Dramatic EssaysJ.M. Dent & Sons, Limited, 1921 - 299 pages |
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Page xiii
... raised in it . It has therefore to be supplemented by his prefaces and dedications to various plays , in studying which we have an ample opportunity of following the always interesting and sometimes rather puzzling evolutions of his ...
... raised in it . It has therefore to be supplemented by his prefaces and dedications to various plays , in studying which we have an ample opportunity of following the always interesting and sometimes rather puzzling evolutions of his ...
Page 1
... raised you to the highest commands , and where you have not the excuse of other men , that you have been ill used , and therefore laid down arms . Í know no other quarrel you can have to verse , than that which Spurina had to his beauty ...
... raised you to the highest commands , and where you have not the excuse of other men , that you have been ill used , and therefore laid down arms . Í know no other quarrel you can have to verse , than that which Spurina had to his beauty ...
Page 10
... raised a logical objection against it - that it was only genere et fine , and so not altogether perfect , was yet well received by the rest ; and after they had given order to the watermen to turn their barge , and row softly , that ...
... raised a logical objection against it - that it was only genere et fine , and so not altogether perfect , was yet well received by the rest ; and after they had given order to the watermen to turn their barge , and row softly , that ...
Page 19
... raised within , Parmeno , who was left upon the stage , has not above five lines to speak . C'est bien employer un temps si court , says the French poet , who furnished me with one of the observations : and almost all their tragedies ...
... raised within , Parmeno , who was left upon the stage , has not above five lines to speak . C'est bien employer un temps si court , says the French poet , who furnished me with one of the observations : and almost all their tragedies ...
Page 22
... raising horror than compassion in an audience : leaving love untouched , whose gentleness would have tempered them ; which is the most frequent of all the passions , and which , being the private concernment of every person , is soothed ...
... raising horror than compassion in an audience : leaving love untouched , whose gentleness would have tempered them ; which is the most frequent of all the passions , and which , being the private concernment of every person , is soothed ...
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Common terms and phrases
acknowledge action admiration Æneas Æneid Æneis amongst ancients argument Aristotle audience Augustus beauties Ben Jonson better betwixt blank verse Boccace Cæsar Catiline character Chaucer comedy commend compass confess Crites critics defend Dido discourse Dramatic Poesy Dryden Duke of Lerma endeavoured English epic Essay Eugenius Euripides excellent expression fancy father faults favour Fletcher French genius Georgics give Grecian Greek hero Homer honour Horace humour imagination imitation invention Italian JOHN DRYDEN Jonson judge judgment Julius Cæsar kind language Latin least Lisideius lived Lord Lordship Lucretius manners modern nature never noble numbers observed opinion Ovid passions perfection persons Pindaric pleased plot poem poet preface prose reader reason rhyme Roman satire scene Segrais Sejanus sense serious plays Shakspeare Silent Woman speak stage suppose Theocritus things thought Tis true tragedy translation Turnus Virgil virtue words writ write
Popular passages
Page 40 - He is many times flat and insipid, his comic wit degenerating into clenches, his serious swelling into bombast. But he is always great when some great occasion is presented to him.
Page ii - WILL BE PLEASED TO SEND FREELY TO ALL APPLICANTS A LIST OF THE PUBLISHED AND PROJECTED VOLUMES TO BE COMPRISED UNDER THE FOLLOWING TWELVE HEADINGS: TRAVEL ^ SCIENCE ^ FICTION THEOLOGY & PHILOSOPHY HISTORY ? CLASSICAL FOR YOUNG PEOPLE ESSAYS ^ ORATORY POETRY & DRAMA BIOGRAPHY ROMANCE IN TWO STYLES OF BINDING, CLOTH, FLAT BACK, COLOURED TOP, AND LEATHER, ROUND CORNERS, GILT TOP.
Page 42 - Shakespeare was the Homer, or father of our dramatic poets ; Jonson was the Virgil, the pattern of elaborate writing ; I admire him, but I love Shakespeare. To conclude of him ; as he has given us the most correct plays, so in the precepts which he has laid down in his Discoveries, we have as many and profitable rules for perfecting the stage, as any wherewith the French can furnish us.
Page 41 - As for Jonson, to whose character I am now arrived, if we look upon him while he was himself (for his last plays were but his dotages), I think him the most learned and judicious writer which any theatre ever had. He was a most severe judge of himself, as well as others. One cannot say he wanted wit, but rather that he was frugal of it.
Page 32 - Tis true, those beauties of the French poesy are such as will raise perfection higher where it is, but are not sufficient to give it where it is not: they are indeed the beauties of a statue, but not of a man, because not animated with the soul of Poesy, which is imitation of humour and passions...
Page 108 - ... one of the greatest, most noble, and most sublime poems, which either this age or nation has produced.
Page 274 - ... they who think too well of their own performances, are apt to boast in their prefaces how little time their works have cost them ; and what other business of more importance interfered ; but the reader will be as apt to ask the question, why they allowed not a longer time to make their works more perfect ? and why they had so despicable an opinion of their judges, as to thrust their indigested stuff upon them, as if they deserved no better...
Page 38 - English stage. For, if you consider the plots, our own are fuller of variety; if the writing, ours are more quick and fuller of spirit...
Page 41 - Wit and language, and humour also in some measure, we had before him ; but something of art was wanting to the drama till he came. He managed his strength to more advantage than any who preceded him. You seldom find him making love in any of his scenes, or endeavouring to move the passions ; his genius was too sullen and saturnine to do it gracefully, especially when he knew he came after those who had performed both to such a height.
Page 162 - Latin would not appear so shining in the English: and where I have enlarged them, I desire the false critics would not always think that those thoughts are wholly mine, but that either they are secretly in the poet, or may be fairly deduced from him...