The Masterpieces of Modern Drama, English and American: Abridged in Narrative, with Dialogue of the Great Scenes (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Masterpieces of Modern Drama, English and American: Abridged in Narrative, With Dialogue of the Great Scenes

Now that the nineteenth century hassofarreceded from usthatwecanbegintosurveyitinaperspectivenotdis torted by the prejudices which always mar our vmon of the immdiate present, we are at last able to sum up its efforts and its achievements m the several arts. When we consider theliteratureofthepast hundred earswecannot iailtoremark upontheextraordinaryan un recedented vogue of prosefiction, beginning with the s success of the Waverly novels of Scott 1n England 1n the first quar ter of the cent stimulated by the mdefatigable curiosity which sustains ehumancomecb'ofbalzacinfrancein the mid-years; and ennobled by the lofty veracity of Tol stoy's later studies of human strn es in Russia in the final demdes. Poets there were in the modern literatures, poets of high ambition and of genuine inspiration as well as sincere aspiration; historians and biographers, and emyists, there were in abundance; and yet the ists outnumbered the others and seemed at times almost to outshine them. Indeed, the attraction of fiction was so.

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