4.1.
mvp-aristotle-comment-7
4.2
THOSE THINGS WHICH WE VIEW WITH PAIN IN THEMSELVES, WE LIKE TO SEE REPRESENTED AS ACCURATELY AS POSSIBLE; SUCH AS THE FIGURES OF THE MOST SAVAGE WILD BEASTS, AND OF DEAD BODIES.
I CANNOT agree here with Mr. Twining in the reason he gives for prefering with Vittorio ἀτιμοθάτων, to ἀγριοζάτων,–' the sense of the passage • itself:-which (he says) seems to require instances of mean and dif- • gusting rather than of terrible objects;' since a dead body with which it is joined certainly comes under the last circumstance, and was a usual exhibition in ancient tragedy. For we should recollect that Aristotle, though he draws the allufion from painting, must still be supposed to keep his eye on the subject he is treating of, poetic, and more especially, tragic imitation; which could never be confidered in any light as an amusement, if the terrible scenes which it produces did not come under the cafe of the illustration here brought from painting, pleasing as an imitation though disagreeable in reality; disagreeable, not from producing mean and difgusting objects, but from awakening too strongly the pafsions by affecting and terrible ones. The author of the Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful, justly observes, when danger or pain press too nearly they are incapable of giving any delight, and are simply terrible, but at certain distances, and
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. ' and with certain modifications, they are delightful, as we every day experience [A]. It must, however, be confessed, that the following remark of the fame judicious critic, is strongly in favor of Mr. Twining and Vittorio. When the object represented in painting or poetry is such as we should • have no defire of seeing in reality, then I may be sure that its power * in poetry or painting is owing to the power of imitation, and to no 'cause operating in the thing itself. So it is with most of the pieces ' which the painters call still life. In these a cottage or a dunghill, the • meanest and most ordinary furniture of the kitchen are capable of giving us pleasure. But when the object of the painting or poem is • such as we should run to see if real, let it affect us with what odd fort ' of sense it will, we may rely upon it that the power of the poem or ، ، picture is more owing to the nature of the thing itself than to the mere effect of the imitation, or to a confideration of the skill of the imitator, however excellent [B].' In the letters of Mr. Jackson of Exeter, we find an observation something fimilar as to painting. ' A deep road, a puddle of water, a bank ' covered with docks and briars, and an old tree or two, are all the cir- ، * cumstances in many a fine landscape. As clowns and half-ftarved cattle are the figures a landscape-painter chuses for his pictures; fo rough-looking fellows, wrapped up in sheets and blankets, are chofen by the history painter to express the greatest personages, and in the ، [A] Part i, sect. vii. See also part iv. sect. vii. [B] Part i. sect. xvi. P ' most
• most dignified actions of their lives [c].' Nearly the same observa- ' tion is made by M. Marmontel [D]. From this circumstance in painting, however, I have often heard a false conclufion drawn; and because the various tints of autumnal decay afford a better subject to a painter than the luxuriant charms of summer, it is not uncommon to hear that season preferred as being really more beautiful. The poet knows better; for one poetical description of autumn, there are a thousand of spring (E). As well might a real [c] Letter VI. [D] See Encyclopedie, Art. Interêt. fituation [E] 'To the appearance of spring, the imagination joins that of the seasons which are to • follow; to the tender buds that are perceived by the eye, the imagination adds, flowers, • fruit, shades, and sometimes the mysteries they may conceal. It brings into one point of ⚫ view the scenes that are to fucceed, and sees things less as they are than as it wishes them to be. On the contrary, in autumn we can only contemplate the scene before us. If we › wish to anticipate the spring, our course is stopped by winter, and our frozen imagination • expires among snows, and fogs.' EMILIUS, Vol. I. 1. 1. • Yet in these presages rude, • 'Midst her pensive solitude, • Fancy with prophetic glance • Sees the teeming months advance; • The field, the forest, green, and gay, • The dappled flope, the tedded hay, • Sees the reddening orchard blow, • The harvest wave, the vintage flow: • Sees June unfold his gloffy robe • Of thousand hues o'er all the globe; • Sees Ceres grasp her crown of corn, And plenty load her ample horn.' WARTON. In
