A defence of poetry. Essay on the literature, arts, and manners of the Athenians. Preface to the Banquet of Plato. The banquetLea and Blanchard, 1840 |
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Page 15
... admirable specimen of Socratic irony . In the latter the opinions and views of Plato enounced in " The Republic , " which appeared remarkable to Shelley , are preserved , with the addition , in some instances , of his own brief ...
... admirable specimen of Socratic irony . In the latter the opinions and views of Plato enounced in " The Republic , " which appeared remarkable to Shelley , are preserved , with the addition , in some instances , of his own brief ...
Page 16
Percy Bysshe Shelley. are to be sought in the most admirable works of art ; he therefore studied intently , and with anxious scrutiny , the parts in detail , and their harmony as a whole , to discover what tends to form a beautiful or ...
Percy Bysshe Shelley. are to be sought in the most admirable works of art ; he therefore studied intently , and with anxious scrutiny , the parts in detail , and their harmony as a whole , to discover what tends to form a beautiful or ...
Page 19
... admirable qualities were added , his genius ; his keen insight into human motive - as his theory of morals , which ... admiration , may hope to join him . PUTNEY , December , 1839 . " That thou , O my Brother , impart to PREFACE . 19.
... admirable qualities were added , his genius ; his keen insight into human motive - as his theory of morals , which ... admiration , may hope to join him . PUTNEY , December , 1839 . " That thou , O my Brother , impart to PREFACE . 19.
Page 34
... admiration Nor let it be objected , that these cha- racters are remote from moral perfection , and that they are by no means to be considered as edifying patterns for general imitation . Every epoch , under names more or less specious ...
... admiration Nor let it be objected , that these cha- racters are remote from moral perfection , and that they are by no means to be considered as edifying patterns for general imitation . Every epoch , under names more or less specious ...
Page 35
... admirable doctrines that men hate , and despise , and censure , and deceive , and subjugate one another . But poetry acts in another and diviner manner . It awakens and enlarges the mind itself by rendering it the receptacle of a ...
... admirable doctrines that men hate , and despise , and censure , and deceive , and subjugate one another . But poetry acts in another and diviner manner . It awakens and enlarges the mind itself by rendering it the receptacle of a ...
Common terms and phrases
according actions admirable Agathon Albedir Alcestis Alcibiades ancient Apollodorus Aristodemus Aristophanes assert Athenian beautiful become called cause cerning conceive conduct considered Corybantes death Defence of Poetry degree delight desire Diotima discourse distinction divine doctrines effect entreat Eryximachus eternal evil excellent existence express faculty feel fragments gods happiness harmony Hesiod Homer honourable human mind ignorance imagination immortal inspired intellectual Jupiter knowledge language laws live Love lover man-the mankind manner Marsyas melody MENEXENUS ment moral multitude nature never object observe opinion pain passion Pausanias perfect Periclean age Pericles person Phædrus philosophers Plato pleasure poetical poetry poets portion possession praise present principle produced reason regard relation religion render replied rhapsodist seek sensation sense Shelley society Socrates sophism soul speak spirit suffer things thou thought tion truth uncon universal verse virtue whilst wisdom wise wonder words
Popular passages
Page 29 - But poets, or those who imagine and express this indestructible order, are not only the authors of language and of music, of the dance, and architecture, and statuary, and painting; they are the institutors of laws, and the founders of civil society, and the inventors of the arts of life, and the teachers, who draw into a certain propinquity with the beautiful and the true, that partial apprehension of the agencies of the invisible world which is called religion.
Page 54 - But it exceeds all imagination to conceive what would have been the moral condition of the world if neither Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Calderon, Lord Bacon, nor Milton had ever existed...
Page 30 - But poetry in a more restricted sense expresses those arrangements of language, and especially metrical language, which are created by that imperial faculty; whose throne is curtained within the invisible nature of man. And this springs from the nature itself of language, which is a more direct representation of the actions and passions of our internal being, and is susceptible of more various and delicate combinations, than colour, form, or motion, and is more plastic and obedient to the control...
Page 62 - The persons in whom this power resides, may often, as far as regards many portions of their nature, have little apparent correspondence with that spirit of good of which they are the ministers. But even whilst they deny and abjure, they are yet compelled to serve, the power which is seated on the throne of their own soul.
Page 58 - Poetry thus makes immortal all that is best and most beautiful in the world; it arrests the vanishing apparitions which haunt the interlunations of life, and veiling them, or in language or in form, sends them forth among mankind, bearing sweet news of kindred joy to those with whom their sisters...
Page 57 - It is as it were the interpenetration of a diviner nature through our own ; but its footsteps are like those of a wind over the sea, which the coming calm erases, and whose traces remain only as on the wrinkled sand which paves it.
Page 56 - The greatest poet even cannot say it ; for the mind in creation is as a fading coal, which some invisible influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness ; this power arises from within, like the colour of a flower which fades and changes as it is developed, and the conscious portions of our natures are unprophetic either of its approach or its departure.
Page 29 - A poet participates in the eternal, the infinite, and the one; as far as relates to his conceptions, time and place and number are not. The grammatical forms which express the moods of time, and the difference of persons, and the distinction of place, are convertible with respect to the highest poetry without injuring it as poetry...
Page 35 - Few poets of the highest class have chosen to exhibit the beauty of their conceptions in its naked truth and splendour ; and it is doubtful whether the alloy of costume, habit, &c., be not necessary to temper this planetary music for mortal ears.
Page 35 - The great secret of morals is love ; or a going out of our own nature, and an identification of ourselves with the beautiful which exists in thought, action, or person, not our own. A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively ; he must put himself in the place of another and of many others ; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own. The great instrument of moral good is the imagination ; and poetry administers to the effect by acting upon the cause.