Aristotle's Treatise on Poetry, Translated: With Notes on the Translation, and on the Original : and Two Dissertations, on Poetical, and Musical, Imitation, Volume 1

Front Cover
L. Hansard & Son, 1812 - Aesthetics

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 16 - And ever against eating cares Lap me in soft Lydian airs Married to immortal verse, Such as the meeting soul may pierce In notes, with many a winding bout Of linked sweetness long drawn out, With wanton heed and giddy cunning, The melting voice through mazes running, Untwisting all the chains that tie The hidden soul of harmony; That Orpheus...
Page 19 - The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool, The playful children just let loose from school ; The watch-dog's voice that bay'd the whispering wind, And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind ; These all in sweet confusion sought the shade, And fill'd each pause the nightingale had made.
Page 122 - A whole is that which has a beginning, a middle, and an end. A beginning is that which does not itself follow anything by causal necessity, but after which something naturally is or comes to be. An end, on the contrary, is that which itself naturally follows some other thing, either by necessity, or as a rule, but has nothing following it. A middle is that which follows something as...
Page 18 - Sweet was the sound when oft at evening's close, Up yonder hill the village murmur rose; There as I past with careless steps and slow, The mingling notes came softened from below; The swain responsive as the milk-maid sung, The sober herd that lowed to meet their young, The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool, The playful children just let loose from school, The watch-dog's voice that...
Page 25 - Atinas sustentant aciem. Circum hos utrimque phalanges stant densae, strictisque seges mucronibus horret ferrea: tu currum deserto in gramine versas.' Obstupuit varia confusus imagine rerum 665 Turnus et obtutu tacito stetit. Aestuat ingens uno in corde pudor mixtoque insania luctu et furiis agitatus amor et conscia virtus.
Page 156 - It may be observed, that in many of his plays the latter part is evidently neglected. When he found himself near the end of his work, and, in view of his reward, he shortened the labour to snatch the profit. He therefore remits his efforts where he should most vigorously exert them, and his catastrophe is improbably produced or imperfectly represented.
Page 19 - To th' instruments divine respondence meet; The silver-sounding instruments did meet With the base murmur of the waters' fall ; The waters' fall with difference discreet, Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call; The gentle warbling wind low answered to all.
Page 119 - For Tragedy is an imitation, not of men, but of an action and of life, and life consists in action, and its end is a mode of action, not a quality. Now character determines men's qualities, but it is by their actions that they are happy or the reverse.
Page 136 - Nor, again, should the fall of a very bad man from prosperous to adverse fortune be represented : because, though such a subject may be pleasing from its moral tendency, it will produce neither pity nor terror. For our pity is excited by misfortunes undeservedly suffered, and our terror by some resemblance between the sufferer and ourselves.
Page 114 - Epic poetry agrees so far with tragic as it is an imitation of great characters and actions by means of words; but in this it differs, that it makes use of only one kind of metre throughout, and that it is narrative. It also differs in length, for tragedy endeavours, as far as possible, to confine its action within the limits of a single revolution of the sun, or nearly so; but the time of epic action is indefinite.

Bibliographic information