Quotation added by staff

Why not add this quote to your bookmarks?

  ...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...   Wilde, Oscar

Excerpt from Reviews · This quote is about acting and actors · Search on Google Books to find all references and sources for this quotation.

• Biography
• 1 Fan
• This quote in blogs