work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
3626,"","Reading Louis Bredvold's The Intellectual Milieu of John Dryden (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1962): 63.",2005-04-06 00:00:00 UTC,"Thus, my Lord, your sickness is but the imitation of your health; the poet but subordinate to the statesman in you: you still govern men with the same address, and manage business with the same prudence; allowing it here, as in the world, the due increase and growth, till it comes to the just height; and then turning it when it is fully ripe, and Nature calls out, as it were, to be delivered. With this only advantage of ease to you in your poetry, that you have fortune here at your command; with which, wisdom does often unsuccessfully struggle in the world. Here is no chance, which you have not foreseen; all your heroes are more than your subjects, they are your creatures; and though they seem to move freely in all the sallies of their passions, yet you make destinies for them, which they cannot shun. They are moved (if I may dare to say so) like the rational creatures of the Almighty Poet, who walk at liberty, in their own opinion, because their fetters are invisible; when, indeed, the prison of their will is the more sure for being large; and instead of an absolute power over their actions, they have only a wretched desire of doing that, which they cannot choose but do.",2010-12-30,9416,"•INTEREST. Creepy determinism in art and life.
•Bredvold cites from Works, II, 132-33.
bull; Reading again in Google Books....","""They are moved (if I may dare to say so) like the rational creatures of the Almighty Poet, who walk at liberty, in their own opinion, because their fetters are invisible; when, indeed, the prison of their will is the more sure for being large; and instead of an absolute power over their actions, they have only a wretched desire of doing that, which they cannot choose but do.""",Fetters,2012-01-28 20:21:44 UTC,""
3634,"","Searching ""mind"" and ""stamp"" in HDIS (Drama)",2005-04-11 00:00:00 UTC,"Sir, since I had the happinesse to read
The Siege of Urbin; I heare, others plead
That All may see't, and plead with such successe;
That now you'l wave the Stage, and grace the Presse.
'Twill much oblige the Nation, for they'l finde
Your Play stampt with the Figure of your Minde;
The Poëm's Noble, nothing Vulgar in't;
You coyne not Bullion at the Common Mint,
As wee doe, whose low soules no Art can raise:
Nay ev'n when Lov's infus'd into our Playes,
Slow as a Drug, that in the body lies,
Our Phansy works; yours, like a Spirit, flyes,
Nor does your excellence alone consist
In Love's soft Parleys: you do Souldiers list,
And carry on designes of Warre and State,
Form'd in a Campe and Court which you create.
And though new Poëts, like new Starres, appeare:
Yet still you rise above their highest Sphere.
'Tis true, they write great Characters; but then,
How often speak their Great like meaner men;
You make a Prince do all things like a Prince,
That's Argument sufficient to evince
The Dictates that from deepest Reason flow,
Which learned Poets dreame but of, you know,
If then, He, that has greatest latitude
Of Knowledge merit most; I may conclude
The Laurell's yours, justly transplanted now,
From off the Schollar's, to the Courtier's brow.",,9432,•INTEREST continues with figure of coining and mint.,"""'Twill much oblige the Nation, for they'l finde / Your Play stampt with the Figure of your Minde;""","",2009-09-14 19:34:13 UTC,Front Matter
3634,"","Searching ""mind"" and ""stamp"" in HDIS (Drama)",2005-04-11 00:00:00 UTC,"Sir, since I had the happinesse to read
The Siege of Urbin; I heare, others plead
That All may see't, and plead with such successe;
That now you'l wave the Stage, and grace the Presse.
'Twill much oblige the Nation, for they'l finde
Your Play stampt with the Figure of your Minde;
The Poëm's Noble, nothing Vulgar in't;
You coyne not Bullion at the Common Mint,
As wee doe, whose low soules no Art can raise:
Nay ev'n when Lov's infus'd into our Playes,
Slow as a Drug, that in the body lies,
Our Phansy works; yours, like a Spirit, flyes,
Nor does your excellence alone consist
In Love's soft Parleys: you do Souldiers list,
And carry on designes of Warre and State,
Form'd in a Campe and Court which you create.
And though new Poëts, like new Starres, appeare:
Yet still you rise above their highest Sphere.
'Tis true, they write great Characters; but then,
How often speak their Great like meaner men;
You make a Prince do all things like a Prince,
That's Argument sufficient to evince
The Dictates that from deepest Reason flow,
Which learned Poets dreame but of, you know,
If then, He, that has greatest latitude
Of Knowledge merit most; I may conclude
The Laurell's yours, justly transplanted now,
From off the Schollar's, to the Courtier's brow.",,9433,•INTEREST continues with figure of coining and mint.,"""Slow as a Drug, that in the body lies, / Our Phansy works; yours, like a Spirit, flyes""","",2009-09-14 19:34:13 UTC,Front Matter
3676,"","Reading Louis Bredvold's The Intellectual Milieu of John Dryden (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1962), p. 63.",2005-04-06 00:00:00 UTC,"ALMANZOR
O Heaven, how dark a riddle's thy decree,
Which bounds are wills, yet seems to leave them free!
