Do we think of Aeschylus while we wait on the silence of Cassandra, or of Shakespeare while we listen to the wailing of Lear? Not so. The power of the masters is shown by their self-annihilation. It is commensurate with the degree in which they themselves appear not in their work. The harp of the minstrel is untruly touched, if his own glory is all that it records.

John Ruskin, from Modern Painters I (1843)