Aeschylus and Sophocles, and, in part, Euripides, more accessible to the countrymen of Shakespeare is, I trust, at least a respectable endeavour. This little book is meant to be used as a companion volume to Sophocles in English Verse (1883) and Aeschylus in English Verse (1891), published by Kegan Paul and Co. I have therefore quoted very sparingly from either. Nor have I availed myself to a much greater extent of the permission of Macmillan and Co. and the Messrs. Black to repeat statements formerly made in "Green's Classical Writers" (Sophocles) and the Ency. Brit. (art. Sophocles), where I have treated more fully of the central figure in the immortal group of Athenian tragic poets than was possible within the limits here allotted to me. LEWIS CAMPBELL. THE purpose of this book is to afford some assistance to those who desire to obtain a real hold-whether in studying the originals or by reading translations—of the chief masterpieces of Greek Tragedy, considered as a great and important phase of human culture. As a preliminary step, before entering on a nearer scrutiny, it is well to endeavour to form a general conception of the phenomenon, of which one part is here to be described. Such an endeavour must largely be guided by light derived from experience and tradition, and even when the result has been formulated, it may have to be subsequently modified so as to be brought into closer harmony with fact. 1. Books to consult : Aristotle's Poetics; Lessing's Dramaturgie (Dramatic Notes, in Bohn's Series); Hegel's Aesthetic; Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Idea, Eng. Trans. vol. iii. c. 37; Dryden's Prose Writings. B There is a widespread notion that the theatre is for amusement, and to have the feelings harrowed is not to be amused. "Why see, or hear, or read, what makes one wretched ?" is often said when any serious work of fiction or dramatic art is spoken of. "There is so much that is painful in actual life that we do not care to have it pressed upon us in our moments of recreation." The Athenians also, as we shall find, did not choose to be reminded too pointedly of their own sorrows, and there are tragedies which either from defective art1 or from a mistaken realism lie justly open to such an objection. The great artist, however, knows the secret of avoiding this. Sir Walter Scott, when his humble friend Laidlaw had buried one of his children, wrote as follows the same evening in his diary :— "I saw the poor child's funeral from a distance. Ah, that Distance! What a magician for conjuring up scenes of joy or sorrow, smoothing all asperities, reconciling all incongruities, veiling all absurdness, softening every coarseness, doubling every effect by the influence of the imagination. A Scottish wedding should be seen at a distance; the gay band of the dancers just distinguished amid the elderly group of the spectators-the glass held high, and the distant cheers as it is swallowed, should be only a sketch, not a finished 1 As in Godwin's Antonio. See Essays of Elia. |