIVE MAN is known to us by the stages of development through which he has passed: that is, through the inanimate monuments and implements which he has left behind for us, through our knowledge of his art, his religion and his attitude towards life, which we have received either directly or through the medium of legends, myths and fairy-tales; and through the remnants of his ways of thinking that survive in our own manners and customs. Moreover, in a certain sense he is still our contemporary:

Ahmose (1550-1525)

Amenhotep I (1525-1504)

Thutmose I (1504-1492)

Thutmose II (1492-1479)

Thutmose III (1479-1425)

Hatshepsut (1473-1458)

Amenhotep II (1427-1400)

Thutmose IV (1400-1390)

Amenhotep III (1390-1352)

Amenhotep IV/Akhenaten (1352-1336)

Smenkhare (?)

Neferneferuaten (who some scholars believe was Nefertiti) (?)

Tutankhamen (1336-1327)

Ay (1327-1323)

Horemheb (1323-1295)

Ahmose (1550-1525)

Amenhotep I (1525-1504)

Thutmose I (1504-1492)

Thutmose II (1492-1479)

Thutmose III (1479-1425)

Hatshepsut (1473-1458)

Amenhotep II (1427-1400)

Thutmose IV (1400-1390)

Amenhotep III (1390-1352)

Amenhotep IV/Akhenaten (1352-1336)

Smenkhare (?)

Neferneferuaten (who some scholars believe was Nefertiti) (?)

Tutankhamen (1336-1327)

Ay (1327-1323)

Horemheb (1323-1295)

If any ancient “philosophical” poetry retains its value, a value which we fail to find in modern poetry of the same type, we investigate on the assumption that we shall find some difference to which the mere difference of date is irrelevant.

the philosophy is essential to the structure and that the structure is essential to the poetic beauty of the parts

perhaps the basis of the error is his apparently commendatory interpretation of the effort of the modern poet, namely, that the latter endeavours “to produce in us a state.”

applied itself to life too uniformly

It was incapable of complete expansion into pure vision.

the man who is trying to deal with ideas in themselves, and the effort of the poet, who may be trying to realize ideas,

But poetry can be penetrated by a philosophic idea, it can deal with this idea when it has reached the point of immediate acceptance,