The Real and Ideal in Literature Author:Frank Preston Stearns General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1892 Original Publisher: J.G. Cupples company Subjects: Realism in literature Idealism in literature Literary Criticism / General Literary Criticism / American / General Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Notes: This is a black and white ... more »OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: He is certainly the greatest of dramatic poets. That is a fact generally, perhaps universally, admitted. Homer, however, is the greatest of epic poets, and considering the prehistoric period in which he lived, he appears to us the most wonderful of all human phenomena save one. He excels Shakespeare in the mellow tone and purity of his style, as Shakespeare excels him in subtlety of thought and in the variety of human moods and passions he portrays. Such plays as " Troilus and Cressida " or " Timon " seem fantastic after reading the interview between Priam and Achilles, and as the perfection of art on a grand scale the Odyssey remains still without an equal. Professor Sophocles was of opinion that Homer was also a great man of affairs like Pisistratus. The " Prometheus " of Eschylus stands like the Matterhorn in solitary grandeur: there is nothing else like it. So the " Agamemnon" of schylus and the "CEdipus " of Sophocles may not be equal to " Hamlet" and " Macbeth," but they make a stronger impression than " Julius Caesar " and " Coriolanus." Only here and there in Shakespeare's plays are passages to be met with which can compare with the lyric beauty of the Greek chorus. The " QMipus Tyrannus " is the most terrible of tragedies, and yet the man himself is perfectly human. Considerable portions of Shakespeare's Roman plays, especially " Antony and Cleopatra," were taken f...« less