Lectures on the History of Literature, Ancient and Modern, Volume 2T. Dobson and son, 1818 - Literature |
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admiration ancient antiquity appears Ariosto Aristotle atheism attained attempts beauty Bossuet Camoens character chivalrous Christian composition connection corruption cultivated Dante defect Descartes doctrines doubt drama effect eighteenth century England English entirely epic error Europe evil excellence exerted expression external faith fancy feeling foreign France French French poetry genius German German language German literature Ghibelline Greek heroic higher Hugo Grotius human ideas imitation influence intellect invention Italian Italy Klopstock knowledge least Leibnitz less literature Lope de Vega lyrical manner means middle age mode modern moral nation nature never opinion passion peculiar perfection period Petrarch philosophy poem poet poetical political possessed principle produced prose reason regard religion remarkable representation respect rich romance Shakspeare sixteenth century Spain Spaniards Spanish Spanish poetry spirit style subjects Tasso theatre thing thought tion tragedy true truth Voltaire whole worthy writers
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Page 57 - The care of the national language I consider as at all times a sacred trust and a most important privilege of the higher orders of society. Every man of education should make it the object of his unceasing concern, to preserve his language pure and entire, to speak it, so far as is in his power, in all its beauty and perfection...
Page 147 - ... sorrowful sympathy. He was not in knowledge, far less in art, such as since the time of Milton it has been usual to represent him. But I believe that the inmost feelings of his heart, the depths of his peculiar, concentrated, and solitary spirit, could be agitated only by the mournful voice of nature. The feeling by which he seems to have been most connected with ordinary men is that of nationality.
Page 135 - ... this great and divine master the enigma of life is not merely expressed, but solved -" these are the words of Frederic Schlegel, setting him in this above Shakespeare, who for the most part is content, according to him, with putting the riddle of life, without attempting to resolve it. And again, " In every situation and circumstance Calderon is, of all dramatic poets, the most Christian.
Page 144 - It is in these minor pieces of Shakespeare that we are first introduced to a personal knowledge of the great poet and his feelings. When he wrote sonnets, it seems as if he had considered himself as more a poet than when he wrote plays: he was the manager of a theatre, and he viewed the drama as his business; on it he exerted all his intellect and power: but when he had feelings intense and secret to express, he had recourse to a form of writing with which his habits had rendered him less familiar....
Page 134 - The Christianity of this poet, however, does not consist so much in the external circumstances which he has selected, as in his peculiar feeling, and the method of treating his subject which is most common with him. Even where his materials furnish him with no opportunity of drawing the perfect developement of a new life out of death and suffering, yet every thing is conceived in the spirit of this Christian love, and every thing seen in its light, and clothed in the splendour of its heavenly colouring....
Page 224 - With all the abundance of his Italian elegance, what is the overloaded and affected Roscoe when compared with Gibbon ! Coxe, although master of a good and classical style, resembles Robertson in no respect so much as in the superficialness of his researches ; and the statesman Fox has nothing in common with Hume but the bigotry of his party zeal.
Page 108 - A poet of feeling and of love may especially be pardoned such trifling errors. If we regard Tasso merely as a musical poet of feeling, it forms, in truth, no proper subject of reproach, that he is, in a certain sense, uniform, and, throughout, sentimental. Uniformity of this sort seems to be inseparable from that poetry which is in its nature lyrical ; and it seems to me a beauty in Tasso, that he has spread this soft breath of elegy even over the representation of the charms of sense. But an epic...
Page 131 - ... compared with him. But in my opinion the art of the dramatic poet has, besides all this, yet another and a higher end. The enigma of life should not barely be expressed but solved ; the perplexities of the present should indeed be represented, but from them our view should be led to the last developement and the final issue. The poet should entwine the future with the present, and lay before our eyes the mysteries of the internal man.
Page 121 - ... displayed in a purer light than the present can command. The oldest poet of the past, Homer, is at the same time to us a describer of the present in its utmost liveliness and freshness. Every true poet carries into the past his own age, and, in a certain sense, himself. The following appears to me to be the true account of the proper relation between poetry and time. The proper business of poetry is to represent only the eternal, that which is, at all places. and in all times. significant and...
Page 225 - ... the developement of times, and the fortunes of nations. In every situation history and philosophy should be as much as possible united. Philosophy, if altogether separated from history, and destitute of the spirit of criticism, which is the result of the union to which I have alluded, can be nothing more than a wild existence of sect and formality. History, on the other hand, without the animating spirit of philosophy, is merely a dead heap of useless materials, devoid of internal unity, proper...