The Theory of Poetry in England: Its Development in Doctrines and Ideas from the Sixteenth Century to the Nineteenth Century |
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Page viii
... things like truth or probable - i.e . natural fiction - or things merely within the conceived possibility of Nature or founded on popular belief - i.e . supernatural fiction . " The poetic world , " says Granville , " is nothing but ...
... things like truth or probable - i.e . natural fiction - or things merely within the conceived possibility of Nature or founded on popular belief - i.e . supernatural fiction . " The poetic world , " says Granville , " is nothing but ...
Page 1
... things are trita et obvia . But I would either find some supernatural cause whereby my pen might walk in the superlative degree , or else I would undertake to answer for any imperfection that she hath , and thereupon raise the praise of ...
... things are trita et obvia . But I would either find some supernatural cause whereby my pen might walk in the superlative degree , or else I would undertake to answer for any imperfection that she hath , and thereupon raise the praise of ...
Page 4
... things otherwise than they be in deed , and others right as they be in deed , neither fairer nor fouler , nor greater nor smaller . There be again of these glasses that show things exceeding fair and comely ; others that show figures ...
... things otherwise than they be in deed , and others right as they be in deed , neither fairer nor fouler , nor greater nor smaller . There be again of these glasses that show things exceeding fair and comely ; others that show figures ...
Page 5
... things unknown , the poet's pen Turns them to shapes , and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name . W. SHAKESPEARE , Midsummer Night's Dream , 1600 . ... The forms of things unknown . not tied to Poesy ... doth truly refer ...
... things unknown , the poet's pen Turns them to shapes , and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name . W. SHAKESPEARE , Midsummer Night's Dream , 1600 . ... The forms of things unknown . not tied to Poesy ... doth truly refer ...
Page 6
... things . . . . The third requisite in our poet or maker is imitation , to be able to convert the substance or riches of another poet to his own use . To make choice of one excellent man above the rest , and so to follow him till he grow ...
... things . . . . The third requisite in our poet or maker is imitation , to be able to convert the substance or riches of another poet to his own use . To make choice of one excellent man above the rest , and so to follow him till he grow ...
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Common terms and phrases
action admiration Aeneis ancients Aristotle beauty Biographia Literaria blank verse character colours composition criticism delight descriptive poetry divine doth DRYDEN effect English English Poetry epic epic poetry Essay Essay on Criticism Euripides excellent excitement expression fable faculty fancy faults feeling feigned fiction G. H. LEWES genius give Greek harmony hath Homer Horace human ideas images imagination imitation invention JOHNSON judge judgment kind language learning Lives Lyrical Ballads manner matter mean metre Milton mind modern moral nature never objects observed original Ovid passions perfect philosophical Pindar pleasing pleasure poesy poet poet's poetical Poetry and Painting Pope Preface principles produced prose reader reason resemblance rhyme rules S. T. COLERIDGE sense Sophocles sort soul sound species spirit style sublime syllables T]he taste things thought tion tragedy translation true truth versification Virgil vulgar words WORDSWORTH write
Popular passages
Page 184 - The antechapel where the statue stood Of Newton with his prism and silent face, The marble index of a mind for ever Voyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone.
Page 266 - A perfect judge will read each work of wit With the same spirit that its author writ : Survey the whole, nor seek slight faults to find Where Nature moves, and rapture warms the mind ; Nor lose, for that malignant dull delight, The gen'rous pleasure to be charm'd with wit.
Page 85 - The use of this feigned history hath been to give some shadow of satisfaction to the mind of man in those points wherein the nature of things doth deny it, the world being in proportion inferior to the soul...
Page 4 - Lovers, and madmen, have such seething brains, Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend More than cool reason ever comprehends. The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, Are of imagination all compact. One sees more devils than vast hell can hold ; That is, the madman : the lover, all as frantic, Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt...
Page 114 - It has been before observed that images, however beautiful, though faithfully copied from nature, and as accurately represented in words, do not of themselves characterize the poet. They become proofs of original genius only as far as they are modified by a predominant passion; or by associated thoughts or images awakened by that passion...
Page 73 - First follow Nature, and your judgment frame By her just standard, which is still the same: Unerring Nature, still divinely bright, One clear, unchanged, and universal light, Life, force, and beauty, must to all impart, At once the source, and end, and test of Art. Art from that fund each just supply provides; Works without show, and without pomp presides: In some fair body thus th...
Page 37 - With this he breaketh from the sweet embrace Of those fair arms which bound him to her breast, And homeward through the dark laund runs apace; Leaves Love upon her back, deeply distress'd. Look how a bright star shooteth from the sky, So glides he in the night from Venus...
Page 68 - The form is mechanic, when on any given material we impress a predetermined form, not necessarily arising out of the properties of the material; as when to a mass of wet clay we give whatever shape we wish it to retain when hardened. The organic form, on the other hand, is innate; it shapes, as it develops, itself from within, and the fullness of its development is one and the same with the perfection of its outward form.
Page 282 - Led on the eternal Spring. Not that fair field Of Enna, where Proserpine gathering flowers, Herself a fairer flower by gloomy Dis Was gathered, which cost Ceres all that pain To seek her through the world...
Page 85 - Therefore, because the acts or events of true history have not that magnitude which satisfieth the mind of man, poesy feigneth acts and events greater and more heroical : because true history propoundeth the successes and issues of actions not so agreeable to the merits of virtue and vice, therefore poesy feigns them more just in retribution, and more according to revealed providence...