#a+

Elsewhere we can see the force of this un-Dionysiac spirit directed actively against myth if we look at the excessive growth in the presentation of character and of psychological refinement in tragedy from Sophocles onwards. Character is no longer meant to be capable of being expanded into an eternal type; on the contrary, artificial subsidiary features, shading and the fine definition of every line, are all meant to give such an impression of individuality that the spectator no longer senses the myth at all, but only the great fidelity to nature and the imitative skills of the artist. Here too we may observe the victory of the phenomenal over the universal, and pleasure being taken in the individual anatomical specimen, as it were; already we are breathing the air of a theoretical world where scientific understanding is more highly prized than the artistic reflection of a universal rule.