tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post45552301569010667..comments2024-03-27T16:48:21.039-05:00Comments on Wuthering <br>Expectations: or if people could buy ready-made children at a shop - Samuel Butler's comedyAmateur Reader (Tom)http://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-83103032207861167642016-11-17T22:53:18.329-06:002016-11-17T22:53:18.329-06:00I was wondering, at that point in the novel, why B...I was wondering, at that point in the novel, why Butler was spending so much time on an iconoclastic undergraduate essay. That's the essay where he takes an aggressive side-jab at the Psalms! <br /><br />"Flippant" is good.<br /><br />Ch. 46, if anyone wants to see the passage in context. Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-27373007849169005162016-11-17T14:47:01.477-06:002016-11-17T14:47:01.477-06:00Butler was one of the most flippant minds England ...Butler was one of the most flippant minds England has produced (notice the subtle way he implies Shakespeare is overrated):<br /><br />Is the reputation enjoyed by the three chief Greek tragedians, AEschylus, Sophocles and Euripides,one that will be permanent, or whether they will one day be held to have been overrated.<br /><br />How far I wonder did the Athenians genuinely like these poets, and how far was the applause which was lavished upon them due to fashion or affectation? <br /><br />Numbers, weight of authority, and time, have conspired to place Aristophanes on as high a literary pinnacle as any ancient writer, with the exception perhaps of Homer, but he makes no secret of heartily hating Euripides and Sophocles, and I strongly suspect only praises AEschylus that he may run down the other two with greater impunity. For after all there is no such difference between AEschylus and his successors as will render the former very good and the latter very bad.<br /><br />Without some such palliation as admiration for one, at any rate, of the tragedians, it would be almost as dangerous for Aristophanes to attack them as it would be for an Englishman now to say that he did not think very much of the Elizabethan dramatists. Yet which of us in his heart likes any of the Elizabethan dramatists except Shakespeare? Cleanthesshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15363416290397892659noreply@blogger.com