"This, however, is a digression; the question before us is whether
Aristophanes really liked AEschylus or only pretended to do so. It
must be remembered that the claims of AEschylus, Sophocles and
Euripides, to the foremost place amongst tragedians were held to be as
incontrovertible as those of Dante, Petrarch, Tasso and Ariosto to be
the greatest of Italian poets, are held among the Italians of to-day.
If we can fancy some witty, genial writer, we will say in Florence,
finding himself bored by all the poets I have named, we can yet
believe he would be unwilling to admit that he disliked them without
exception. He would prefer to think he could see something at any
rate in Dante, whom he could idealise more easily, inasmuch as he was
more remote; in order to carry his countrymen the farther with him, he
would endeavour to meet them more than was consistent with his own
instincts. 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.
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