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Naturalism as defined by each character having near equal significance as opposed to protagonist and supporting cast, was the direction Shakespeare was headed. Compare his early works to Lear. By the time of Lear, Edmund/Edgar, Regan Goneril et al have as much stage time as the king. Checkov picked up on this. Compare Trepleff in The Seagull (protagonist) to the myriad interesting characters in The Cherry Orchard. It is a more Godlike view of humanity, in all its classes and types. All art is fiction. The painting is not a photograph and a photograph is not reality. Imagine the dearth of knowledge about ourselves without this "fiction" Include the Mona Lisa and Monet while you're at it. Shake introduced "blank" verse, non rhyming. Verse traditionally has been in rhyming couplets as a mnemomic device for illiterate societies. It has been a joy to this thread. Remember that the Left kills its own. Meyerhold, the original Trepleff at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1896 and later the head of the Bolshevik theatre was shot in the back of the head at Stalin's command. I HATE the Left.

I guess we live in different worlds. To me, comparing literary devices is like comparing copper and PVC plumbing. They are just different ways of accomplishing something, and it is interesting only to practitioners. As long as the toilet flushes, who else cares?