Poetics. Aristotle. Thomas Twining (Translator). London, UK. 1789.
Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.
Poetics (Thomas Twining, 1789) (OCR draft) (English) (Thomas Twining's English translation of Aristotle's Poetics, published in 1789 and aligned to the Kassel reference passage sequence.)
Provisional text from uncorrected OCR; expect errors.
11.
mvp-aristotle-comment-923
3
ἔτι δὲ ἀτοπώτερον
carries on the idea of
ἀπρεπὲς ἂν φαίνοιτο in
1459 b 34
.
11.
mvp-aristotle-comment-924
Χαιρήμων:
see on
1, 1447 b 21
.
17.
mvp-aristotle-comment-573
217.
mvp-aristotle-comment-217
NOTE 217
24.11
P. 117. HAVE MORE MOTION.
Κινητικά. The scruple of Victorius, who proposed to read
κινητά , from a doubt, whether
κινητικὰ would admit of a passive sense, seems to have been ill-founded. The passage in
Plutarch, De primo frigido
, referred to by Goulston in his note, is this:
ὡς βραδεῖα καὶ ΣΤΑΣΙΜΟΣ [ἀντίκειται] πρὸς ὀξυρροπὸν καὶ ΚΙΝΗΤΙΚΟΝ.
P. 1755, ed. H. S.
But the word is used in the same sense by Aristotle himself, in the 50th of the
Harmonic Problems, p. 770,
where
κινητικὰ is applied to the acuter sound of a concord, on account of the velocity of its vibrations, and opposed to
ἠρεμαῖον , by which he characterizes the graver sound.
218.
mvp-aristotle-comment-218
NOTE 218
24.11
P. 117. THE OTHER, ADAPTED TO ACTION AND BUSINESS.
Πρακτικόν. — See
NOTE 45, P. 234.
24.4.
mvp-aristotle-comment-104
24.11
6.
mvp-aristotle-comment-178
NO LONG COMPOSITION HAS BEEN ATTEMPTED IN ANY OTHER VERSE EXCEPT THE HEROIC: NATURE HERSELF HAVING POINTED THAT OUT AS THE MOST PROPER...
THE same observation has been made as to the exclufive fitness of iambic [H] verse for the drama, and both have been strictly attended to [F] See the above cited note. [G] The fifteenth Idyllium of Theocritus is supposed to be taken from one of the mimes. of Sophron. See Mr. Twining's fixth note, and the authority he cites. See also Warton's notes on that Idyllium in his edition of Theocritus. [H] See Note Iv. Chap. IV. by
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. by the epic and tragic writers of Greece and Rome. Indeed the affertion of Ariftotle, that this distinction is founded on nature seems perfectly just. Iambic verse would have been too colloquial to have kept up a tone sufficiently elevated for the epopee, when unassisted by the powers of representation, the empassioned sentiments, and more affecting incidents of the drama: while the natural elevation of heroic verse, according to the concluding sentence of this chapter, would have been too splendid for the interesting scenes of tragedy. As for any of the lyric measures, though adapted to the musical parts of the drama, they would have been still less suited to the dialogue than hexameter verse, from their being still more remote from common speech. So much fo, from the violent license taken with the ufual arrangement of the words, and the consequent dificulty of ready construction, as to want the clearness necessary even for epic imitation. But in those modern languages, in which the drama and the epopee have been chiefly cultivated, I mean the Italian, the French, and the English, no criterion of this fort seems to have been unalterably fettled: and perhaps the supposed propriety of one species of verse for one fpecies of compofition, is frequently determined more by custom than Metastafio, (See his Estratto della Poetica, page 343,) afferts the fuperiority of the OTTAVA RIMA for the epopee. And is so partial to rhyme in general, that he doubts if the reason why the ancients did not use it, was not occafioned by the scarcity of fimilar terminations [1]; nature. and [1] It is curious that a directly contrary reason is given by Dr. Beattie. He says, ' It is ⚫ true the Greeks and Romans did not admit in their poetry those similar endings of lines • which we call rhyme. The reason probably was, that in the classical tongues, on account • of their regular structure, like terminations were so frequent, that it required more dexte- • rity, and occasioned a more pleasing suspense to the ear to keep them separate than to ' bring
and if the invention of this ornament of versification may not be included among those improvements in science which modern industry has added to the acquirements of the ancients, such as the telescope, the mariner's compass, and the art of printing. He concludes by saying, that unrhymed verse never can be popular in Italy, and that from this circumstance nobody reads L'ITALIA LIBERATA of Triffino, or Le SETTE GIORNATE DEL MONDO CREATO of Tasso, both of which are written in VERSI SCIOLTI, or blank verse. It is impossible for a foreigner to judge in this cafe [k]. The authority of a poet like Metastasio is great; yet when we reflect, that all his poetry except the recitative of his dramas is in rhyme, and remember how ready people are to condemn what they