(continued, funnily enough, from 15a) We don't just assume that the Greeks thought along lines similar to the modern mind, we assume even more implicitly that they expressed themselves in similar terms. Indeed, the limpid clarity of classical writing has been a model not just for our prose writers but for our poets. I myself have peddled the direct simplicity of Greek diction, unmistakable not only in tedious legal wranglers like Lysias but also in the sublime music of poets such as Sappho, Homer and, in later times, Theocritus. We tend to identify lucidity of language with lucidity of thought, and to believe that, minus a few inevitable cultural barriers, Greek is thoroughly intelligible. Oh dear. The trouble comes with dramatic poetry. The problem, I think, is that drama is a communal activity in a way
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