An Essay of Dramatic Poesy

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Clarendon Press, 1903 - 179 páginas

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Página 67 - ... All the images of nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily; when he describes any thing, you more than see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning give him the greater commendation: he was naturally learned; he needed not the spectacles of books to read nature; he looked inwards, and found her there.
Página 159 - To make a child now swaddled; to proceed Man, and then shoot up, in one beard and weed, Past threescore years ; or, with three rusty swords, And help of some few foot and half-foot words, Fight over York and Lancaster's long jars, And in the tyring-house bring wounds to scars.
Página 70 - Catiline. But he has done his robberies so openly, that one may see he fears not to be taxed by any law. He invades authors like a monarch; and what would be theft in other poets is only victory in him.
Página 70 - But he has done his robberies so openly, that one may see he fears not to be taxed by any law. He invades authors like a monarch ; and what would be theft in other poets, is only victory in him. With the spoils of these writers he so represents old Rome to us, in its rites, ceremonies and customs, that if one of their poets had written either of his tragedies, we had seen less of it than in him.
Página 133 - And Dryden, in immortal strain, Had raised the Table Round again, But that a ribald King and Court Bade him toil on, to make them sport ; Demanded for their niggard pay, Fit for their souls, a looser lay, Licentious satire, song, and play ; The world defrauded of the high design, Profan'd the God-given strength, and marr'd the lofty line.
Página 177 - I am satisfied if it cause delight. For delight is the chief, if not the only, end of poesy. Instruction can be admitted but in the second place, for poesy only instructs as it delights.
Página 42 - ... here a course of mirth, there another of sadness and passion, and a third of honour and a duel: thus, in two hours and a half, we run through all the fits of Bedlam.
Página 69 - 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.
Página 27 - First, the Protasis, or entrance, which gives light only to the characters of the persons, and proceeds very little into any part of the action. Secondly, the Epitasis, or working up of the plot; where the play grows warmer, the design or action of it is drawing on, and you see something promising that it will come to pass.
Página xix - I know I am not so fitted by nature to write comedy : I want that gaiety of humour which is required to it. My conversation is slow and dull, my humour saturnine and reserved : in short, I am none of those who endeavour to break jests in company, or make repartees.

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