do not like, or do not excel in themselves, we muft admit his teftimony with some degree of doubt. Perhaps the fubjects may be ill chosen, or particularly ill adapted to that species of verse. The title of Tasso's work gives us no favourable idea of it as a poem, perhaps the poems in other respects were faulty. Johnson says he could never read Thomson's Liberty, because it was in blank verse; but Johnfon neither liked liberty or blank verse. It certainly is in itself a very heavy poem, but that is not to be imputed to the nature of the blank verse even of Thomson, which is remarkable for being enflated, and of diffi- • bring them together. But in the modern languages the case is different.' ESSAY ON: LAUGHTER AND LUDICROUS COMPOSITION, Chap. 11. p. 381. Notwithstanding these contradictory assertions, yet in point of fact, considering their refpective languages, they may both be in the right. It may be more easy to rhyme in Italian than in Greek and Latin, and perhaps more difficult in English.. [K] We all feel this in regard to modern languages, which we have frequently heard per-- fectly spoken, and yet take upon us to decide about those which have been dead for centuries, as if we knew them by instinct.. cult
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. cult construction; fince there are few poems in the language more popular than The Seafons; and even Dr. Johnson himself does not wish that work had the addition of rhyme. The French are equally partial to the rhymed alexandrine for the drama; and I should conceive from the fame reason, that the Italians prefer the RIMA OTTAVA for the epopee, custom. But where custom does not authorize it, as in the French epopee, a species of poetry that will not only bear, but absolutely requires a language more different from common fpeech than the drama, it did not fucceed. For no one I believe ever read the Henriade without feeling in some measure the same sensation as would arife from reading an heroic poem in [L] Sapphics. [L] There is more monotony in Latin Sapphics than in any species of verse I know. The accents, of which French verse is destitute, fall exactly as in an English heroic verse, beginning with an accented syllable, the emphatic accent of the verse is on the first syllable of the dactyl, and the pause after the last syllable of the spondee. To this disposition of the accent we must add the exact rules of quantity, which, though often vitiated by our pronunciation, must have been marked by that of the Romans; and not only the times but the number of fyllables is also exactly equal. There are only nine lines in the three first books of Horace in which this disposition of the accent and pause is not observed; in the fourth there are twenty. Dr. Watts's Sapphic Ode on the Day of Judgment is composed of complete English dramatic verses with a redundant syllable, as any person will find on reading them without dwelling too strongly either on the emphatic syllable or the pause, which characterize the Sapphic cadence. Read these lines of Shakespear as I have marked them, and you find exactly the cadence of Dr. Watts's Sapphics.. • If lufty love should go in quest of beauty, • Where should he find it?' The Adonic, as to its accentual cadence only, exactly resembles a fragment of a Sapphic, confifting of the first five syllables. See Note II. Chap. xx. In
In regard to English verse it certainly requires great caution to diftinguish between natural propriety and prejudice arising from custom. As far as this I think we may say with confidence, as to natural propriety, that the loofer kind of blank verse, indulged with a freer disposition of accent, (which however should never be carried so far as to destroy the cadence entirely (M)) and the indulgence of one, and sometimes even of two [N] redundant fyllables, is best calculated for the drama; and that the stanza of Spenser, the elegiac stanza, or any kind of lyric measure, is unfit for the epopee. From the descriptive parts of the Paradife Loft, from Thomson's Seafons, and Mason's English Garden, we may fafely say, that heroic blank verse is admirably fitted for defcriptive poetry, but L'Allegro and Il Penferofo, and Grongar Hill, forbid [M] As accent is the efficient of our versification, I consider a license of this kind equivalent to the making a false quantity in ancient verse. See Chap. XXII. Note [c] on the tranflation. [N] This license is to be exercised with moderation. Thomson uses it sometimes. Outrage not my breaking heart To that degree-I cannot-'tis impoffible." TANCRED AND SIGISMUNDA. As Rowe alfo does, one of the smoothest of our dramatic poets. • And plead till death the cause of injur'd innocence.' Nay even Milton has assumed this liberty in heroic blank verse. JANE SHORE. • For folitude fometimes is best society.' PARADISE LOST, B. Ix. v. 249. Perhaps these verses may be confidered as Alexandrines, with this distinction, that the rhymed Alexandrine feldom ends with a trifsyllable, and the dramatic Alexandrine, I believe, never with a monofyllable. us
