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land poem. The Greek was and still is a native of both sea and land which are physically interwined and bound together in Greece as in no other portion of the globe. His great poetical book envisages his country as well as himself. The main point, however, is that Fableland being negative to the Greek world is put outside of all of its known geographical limits, and thus becomes the setting for the marvelous story. It may here be added that Grimm's Tales have a similar border which lies between civilized life and the forest, since the forest was, for our Teutonic ancestors, the fairy realm, in which their supernatural beings dwelt for the most part. Out of culture back to nature the human being sometimes has to go and have strange communings with the spirits there; such is often the movement of the Fairy Tale. But who are these spirits or weird powers dwelling in the lone island or in the solitary wood? 3. This question brings us to the pivotal fact of all Fableland: it is ruled over by a new order of deities, not Olympians; the poet, throwing it out of Hellas below, throws it out of Olympus above. Indeed what else could he do? The Gods of Greece are the protectors of its institutions, State and Family; they are the embodiment of its spirit, of its civilization. But a spirit is now portrayed which is negative to Greek spirit, which denies and defies it in its very essence; the result is a new set of supernatural shapes which dominate the separated world. The negation also must be seen taking on a plastic form, and appearing before the Greek imagination. The deities of Fableland, or its supernatural powers, are therefore opposite to the deities of Olympus. Hence their shape is changed, they can be even monstrosities, such as Polyphemus, the Laestrigonians, Scylla and Charybdis. Circe and Calypso are beautiful women, yet not natural women, in spite of their beauty; there is something superhuman about them, divine, though they be not Olympians. Shapes of wonder they all seem, unreal, yet in intimate connection with mankind. Moreover they are local, attached to a given spot, or island; they are not universal, they have no general sway like the Olympians; limited, confined, particular is their authority, which the human being can and must transcend. At this point Olympus can descend into their world and give command. So, after all, the Greek Gods rule over the realm which is negative to them, must do so, else they we
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