Dr. Samuel Johnsons Stellung zu den literarischen Fragen seiner Zeit

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Gebr. Leemann & Company, 1916 - 111 pages
 

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Page 52 - O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream My great example, as it is my theme! Though deep, yet clear, though gentle, yet not dull, Strong without rage, without o'er-flowing full.
Page 31 - The business of a poet, said Imlac, is to examine, not the individual, but the species ; to remark general properties and large appearances : he does not number the streaks' of the tulip, or describe the different shades in the verdure of the forest.
Page 99 - Shakespeare is a forest, in which oaks extend their branches, and pines tower in the air, interspersed sometimes with weeds and brambles, and sometimes giving shelter to myrtles and to roses; filling the eye with awful pomp, and gratifying the mind with endless di~ versity.
Page 70 - The delight of tragedy proceeds from our consciousness of fiction; if we thought murders and treasons real, they would please no more. Imitations produce pain or pleasure, not because they are mistaken for realities but because they bring realities to mind.
Page 29 - It ought to be the first Endeavour of a Writer to distinguish Nature from Custom, or that which is established because it is right, from that which is right only because it is established...
Page 69 - ... makes no just distribution of good or evil, nor is always careful to show in the virtuous a disapprobation of the wicked; he carries his persons indifferently through right and wrong, and at the close dismisses them without further care, and leaves their examples to operate by chance.
Page 33 - IN order to make a true estimate of the abilities and merit of a writer, it is always necessary to examine the genius of his age, and the opinions of his contemporaries. A poet who should now make the whole action of his tragedy depend upon enchantment, and produce the chief events by the assistance of supernatural agents, would be censured as transgressing the bounds of probability, he would be banished from the theatre to the nursery, and condemned to write Fairy Tales instead of Tragedies...
Page 15 - The moral to be drawn from this representation is, that no man is more dangerous than he that, with a will to corrupt, hath the power to please ; and that neither wit nor honesty ought to think themselves safe with such a companion, when they see Henry seduced by Falstaff.
Page 54 - Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison...
Page 70 - The truth is, that the spectators are always in their senses, and know, from the first act to the last, that the stage is only a stage, and that the players are only players.

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