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. us to say it is exclusive. Of the comparative fitness of heroic blank verse, and rhymed verse for the epopee, I shall speak presently. But I will first mention some cases in which I think our choice of particular measures for particular kinds of poetry is guided by other principles than the nature of the verse itself. In Note 1. on Chap. Iv. I have quoted a passage from Mr. Twining, in which he observes how much the power of mufic, in raising particular emotions, depends on the temper of the mind. In confequence of which notion I have hazarded some ideas of my own as to the power of combination on musical effect. Now as the powers of verse [o], unconnected with intelligent language, are very weak indeed, if they exist at all, and the power of music in the same situation is universally felt and acknowledged; it must follow that the power of verse must solely depend on the intelligent words it is connected with, and where no cause obviously natural, (like that of iambics for ancient, and the loofer blank verse for modern tragedy from their colloquial style,) can be [o] I am speaking of modern verse, and ancient verse only as we pronounce it, entirely neglecting the quantity. There is a curious observation of Lord Monboddo on this head. • It is nevertheless true, that notwithstanding the injustice we do Greek and Latin poetry in • pronunciation, it still pleases even our ear more than any modern poetry. It is a matter • of some curiofity to know how this happens; and I believe it might be accounted for ⚫ otherwise than from the prejudice that some people imagine we have in favour of the anci- ، ents; and a system of ancient prosody (I use the word in the common acceptation) might • be given, according to which we actually read their poetry, very different indeed from the • [real] ancient prosody, but more agreeable to that of our own language.' ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF Language, Part 11. Book 11. Chap. VI. page 335. Perhaps on strict examination the accentual cadence of all Latin verse will be found nearly allied to fome of our own measures. See the preceding remarks on Sapphic verse.. pointed
pointed out, the particular propriety of one sort of verse for one fort of compofition, very often depends on custom, and our own association of ideas, which on hearing a particular kind of verse naturally recalls the fubject with which it has usually been connected. Mr. Twining observes, (Note 8) that we should be much surprized • didactic and philofophic poem to find it written in the fame measure with ' on opening a " Jolly mortals fill your glasses." We certainly should from never having seen such an attempt; but if one of our best and earliest didactic poems had been written in this meafure, it does not appear why it might not, from this association, have been esteemed peculiarly adapted to the subject. That the verse itself implies no levity will be sufficiently obvious when we open the Il Penferofo of Milton, and read, • Hail thou goddess, sage and holy, • Hail divinest melancholy.' A collation of this poem and Hudibras will clearly shew that the same measure may be applied to the most opposite subjects. Our triple measures also, (which those who are fond of giving ancient names to modern things may if they please call anapæstics) [P] Mr. Mitford observes) ' equally and peculiarly suited to the expref- • fion of riotous mirth and soft melancholy. Of this every mifcellaneous collection of ballads will convince us. are, (as [P] Effay on Harmony of Language, Sect. xI. page 189. In
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. In regard to our elegiac verse, (whether from this kind of prejudice or not I will not presume to say,) it appears fingularly fitted for its fubject; though Dr. Johnson observes it is difficult to say 'why Hammond • and other writers have thought the quatrain of ten syllables elegiac.' A stanza that has been pronounced by Dryden, whose knowledge of English metre was not inconfiderable, to be the most magnificent of • all the measures which our language affords.' To the authority of Dryden, (whose ear for the harmony of English verfification demands a bolder panegyric than Dr. Johnfon has here given it,) I bow with respect, though in this case not with conviction; as the (2) only poem in that measure written by Dryden, which should confirm this assertion, certainly does not. And as for Dr. Johnson himself, however I may admire his literary character in general, as an arbiter in poetical matters, I cannot submit implicitly to the authority of the critic who wrote the lives of Gray and Milton. I am now entering on a part of my subject where I must proceed with great caution, from the neceffity of mistrusting our own judgment in opinions where perhaps we may mistake prejudice in favour of a particular hypothefis for conviction; especially when the tide of popular opinion is strongly against that hypothesis. I mean the preference of rhymed or unrhymed heroic verse for the English epopee. Indeed the predilection (I will not venture to call it prejudice,) in favor of the latter is so strong, that many of the most refpectable critics of our country have boldly pronounced in unqualified terms, that rhymed verse is totally inadequate to the purpose of epic composition. [Q] ANNUS MIRABILIS.
