For, in plays of this kind,
plays which deal with bygone times, there is always this peculiar charm,
that they combine in one exquisite presentation the passions that are
living with the picturesqueness that is dead. And when we have the
modern spirit given to us in an antique form, the very remoteness of that
form can be made a method of increased realism. This was Shakespeare's
own attitude towards the ancient world, this is the attitude we in this
century should adopt towards his plays, and with a feeling akin to this
it seemed to me that these brilliant young Oxonians were working. If it
was so, their aim is the right one. For while we look to the dramatist
to give romance to realism, we ask of the actor to give realism to
romance.

MODERN GREEK POETRY

(Pall Mall Gazette, May 27, 1885.)

Odysseus, not Achilles, is the type of the modern Greek. Merchandise has
taken precedence of the Muses and politics are preferred to Parnassus.
Yet by the Illissus there are sweet singers; the nightingales are not
silent in Colonus; and from the garden of Greek nineteenth-century poetry
Miss Edmonds has made a very pleasing anthology; and in pouring the wine
from the golden into the silver cup she has still kept much of the beauty
of the original. Even when translated into English, modern Greek lyrics
are preferable to modern Greek loans.

As regards the quality of this poetry, if the old Greek spirit can be
traced at all, it is the spirit of Tyrtaeus and of Theocritus. The
warlike ballads of Rhigas and Aristotle Valaorites have a fine ring of
music and of passion in them, and the folk-songs of George Drosines are
full of charming pictures of rustic life and delicate idylls of
shepherds' courtships. These we acknowledge that we prefer. The flutes
of the sheepfold are more delightful than the clarions of battle. Still,
poetry played such a noble part in the Greek War of Independence that it
is impossible not to look with reverence on the spirited war-songs that
meant so much to those who were righting for liberty and mean so much
even now to their children.

Other poets besides Drosines have taken the legends that linger among the
peasants and given to them an artistic form. The song of The Seasons is
full of beauty, and there is a delightful poem on The Building of St.
Sophia, which tells how the design of that noble building was suggested
by the golden honeycomb of a bee which had flown from the king's palace
with a crumb of blessed bread that had fallen from the king's hands. The
story is still to be found in Thrace.

One of the ballads, also, has a good deal of spirit. It is by Kostes
Palamas and was suggested by an interesting incident which occurred some
years ago in Athens. In the summer of 1881 there was borne through the
streets the remains of an aged woman in the complete costume of a
Pallikar, which dress she had worn at the siege of Missolonghi and in it
had requested to be buried. The life of this real Greek heroine should
be studied by those who are investigating the question of wherein
womanliness consists. The view the poet takes of her is, we need hardly
say, very different from that which Canon Liddon would entertain.