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. situation of distress be preferred to tranquility, because it excites the feeling more in imitation. In regard to imitation as effected by the fine arts in general, I perfectly agree with Metaftafio, that to render an imitation pleasing, (especially of a terrible object, or of an object that does not of itself interest us,) it is necessary that the means of imitation should be apparent [F]. This appears in painting from the [G] greater excellence allowed to a good picture, compared with those representations of letters, newspapers and deal boards, which sometimes really deceive the eye; and in fculpture, from the great fuperiority of a fine statue, to a piece of colored wax work. Even in personal mimicry, it seems that the resemblance In painting we confine ourselves to the individual scene; in poetry we go more to cause and effect. For as Mr. Gilpin observes, the business of the poet is only to excite ideas, ⚫ that of the painter to represent them. The pencil fixes the scene in the happy moment; and ' the fading tints of autumn become perennial; but the idea excited by the poet connects the falling leaf and the disagreeable impression of decay with it, and anticipates the dreary scenes ' of winter.' [F] That which is called an imitation has always something in it that is not in the original. If the prototype and transcript be exactly alike; if there be nothing in the one which is not ' in the other, we may call the latter a representation, a copy, a draught, or a picture of the * former, but not an imitation. BEATTIE ON POETRY AND MUSIC, Part i. chap. v. p. 94. [G] Deception, which is so often recommended by writers on the theory of painting, ⚫ instead of advancing the art, is, in reality, carrying it back to its infant state. The first essays of painting were certainly nothing but mere imitations of individual objects, and • when this amounted to a deception the artist had accomplished his purpose.' NOTE BY SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS ON MR. MASON'S TRANSLATION OF FRESNOΥ. P2 may
may be too striking, as in the story of the person who was hissed for not imitating the squeaking of a pig, so naturally as his competitor, though it proved to be the animal itself, which he had concealed under his coat. The fame circumstance will be found in theatrical imitation [H]. An actor who has really a defect, will never represent such a defect well on the stage. In Hill's Actor [1] there is a very just observation on this. • There are some characters in which a representation of old age is necessary, but even in these it is better that it should be a pre- • tended than a real age we fee. The stage is the scene of reprefenta- ، ، tion, not realities. Mr. Foote pleases more in Fondlewife than an old man possibly could: and the reason is evident: we wish to fee the representation of a ridiculous, not of a pitiable old fellow. We expect to be entertained with the follies of age, not disgusted with its in- • firmities. The poet can feparate these perfectly in the character that ' he draws; and when a person of real judgment is to represent it, he ، also can feparate all that is contemptible, from what is the object [к] [H] This does not apply to excellence, as human nature is always inadequate to our idea of poetical perfection. [1] Chap. x. page 166. [K] See Ariftotle's idea of comedy, at the beginning of chapter v.. In the Dictionnaire d'Anecdotes, Art. ACTEUR, the following story is told, on what founda tion I know not. The authority quoted is a book entitled l'Anné. Litteraire. ' An actor, • after having for thirty years played with success, in several parts, had the misfortune to lame • himself, and ever afterwards limped. In spite of this misfortune, as his paffion was for tragedy, ⚫ he concluded that from this accident he was the fittest person in the world to play Richard the Third, whom Shakespear, the author of the tragedy, had represented as lame. Our actor • flattered himself with the most brilliant success. He presented himself to the audience with • the greatest confidence. But when he came to repeat these words, " the dogs bark at me « as I halt by them," there was a general laugh, and he was obliged to quit the stage.' of
POETRY OF ARISTOTLE. ' of compaffion, and shew it singly.' I remember an instance of a French gentleman, who spoke English with the accent of his country, performing the Frenchman in Lethe, on a private theatre, with very indifferent effect. Irish and Scotch characters, it is true, are often well represented by persons of those countries, but such actors are all able to speak good English in other parts, and know how far to carry the imitation. I conceive a Scotchman, or an Irishman, whose conversation was always strongly marked by their respective dialects, would succeed no better than the French gentleman I have mentioned. To apply this to the illustration of Aristotle. Certainly the picture of a dead body will in general give no disgust, or excite no painful horror, however well executed: but a dead body might be so formed in wax-work, as absolutely for a moment to deceive the eye, and then, even if the deception were declared before its exhibition, I doubt if the spectator would receive any other pleasure than what might arise from the accuracy of the workmanship. But even in a picture, if circumstances in themselves really disgusting are added, horror will rather be excited than pleasure, as in the (L) print of a robber entering a vault to plunder it, and some engravings from Holben's celebrated picture of Death's Dance, which I have seen. The fame thing is incident also to poetry, as in a little poem on the death of a lady, which begins, ' In yonder grave my Helen lies.' The effect produced on the mind, by the different degrees of exactness in picturesque imitation, may perhaps be illustrated by the common [L] See Beattie on Poetry and Music, Part i. chap. vi. page 124, note. looking-