3 P We
We have only one original work in our language which can with any propriety be classed with the regular epopee. A work of fuch transcendent merit that hardly any general rule as to its proper material can be laid down from the example of a poet, whose genius was capable of overcoming every difficulty; especially when we see that material employed with undoubted excellence, and wonderful effect, in those offices, where it has universally sunk under in every other hand, we are hardly authorized in imputing that excellence to the nature of the material rather than to the fuperior skill of the poet. Milton in the fimplest parts of his poem, (the opening of the Paradise Loft is an admirable example,) has been able to keep up the dignity of blank verse without inflation, and to preserve (R) the equal tone of unornamented narration without descending into meanness of style, which certainly has never been attempted with success by any fucceeding writer. In most parts of the descriptive poems of Thomson and Mason we fee indeed original verse and propriety of style, but in every attempt at heroic imitation, Milton's manner has been so copied, or rather caricatured, that we are frequently reminded of the burlesque poem of the Splendid Shilling rather than of a serious work [s]. [R] That Milton's style sometimes rises into turgidity, and sometimes sinks into meanness, cannot be denied by his greatest admirers; but to maintain an unremitted excellence of verfification throughout so long a poem, was perhaps beyond the effort of human excellence. Besides, when Milton introduced scripture language, which his subject frequently led him to do, he seems to have been defirous of keeping not only the words but even the arrangement of them as closely as possible to our prose translation of the Bible.. [s] This mode of imitating Milton's manner, (and which perhaps we can hardly blame, as all deviation from excellence tends to corruption of style,) is followed in some degree by most poets who use blank verse, for whatever kind of compofition. But the author of Lewfden Hill has shewn, that the simpler style of Shakespear's dramatic Pentameter may occasionally be transferred to the heroic. To
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. To draw the comparison between the fitness of rhymed and unrhymed verse for the epopee with accuracy, is absolutely impossible from the circumstance already mentioned of our having but one regular original epic poem in our language. A circumstance we furely need not be ashamed of, since Greece boasted only of two, and Rome could not pride herself on one, for to originality the Æneid has no pretence. We have however a copy of the works of Homer of great and acknowledged merit; I mean Pope's Homer, which is in itself one of the most beautiful poems in any language. And after all, what is the great consequence of its want of fidelity to the original [T]). The beauties of Homer are not tranffusible by any translation; and he who wishes to fee all and only all that he really says, without understanding Greek, should confult a literal prose verfion. To quote the words of a much celebrated critic. You may translate books of science exactly. You may translate history, in * so far as it is not embellished with oratory, which is poetical. Poetry ⚫ cannot be translated, and therefore it is the poets that preferve lan- ، guage: for we would not be at the trouble to learn a language if we • could have all that is written in it just as well in a translation. But ، as beauties of poetry cannot be preserved in any language except that • in which it was originally written, we learn the language.' BosWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON, Vol. II. p. 62. In the same valuable and entertaining work is the following dialogue. ' I mentioned the vulgar saying • that Pope's Homer was not a good representation of the original. JOHNSON. Sir, it is the greatest work of the kind that ever was pro- “duced. BosWELL. The truth is it is impofssible perfectly to tranflate poetry. In a different language it may be the same tune, but it has not the fame note. " “ Homer plays on a bassoon, Pope on a flagelet. [T] See Note 1. on this chapter. 3 P2 "HARRIS.
