Sexual life in ancient Greece : with thirty-two full-page plates
CHAPTER VII EROTIC IN GREEK LITERATURE
In a history of morals a summary sketch of literature and art is necessary, since the intellectual works set down in writing or shaped by plastic artists give a true reflected image of the times. Accordingly we shall be able to include in the circle of our treatment references to such works only as have a pronounced erotic character or of which erotic episodes form a substantial part. Also we shall pay no attention here to the extensive homosexual literature, since this will be treated in detail in a later chapter (pp. 411-98). Neither shall we have to speak here of tragic and comic poetry, since we have already examined the erotic character of these two kinds of poetry in the fourth chapter. Even with these limitations the quantity of material is still enormous.
The task is further rendered essentially difficult by the fact that up till now serviceable introductory works are almost entirely wanting, for the history of the erotic literature and art of the Greeks, which we so urgently need, still remains unwritten, and only here and there are modest intimations to be found. ‘Thus the author had to examine the whole of Greek literature for the purpose stated without the assistance of any preliminary works worth mentioning. Anyone who has even a rudimentary idea of the extent of the Greek written works which remain to us, or whose content can be reconstructed by the exact method of philological research, will not demand what is impossible from a single individual, who in this case would need to attain absolute perfection. Itis pre-eminently in the
238