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 7
... knowledge , they want the radiance and delicacy of * Small portions of these and other essays were published by Captain Medwin in a newspaper . Generally speaking , his ex- tracts are incorrect and incomplete . I must except the Essay ...
... knowledge , they want the radiance and delicacy of * Small portions of these and other essays were published by Captain Medwin in a newspaper . Generally speaking , his ex- tracts are incorrect and incomplete . I must except the Essay ...
Page 11
... knowledge , he assuredly believed that hereafter , as now , he would form a portion of that whole - and a portion less im- perfect , less suffering , than the shackles inseparable from humanity impose on all who live beneath the moon ...
... knowledge , he assuredly believed that hereafter , as now , he would form a portion of that whole - and a portion less im- perfect , less suffering , than the shackles inseparable from humanity impose on all who live beneath the moon ...
Page 14
... knowledge afforded by adepts in all arts , he was better qualified by study and by his gift of language and enthusiasm to explain these , as they form a portion of Homer's poetry , than any individual whose knowledge was limited to one ...
... knowledge afforded by adepts in all arts , he was better qualified by study and by his gift of language and enthusiasm to explain these , as they form a portion of Homer's poetry , than any individual whose knowledge was limited to one ...
Page 17
... knowledge , a delicate and trembling sensibility , and preserved freshness of mind after a life of considerable adver- sity . As a favourite friend of my father , we had sought her with eagerness , and the most open and cordial ...
... knowledge , a delicate and trembling sensibility , and preserved freshness of mind after a life of considerable adver- sity . As a favourite friend of my father , we had sought her with eagerness , and the most open and cordial ...
Page 19
... knowledge of his kind , was per- spicuous , subtle , comprehensive , and just ; the pure and lofty enthusiasm with which he regarded the im- provement of his own species . He had but one defect - which was his leaving his life ...
... knowledge of his kind , was per- spicuous , subtle , comprehensive , and just ; the pure and lofty enthusiasm with which he regarded the im- provement of his own species . He had but one defect - which was his leaving his life ...
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.