"HARRIS. I think heroic poetry is best in blank verse: yet it appears " that rhyme is essential to English poetry from our deficiency in metri- "cal quantities. In my opinion, the chief excellence of our language is numerous prose [U]." IBID. 207. “ As the exclufive propriety of rhymed or unrhymed verse for the epopee has been often argued on the ground of the unfitness of rhymed verse for a tranflation of Homer, and the supposed failure of Pope on that account; and as we now possess what has been long a defideratum in literature, a blank verse translation of Homer by a poet of allowed merit, I shall confine my remarks on this subject to an enquiry into the respective fitness of rhyme and blank verse for a tranflation of Homer. In this I shall not compare particular passages of Mr. Cowper and Pope, or draw any invidious comparisons between their general execution of the work. I shall only endeavour to thew, why I think the inability of rhyme to execute a faithful tranflation of Homer, as far as any poetical tranflation can be faithful, is unfounded, and that the (sometimes wanton) deviations of Pope from the sense and spirit of his original, did not proceed from any fault in the species of verfification he adopted. As Mr. Cowper in the preface to his Homer has collected most of the objections to rhymed verse which have been made, and which certainly gain fuperior weight from his adoption of them as well as from his own additional remarks, I shall attempt to answer them as much as poffible in the fame order in which they are there inferted. [U] In this strange and contradictory opinion of Mr. Harris we trace the quaint decision of one of our old authors, I forget which, That writers in verse were the best kind of writers • next to the writers in profe.' Mr.
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. Mr. Cowper's first objection to rhyme as a mode of translating an ancient poet, if allowed, precludes all farther contest on the subject effectually ;-that it is impossible. • No human ingenuity,' he says, 'can • be equal to the task of closing every couplet with founds homotonous, ، expreffing at the same time the full sense, and only the full sense of the ' original.' In this I perfectly agree with him; if a literal translation is meant it must be in literal prose; and where Virgil has copied Homer most nearly, he certainly might have done it still more nearly, had he rendered the original word for word; but there is a spirit and style to be copied as well as the exact words, and to do this, some degree of paraphrafe is oftentimes necessary; and the real sense of an author, efpecially a poet, is often never so much misrepresented as by too faithful a tranflation. However in this free translation which is certainly meant, I cannot conceive English rhymed verse would have more difficulty to encounter than Latin Hexameters, the measure which a Roman tranflator of Homer would undoubtedly have chosen. The cesure, the pause [w], and the concluding Adonic, mark the boundary of the verse as much as our homotonous endings, and I should suppose were to the full as great a restraint on the poet. In short, if the only advantage blank verse has over rhymed in the translation of an ancient poet is conveying the author's meaning more clearly, it must imply, what Mr. Cowper is far from [w] In the smoother Latin poets, with very few exceptions indeed, the pause falls immediately after the first syllable of the third foot, dividing the verse into two hemistichs, which is indeed the foundation of the monkish rhymed verses. Aulus Gellius says of Varro, L. xvIII. Chap. xv. Scribit observasse se in verfu hexametro quod omnimodo quintus semipes, i. e. prior pedis tertii fyllaba, verbum finiret. We must observe not to confound the metrical pause with the pause in the sense. There can be no metrical pause so strong as the end of a verse, where the sense often requires none. allowing,
allowing, that blank verse is of more ealy compofition than rhymed, and on that principle prose would be preferable to either. the fame reasoning holds. The poet who is mastered by his material, As to the diftinction made between original composition and translation, and inftead of bending his rhyme to his will is obliged to make his thoughts wait on his rhyme, is indeed mastered by what he ought to command. This certainly was not the cafe with Pope, he knew [x]
• to make coy rhyme • Renounce her follies and with sense keep time; • To make proud sense against her nature bend • And wear the chains of rhyme, yet call her friend.' CHURCHILL. Mr. Cowper in his preface also speaks in favor of occafional harsh lines as producing variety in a long work. I believe such beauties are not often difscoverable either in Homer or Virgil. If they are too frequently found in [Y] Milton they are the less excusable, as no poet, ancient or modern, a command [x] The shackles of rhyme have been almost universally pleaded in excuse for the infidelities in Pope's tranflation of Homer. Will it be said that Pope had as great a skill in the Greek language as he had Odyssey, in the first note on this chapter, originate from the fetters of rhyme? Was it rhyme that caused him to omit the amiable character given by Helen of Priam, in the twenty-fourth Iliad, or to dilate so much beyond the original the beautiful fimile on the Trojan fires in the over rhymed verse ? eighth ? So equal do I esteem rhymed verse to a faithful tranflation of Homer, that I think it would be no very arduous task for a good verfifier, well skilled in the original, to render Did the faults pointed out in the Pope's Homer as faithful a copy of the original as a tranflation can possibly be. [Y] Perhaps Milton was led into this by a defire of imitating the bolder license of the Italian poets, as we are told by Servius, Virgil once adopted the Greek accentuation in a Latin verse. Caftorea
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. modern, ever knew so well how to vary his cadence and produce variety of rhythm in verses equally melodious. There is a deviation from the usual arrangement of the accent (in which blank verse has greatly the fuperiority over rhyme) which has often the finest effect, but there is such a deviation also as is destructive of the essence of verfification. Can any pleasure arise from the contraft of such a line as this of Milton? • To the garden of bliss thy feat prepar'd.' Which, contrary to the rule given to Monf. Jourdain, is neither verse nor profe. To the cadence of the heroic pentameter it has no pretence except in the two last feet; and the fix first syllables form a verse consisting of two feet, triple measure, exactly resembling the finale of Midas, • To the bright god of day • Let us fing, dance and play.' Mr. Cowper afterwards observes, that he cannot but add an observa- • tion on the fimilitude between the manner of Milton and Homer,' and this he exemplifies in those breaks and pauses in which the English poet has copied the Grecian. Addison makes the same observation. This is not a question of opinion but of fact. And whoever will read the Iliad and Odyssey through, attentive to this particular circumstance, will be convinced that the break in the middle of a line is very far from being the • Castorea Eliadum palmas EPIROS equarum." On this Servius remarks, Epiros is here a Greek word, on which account the E is accented.. • For if it had been in the Latin form, Epirus or Epiri, the accent must have fallen on pi
characteristic of Homer's style [z]; and where a line is broken it is in a very different manner from the breaks in Milton. In Milton we sometimes fee many successive verses without the smallest pause in the sense at their end; and the close of a blank verse, except the next verse begins with a foot whose first syllable is accented, can be no otherwise defined, and often runs into the succeeding line. (A) But in Homer, besides the cesure and the concluding Adonic, which (according to our mode of reading at least, by Latin accent) marks the boundary of each separate verse precisely, I believe there are hardly two lines together without a flight pause marking the end of the verse, in both his poems: a circumstance which gives a general cadence more resembling Pope's rhymed couplet than the blank verse of Milton (B). The break in these lines Αυτάρ [z] More instances occur in the first hundred lines of the Iliad than in any other part of the poem of three times the length. [A] By this defect the divisions of lines are sometimes arbitrary in our blank verse, of which Milton affords several examples. These lines, • What place can be for us • Within heav'n's bound, unless heav'n's Lord fupreme • We over-power? Suppose he should relent • And publish grace to all, on promise made • Of new fubjection.'-PARADISE LOST, Book II. v. 255. This may as well be written, ، What place can be for us within heav'n's bound, • Unless heav'n's Lord supreme we over-power? • Suppose he should relent and publish grace • To all, on promise made of new subjection.' [B] Blank verse is capable of a high degree of melody without these breaks, as will appear from the example of two of our dramatic Poets. First in Rowe's Jane Shore. O that
