Primitive times are lyrical, ancient times epical, modern times dramatic. The ode sings of eternity, the epic imparts solemnity to... history, the drama depicts life. The characteristic of the first poetry is ingeniousness, of the second, simplicity, of the third, truth.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... But all the feelings that evoke in us the joy or the misfortune of a real person are only produced in us through the intermedi...ary of an image of that joy or that misfortune; the ingeniousness of the first novelist was in understanding that, in the apparatus of our emotions, since the image is the only essential element, the simplification which consists of purely and simply suppressing the factual characters is a definitive improvement.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »