Epistle to a Friend Concerning Poetry (1700) and the Essay on Heroic Poetry (second edition, 1697) by Samuel Wesley
page 57 of 85 (67%)
page 57 of 85 (67%)
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Rapin too gives his Vote on the same side, Rien n'est, says he, plus essentiel au Poem Epique, que la Fiction; and quotes Petronius to that purpose, Per ambages, Deorumque ministeria praecipitandus est Liber Spiritus. Nor is't only the Moderns who are of this Opinion; for the Iliads are call'd in Horace, Fabula qua Paridis, &c. And lastly, even Aristotle himself tells us, "That Fable is the principal thing in an Heroic Poem; and, as it were, the very Soul of it." [Greek: Archê kai oion psychê.] And upon this occasion commends Homer for lying with the best Grace of any Man in the World: Authorities almost too big to admit any Examination of their Reason, or Opposition to their Sentiments. However, I see no cause why Poetry should not be brought to the Test, as well as Divinity, or any more than the other, be believed on its own bare ipse dixit. Let us therefore examine the Plan which they lay for a Work of this Nature, and then we may be better able to guess at those Grounds and Reasons on which they proceed. In forming an Heroic-Poem, the first thing they tell us we ought to do, is to pitch on some Moral Truth, which we desire to enforce on our Reader, as the Foundation of the whole work. Thus Virgil, as Bossu observes, designing to render the Roman People pleased and easie under the new Government of Augustus, laid down this Maxim, as the Foundation of his Divine Æneis: "That great and notable Changes of State are not accomplished but by the Order and Will of God: That those who oppose themselves against them are impious, and frequently punished as they deserve; and that Heaven is not wanting to take that Hero always under its particular Protection, whom it chuses for the Execution of such grand Designs." This for the Moral Truth; we must then, he says, go on to lay |
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