looking-glass, the plano-convex mirror on a black foil, and the camera obfcura. The looking-glass is the exact representation, or rather reflection of nature, without any apparent alteration in the objects, (for the reverfing them is not observed ;) and a landscape seen in it, however fine, only gives the fame pleasure as when seen through a window, except from the frame, which, if the glass is not too large, both from its artificial boundary, and confining the eye to a part of the view, will give the landscape something more of a picturesque character, than when the objects are seen without it. (M) The plano-convex mirror pleases more, as having more the appearance of an imitation produced by art, and objects in themselves infignificant and mean, acquire a beauty from this, and afford delight. But the camera-obfcura gives by far the greatest pleasure, as having every property of a picture, except that it possesses the superior advantage of expreffing motion, as well as color and figure. And I am inclined to imagine, that even an affecting or terrific object seen in it, would in some measure partake of that alleviation which Aristotle ascribes to artificial imitation. As painting imitates entirely by natural means, (I mean as opposed to symbols) it is able to imitate the most exactly of any art except colored statuary; but as its means of imitation are always apparent, the imitation can never be too exact to please, except in objects that are in themselves loathsome and disgusting. The fame may be faid of statues in stone or [M] I have not the least doubt of this being the cause why we fee fome scenes in the planoconvex mirror with greater pleasure than in nature. I am surprised it did not occur to Mr. Gilpin, who is sensible of the effect, but is at a loss to account for it. REMARKS ON FOREST SCENERY, Vol. II. p. 224. If he had shewn it to the first countryman he met, in all probability he would have solved the doubt at once, by telling him it looked like a picture. metal, ง
III POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. metal, where the material, the mean of imitation is, I think, yet more apparent; but in coloured statuary, or wax-work, where the imitation may for a short time be concealed, that pleasure is not produced, which is the proper refult of imitative art, and objects of pity and terror may be so accurately represented as to be really painful. The collection of figures in wax-work coloured, dressed, and fitting down at card tables, exhibited some years ago by Mrs. Wright, on first entrance gave exactly the idea of a well dressed assembly, and the impression remained after the illusion ceased. Nothing of this fort is produced by painting or statuary, and yet how different and superior to this surprise is the pleasure we receive from a portrait of Sir Joshua Reynolds, or a statue of Banks. As to music I am very ill qualified to treat it scientifically, therefore I hope the musical reader will forgive me if my language is deficient in technical accuracy, provided I make myself understood. But I conceive where it is an imitative art, it imitates sometimes by natural means, and sometimes by compact. Its natural means are the imitation of certain sounds, as the noise of a battle, the finging of birds, the ringing or tolling of bells. Its imitation by compact consists in expreffing forrow by flow movements, anger by quick; high and low, by high and low notes: most of these imitations are rather fanciful than real [N]. The chief energy of music, (to those I mean who, in the words of Shakespear, really have it in their fouls, and with the want of which, many who possess it so as to be tremblingly alive to its effects are upbraided, [N] See Beattie on Poetry and Music, Part 1. Chap. vi. Sect. 1, paffim. because
because they take no delight in the dexterity of a performer's execution of difficult passages ;) I say to those who really feel the energy of mufic, it chiefly arises from the power it possesses of raifing, heightening, or foftening the passions. Nevertheless the influence it derives from the combination of ideas is often mistaken both for imitation and sympathy [o]. Mr. Twining, who I believe is a very good musician, observes that the • best instrumental music,' (and I prefume vocal music where the words are not heard, or not understood, comes under the fame predicament 'expref- ، fively performed,) leaves the hearer to the free operation of his emotions on his fancy, and as it were to the free choice of fuch ideas as are to him ' most adapted to re-act upon and heighten the emotion which occafions ' them.' [P]. That is, in other words, that the effect of musical expreffion depends much on the temper of our own minds, at the time. Now that temper must be greatly influenced by any ideas that a particular strain may raise in us from circumstances that have formerly attended our hearing it [Q]. Will the grenadier march have the fame effect on a warrior [o] 'Such is the secret union when we feel A fong, a flower, a name at once restore • Those long-connected scenes where first they mov'd 'The attention.' AKENSIDE. [P] Differtation on music as an imitative art, page 49. For an application of this to the different kinds of verfification, as confidered particularly congenial with different kinds of poetry, see note Iv. chap. xxiv. [Q] 'There is in fouls a sympathy with sounds; And as the mind is pitch'd, the ear is pleased • With melting sounds or martial, brifk or grave. ، Some
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. warrior whom it has led on to battle, and a man who was never at a review? But this is not peculiar to musical sounds. A nightingale fings very differently to the perfon who has only heard it in a cage in London, and the lover who has listened to its voice in the woods in the company of his mistress, or fighed to it in her abfence. The cry of a pack of fox hounds in a hollow cover, in which the sportsman hears the finest music, is the mere barking of dogs to the sober citizen. Neither is this fympathy confined to sound, it is equally active in the objects of the other senses. Roufseau says [R], 'I do not know whether to congratulate or pity the man of wisdom, but insensibility, whose bosom was never agi- • tated by the odour of the flowers that adorned the bosom of his • mistress.' From this association of ideas, however, music derives a power very much resembling imitation, and which has a very strong effect on the < Some chord in unison with what we hear ' Is touch'd within us, and the heart replies, • How foft the music of the evening bells < Falling at intervals upon the ear * In cadence sweet! Now dying all away, • Now pealing loud again, and louder still * Clear and fonorous as the gale comes on. * With easy force it opens all the cells Where memory flept; wherever I have heard • A kindred melody, the scene recurs, ' And with it all its pleasures.' COWPER. This kind of recollection resembles imitation in making pleasing objects afford additional pleasure, and in throwing some pleasure over melancholy objects, which last also will be equally destroyed in both if the sensation is too strong. [R] Emilius, Vol. 1. Part 1. paffions.
passions. The RANS DES VACHES, mentioned by Rousseau in his Dictionary of Mufic, though without any thing striking in the composition, has such a powerful influence over the Swiss, and impresses them with so violent a defire to return to their own country, that it is forbidden to be played in the Swiss regiments in the French service, on pain of death. There is also another circumftance relating to music, which makes it in some instances more than imitation. Certain musical instruments are from custom constantly attendant on certain actions, as the organ on religion, and the drum and fife on war and its preparations; therefore when these instruments are heard, our ideas are not raised by association only, but as far as the sense of hearing is concerned an actual deception takes place. If my other senses do not undeceive me when I hear a drum and fife play a march, I conclude soldiers are marching by; and if I hear a choir and an organ, I imagine myself in or near a place of religious worship. The absurd attempt to make the found an echo to the sense,' by mentioning the names of musical inftruments in language, and then accompanying that language with the found of the instruments that are named, is very justly censured by Mr. Jackson of Exeter [s]. There is a ridiculous instance of a musical pun of this kind in a fong of that agreeable compofer, Dibden, in the Padlock, where, while Don Diego is finging Horns! horns! I defy you,' he is accompanied by Frenchhorns. The effect of music when combined with poetry, is also principally eccafioned by association. The notion that the words of a fong and its [s] Preface to his Opera Iv. tune
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. tune are particularly adapted to each other, often arises from constantly hearing them together. I will not dispute that some movements are more suited to one kind of poetry than another, or deny that an elegy and a drinking song require a different kind of music to accompany them; but undoubtedly the words of a song often stamp a character on the tune which of itself it would never have acquired. Since the popular fong of Hosier's Ghost was written, how many fea songs have been put to the same tune? Would not a person be induced to think from this, that it was particularly adapted to maritime ideas? Yet it was originally composed for a fong on a very different subject, which began 'Welcome, ' welcome, brother debtor.' I am far, however, from meaning to assert that music