Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Greek Literature

From Douglas Bush's Mythology and the Romantic Tradition in English Poetry:

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806 - 1861)

"All through her girlhood and later life, until marriage enlarged her activities, Greek literature, along with endless novels and modern poetry, fed the passions of a starved nature. But her Hellenic devotion was not entirely Attic. She read every line of the three Greek tragic poets, and all of Plato, and she enjoyed Greek literature for its own sake, but she enjoyed it far more when she could think of it as a vestibule to Christianity."

"On May 1, 1832 (26 years old), she made a record of the number of lines of Greek she could repeat. Of the 3,280 lines of Greek prose, only 90 are from "Heathen writers," and 1860 are from Gregory Nazianzen alone. The total for Greek poetry is 4420, and Aeschylus comes first with 1800, Euripides is a poor third with 350; the second is Synesius, of whose hymns she knows 1310 lines."

The three Greek tragic poets: Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Eripides.

Attic: Attic orators -- Antiphon, Andocides, Lysias, Isocrates, Isaeus, Aeschines, Lycurgus, Demosthenes, Hypereides, and Dinarchus. The Attic dialect was the prestige Greek dialect spoken in Attica which included Athens, akin to the "Queen's English," I suppose.

Synesius: 4th century Greek bishop of Ptolemais in the Libyan Pentapolis; among his writings, 10 Hymns, of a contemplative, Neoplatonic character

Gregory of Nazianzen: 4th century archbishop of Constantinople; widely considered the most accomplished rhetorical stylist of the patristic age. As a classically trained speaker and philospher he infused Hellenism into the early church, establishing the paradigm of Byzantine theologians and church officials. Gregory made a significant impact on the shape of Trinitarian theology among both Greek- and Latin-speaking theologians, and he is remembered as the "Trinitarian Theologian."

Patristic Era: 1st to 8th century; early Christians who ensured correct interpretation of Christianity through writing, sermons, and extensive commentaries on the Bible. The Patristic era began somewhere near the end of the 1st century when the New Testament was almost completed, and ended towards the close of the 8th century.