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. Αυθὰρ ἔπειτ᾿ ἀυλοῖσι βέλος ἐχεπευκὲς ἐφιεὶς, Βἀλλ᾽, –ἀιεὶ δὲ πυρὰι νεκύων καίονλο θαμειαί. resembles more a break in a rhymed couplet than a Miltonic verse. And if Pope did not imitate it exactly it was his own neglect, not the deficiency of his material; for in his Temple of Fame he has a couplet exactly resembling it. • Amphion there the loud creating lyre ، Struck, and behold a fudden Thebes aspire.' O that my tongue had every grace of speech, • Great and commanding as the breath of kings, Sweet as the poet's numbers, and prevailing As foft perfuafion to a love-sick maid; That I had art and eloquence divine • To pay my duty to my master's ashes, • And plead till death the cause of injured innocence.' And in Shakespear's King John, If lusty love should go in quest of beauty, • Where should he find it fairer than in Blanche? • If zealous love should go in search of virtue, • Where should he find it purer than in Blanche ? • If love ambitious fought a match of honor, • Whose veins bound richer blood than Lady Blanche's? • Such as she is in beauty, virtue, birth, • Such is the Dauphin, every way compleat; • He is the half-part of a blessed man • Left to be finished by such a she; • And she a fair divided excellence • Whose fulness of perfection lies in him. • O, two fuch filver currents when they join, • Do glorify the banks that bound them in.' In
In regard to the comparative difficulty between writing good rhymed and good blank verse, I submit implicitly to the author of the TASK. Whatever the difficulties may be he has effectually surmounted them [c]; and in one of the most entertaining and most original poems in our language, he has employed blank verse with success on every subject, to which verse of any kind could properly be applied. After all, the difficulties he points out in blank verse are perhaps still more confpicuous in the compofition of a good and harmonious style in profe. To invent a good cadence where only vague, and often contradictory rules are given, is more difficult than to follow known rules well. However easy it may be to rhyme, it is still more easy to write blank verse, that is, to put ten syllables in a line, with the accent falling on alternate fyllables ; and might not a prose writer say, and with justice too, ' [D] many orna- ، ments of no easy purchase are required to atone for the absence of this • single recommendation.' How many do we find who can imitate with [c] Dr. Johnson is of the fame opinion with Mr. Cowper as to the superior difficulty of unrhymed to rhymed verse. • In blank verse the language suffered more by distortion to keep it ' out of prose, than any inconvenience or limitation to be apprehended from the shackles and • circumscription of rhyme.' BoSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON, Vol. 1. p. 342. If this observation of Mr. Cowper and Dr. Johnson is just, it entirely confutes the first objection to a rhymed tranflation of Homer. [D] Is not the difference between prose and verse in fome measure illustrated by the following observation of Mr. Gilpin on forest scenery? Though every animal is distinguished • from its fellow by some little variation of color, character, or shape, yet in all the larger parts, ⚫ in the body and limbs, the resemblance is generally exact. In trees it is just the reverse. The • smaller parts, the spray, the leaves, the blossom, and the feed, are the fame in all trees of the ، fame kind, while the larger parts, from which the most beautiful varieties result, are wholly ، different. You never fee two oaks with an equal number of limbs, the fame kind of head, or ⚫ twisted in the same form. However, as variety is not alone fufficient to give fuperiority to the tree, we give the preference on the whole to animal life." tolerable