has not strong powers of exciting our feelings, independent of the subject or the words it accompanies, or any kind of association whatever, and that there is no real difference between a jig and a dirge. A particular instance, something applicable to this, occurs to me. Dr. Armstrong, in his SKETCHES, asks • Who was it that threw out those dreadful wild expressions of • distraction and melancholy in LADY CULROSS'S DREAM, an old composition now I am afraid loft, perhaps because it was almost too • terrible for the ear?' A modern collector of old ballads has however found the WORDS, and tells us he can perceive nothing terrible in them. The natural means of imitation poffefsed by poetry are few and weak, and are solely confined to the versification. Most of the verses quoted as proofs of its power in this respect, make more impression on the imagination than the ear. I am astonished how Mr. Harris [T] could give [T] Discourse on Music, Poetry and Painting, page 73. poetry
poetry the preference to music in its ability to imitate found. I should very much doubt, should the strongest instance of verfification conveying the fenfe by the found, be repeated to a person of however good an ear, who was unacquainted with the language, if he would discover the imitation: but should the music of those two airs of Handel, which begin Hush, ye pretty warbling choir,' and 'Let the merry bells ring ' round,' be played to a person of the most irreligious ears, and the imitation would be instantly obvious. But the powers of imitation by means of compact, which are poffefsed by poetry, are infinite; they are applicable to actions and pafiions, which they can follow through all their various forms and modifications; they can comprehend every being in nature or in art, animate or inanimate; and their nobler objects and extensive field of imitation more than compensate for any inferiority in the particular means [u]. But there is one species of poetical imitation, nearer to nature, and in every respect superior to those effected by any other art; I mean the modern drama well acted. In comedy, and the private life tragedy in profe, the representation is exact, it ceafes to be imitation, it is the thing itself, and therefore, to judge by my own feelings, (I can have no other criterion to judge those of others,) such representations of scenes of terror and deep distress are dreadful, they press too nearly on the mind, the deception is for the time compleat, the horror [v] of the scene is not foftened by the apparent means of imitation so as to be pleasing. I rife from feeing fuch tragedies as George Barnwell, the Fatal Curiosity and [u] See Gerard on Taste, Part 1.. Sect. IV. [v] Encyclopedie, Art. Illusion, by Marmontel. See Note v, Chap. vI.. the
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. the Gamester, with nearly the same sensation as if I had been actually present at scenes of the fame kind in real life. In the higher tragedy, the blank verse, the [w] exalted perfonages, and the inadequacy of the theatrical [x] apparatus to the objects represented, fufficiently discover the means of imitation, and the most tragical catastrophe will not be always so affecting as to displease. I say not always, because there are, in my opinion, some cafes where the distress may be too forcibly worked up even in the higher tragedy, but this will be examined more at large when we come to confider Aristotle's idea of the proper effect of tragedy, and the most perfect construction of tragic fable [v]. It is however obvious that our theatrical language and apparatus is infinitely more natural than that of the Grecian stage. And perhaps it may admit a doubt, whether even Aristotle, if he had feen a Garrick in Lear, or a Siddons in Isabella, would have given the preference to the unhappy catastrophe, or afferted that a tragedy attained its end by reading as well as in representation [z]. W In [w] It is true, the Bishop of Worcester fays, 'Whatever be the unhappy incidents in the • story of private men, it is CERTAIN they must take faster hold of the imagination, and of < course impress the heart more forcibly when related of the higher characters in life.' Dis- SERTATION ON THE PROVINCES OF THE DRAMA, page 168; and this is corroborated by the quotation of the two concluding lines of the Hippolytus of Euripedes. I have the utmost deference for the opinion of fo elegant a critic and fo pathetic a poet, but the direct contrary is to me so CERTAIN from my own feelings and experience, that I cannot acquiefce in it. 'Amicus Plato, amicus Socrates, fed magis amica veritas.' [x] See note III. on Chap. XI, and note 1. on Chap. xxvI. (Y) See Note VII. Ch. XIII. [z] Chap. xxvI. The means of imitation are as much or more liable to err from being too defective, or too apparent, than from the oppofite quality; and this I take to have been the cafe with
[A] In comedy where the effect is chearful, the complete delufion rather encreases the pleasure; and even in the serious comedy the present anxiety is alleviated by the certainty of a happy catastrophe.
