The Editor's Introduction, Vol. 50: Reader's Guide; Index to the First Lines of Poems, Songs, and Choruses, Hymns and Psalms; General Index; Chronological Index (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Editor's Introduction

Classics is, therefore, one very different from that of the many collections in which the editor's aim has been to select the hundred or the fifty best books in the world; it is nothing less than the purpose to pre sent so ample and characteristic 3. Record of the stream of the world's thought that the observant reader's mind shall be enriched, refined, and fertilized by it. With such objects in view it was essential that the whole series should be in the English language; and this limitation to English necessitated the free use of translations, in Spite of the fact that it is impossible to reproduce perfectly in a translation the style and ?avor of the original. The reader of this collection must not imagine that he can find in an English trans lation of Homer, Dante, Cervantes, or Goethe, all the beauty and charm of the original. Nevertheless, trans lations can yield much genuine cultivation to the student who attends to the substance of the author's thought, although he knows all the time that he is missing some of the elegance and beauty of the original form. Since it is impossible to give in translation the rhythm and sweetness of poetry — and particularly of lyric poetry far the larger part of the poetry in The Harvard Clas sics will be found to be poetry which was written in English.