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. tolerable success the verse of Milton and Pope; of Homer and of Virgil: but who has ever given a fhadow of a resemblance to the style of Xenophon or Addison? Cicero and Dr. Johnson are strong mannerists (I do not mean to compare their styles in any other light) and therefore more eafily caricatured. One of the essential requifites of verfification, as is well observed by a late writer [E], arises from a judicious mixture of uniformity and variety; the first arising from the essential rules of the art, the other from the variation of pause, cadence, &c. The favourers of rhyme think blank verse too loose as to the former; and their opponents (among whom is the gentleman I have quoted, and who carries his objection to [F] hexameters also,) think rhymed verse too closely confined by the former. Mr. Cowper, as well as Spence, in his Essay on Pope's Odyssey, seem to think Pope would have done better to have given His tranflation in blank verse. It is well for his literary character that he did not attempt it. We have a story grounded indeed only on the problematical authority of Voltaire, that Pope, on being asked why Milton did not write his Paradife Loft in rhyme, answered Because he could not.' The answer would have come with more propriety from him, had he been asked, why he did not tranflate Homer into blank verse. For Pope never had tried that species of compofition; but the rhymed verse alone of Milton [E] Essay on Versification, in the first volume of Essays on Subjects Philosophical Historical and Literary. [F] As to myself I acknowledge, that however superior the hexameter may be to the heroic ، couplet, in other respects the perpetual recurrence of the dactyl and spondee is more fatiguing ⚫ to my ear, than what Dryden calls the tinkle in the close of the couplet.' IBID. 3Q2 would
would have placed him very high among the English poets, had his Paradife Loft never appeared. To conclude this subject. As I am confcious so many great names are against me, I shall not pretend to establish my own opinion by any general inference drawn from what I have faid in the course of my discussion of it, but leave it to make what impression it may on the mind of the reader. I shall however in part shelter my opinion under the authority of two most respectable critics. Mr. Addison in the Spectator, No. 285, allows that even Milton has been too free in the use of those methods which Ariftotle has prescribed for the elevation of style, and which he imputes to the nature of his verse, adding that 'where verse is not built upon rhymes, there pomp of found, and energy of expreffion, are indispenfibly necessary to support the style and keep it from falling into the • flatness of profe.' And Dr. Beattie, in his Essay on Laughter and Ludicrous Compofition, Chap. 11. makes this observation. • One end • of rhymes in modern poetry is to diftinguish it more effectually from profe: the Greeks and Romans diftinguished theirs by the measure • and by the compofition, on which the genius of their languages allowed • them to bestow innumerable graces, in respect of arrangement, harmony, and variety, whereof the best modern tongues from the irregularity of their structure, and particularly from their want of inflexion, are but moderately fufceptible; and therefore of rhyme, as a mark of • distinction, our poetry may sometimes stand in need, though theirs ' did not. In fact we find that blank verse, except when the want of rhyme is compensated, as it is in Milton by the harmony and variety • of the composition, can never have a good effect in our HEROIC poetry.' I confefs I think our rhymed verfification declining since the time of Pope, who perhaps carried it to its highest possible pitch of excellence; all
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. all deviation from which must be corruption. This is the cafe with all the fine arts; and Genius itself is the cause of their degenerating. Great talents will not condescend to imitate; and in deviating from perfect models they deviate also from perfection itself, on which account the fine arts are seldom long stationary; they are almost continually either in a progressive or a declining state. Had a poet of fuperior genius to Virgil lived subsequently to him, he would certainly not have been contented to copy his verfification; in which cafe if he could not excel him, he must have corrupted the style of Roman poetry: and from such attempts it was at last corrupted. There appears to me a stiffness, an affected pomposity, an attempt at something not perfectly natural, in the general texture of the rhymed pentameter at present.
Commentarius in Aristotelis Poeticam (Franciscus Ritter, 1839) (OCR draft)
(Ritter's Latin commentary, extracted from the 1839 volume, divided by Ritter's chapters and sections, and linked to the corresponding Perseus reference subsections.)
focus
Ritter, cap. 24 § 6
ὥσπερ Χαιρήμων: de Chaeremone dictum est ad c. 1, 9.