Homer and the cyclic poets were followed at a certain interval by the
dramatic and lyrical poets of Athens, who flourished contemporaneously
with all that is most perfect in the kindred expressions of the poetical
faculty; architecture, painting, music, the dance, sculpture,
philosophy, and we may add, the forms of civil life. For although the
scheme of Athenian society was deformed by many imperfections which
the poetry existing in chivalry and Christianity has erased from the
habits and institutions of modern Europe; yet never at any other period
has so much energy, beauty, and virtue been developed; never was blind
strength and stubborn form so disciplined and rendered subject to the
will of man, or that will less repugnant to the dictates of the
beautiful and the true, as during the century which preceded the death
of Socrates. Of no other epoch in the history of our species have we
records and fragments stamped so visibly with the image of the divinity
in man. But it is poetry alone, in form, in action, or in language,
which has rendered this epoch memorable above all others, and the
storehouse of examples to everlasting time.
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