Since thy fore-knowledge cannot be in vain,
Our choice must be what thou didst first ordain.
Thus, like a captive in an isle confined,
Man walks at large, a prisoner of the mind:
Wills all his crimes, while Heaven the indictment draws,
And pleading guilty, justifies the laws.",,9537,•I've included twice: Island and Prison
•Cross-reference: Robinson Crusoe.,"""Thus, like a captive in an isle confined, / Man walks at large, a prisoner of the mind.""","",2013-10-06 17:46:14 UTC,""
3626,"",Reading,2012-01-28 20:23:11 UTC,"[...] Plotting and writing in this kind, are certainly more troublesome employments than many which signify more, and are of greater moment in the world: The fancy, memory, and judgment are then extended (like so many limbs) upon the rack; all of them reaching with their utmost stress at nature; a thing so almost infinite and boundless, as can never fully be comprehended, but where the images of all things are always present. Yet I wonder not, your Lordship succeeds so well in this attempt: the knowledge of men is your daily practice in the world; to work and bend their stubborn minds, which go not all after the same grain, but each of them so particular a way, that the same common humours, in several persons, must be wrought upon by several means. Thus, my Lord, your sickness is but the imitation of your health; the poet but subordinate to the statesman in you: you still govern men with the same address, and manage business with the same prudence; allowing it here, as in the world, the due increase and growth, till it comes to the just height; and then turning it when it is fully ripe, and Nature calls out, as it were, to be delivered. With this only advantage of ease to you in your poetry, that you have fortune here at your command; with which, wisdom does often unsuccessfully struggle in the world. Here is no chance which you have not foreseen; all your heroes are more than your subjects, they are your creatures; and though they seem to move freely in all the sallies of their passions, yet you make destinies for them which they cannot shun. They are moved, if I may dare to say so, like the rational creatures of the Almighty Poet, who walk at liberty, in their own opinion, because their fetters are invincible, when indeed the prison of their will is the more sure for being large; and instead of an absolute power over their actions, they have only a wretched desire of doing that, which they cannot choose but do.",,19545,"","""The fancy, memory, and judgment are then extended (like so many limbs) upon the rack; all of them reaching with their utmost stress at nature; a thing so almost infinite and boundless, as can never fully be comprehended, but where the images of all things are always present.""","",2012-01-28 20:23:11 UTC,""
3626,"",Reading,2012-01-28 20:24:15 UTC,"I have dwelt, my Lord, thus long upon your writing, not because you deserve not greater and more noble commendations, but because I am not equally able to express them in other subjects. Like an ill swimmer, I have willingly staid long in my own depth; and though I am eager of performing more, yet am loath to venture out beyond my knowledge: for beyond your poetry, my Lord, all is ocean to me. To speak of you as a soldier, or a statesman, were only to betray my own ignorance; and I could hope no better success from it, than that miserable rhetorician had, who solemnly declaimed before Hannibal, of the conduct of arms, and the art of war. I can only say in general, that the souls of other men shine out at little crannies; they understand some one thing, perhaps to admiration, while they are darkened on all the other parts: but your Lordship's soul is an entire globe of light, breaking out on every side; and if I have only discovered one beam of it, 'tis not that the light falls unequally, but because the body which receives it, is of unequal parts.",,19546,"","""I can only say in general, that the souls of other men shine out at little crannies; they understand some one thing, perhaps to admiration, while they are darkened on all the other parts: but your Lordship's soul is an entire globe of light, breaking out on every side; and if I have only discovered one beam of it, 'tis not that the light falls unequally, but because the body which receives it, is of unequal parts.""","",2012-01-28 20:24:15 UTC,""
3626,"","Reading Martin Kallich, ""The Association of Ideas and Critical Theory: Hobbes, Locke, and Addison"" ELH 12:4 (1945): 295n.",2012-01-28 20:25:39 UTC,"The advantages which rhyme has over blank verse, are so many, that it were lost time to name them. Sir Philip Sydney, in his Defence of Poesy, gives us one, which, in my opinion, is not the least considerable; I mean the help it brings to memory: which rhyme so knits up by the affinity of sounds, that by remembering the last word in one line, we often call to mind both the verses. Then in the quickness of repartees, which in discoursive scenes fall very often, it has so particular a grace, and is so aptly suited to them, that the sudden smartness of the answer, and the sweetness of the rhyme, set off the beauty of each other. But that benefit which I consider most in it, because I have not seldom found it, is, that it bounds and circumscribes the fancy: for imagination in a poet is a faculty so wild and lawless, that, like an high-ranging spaniel, it must have clogs tied to it, lest it outrun the judgment. The great easiness of blank verse renders the poet too luxuriant; he is tempted to say many things which might better be omitted, or at least shut up in fewer words: but when the difficulty of artful rhyming is interposed, where the poet commonly confines his sense to his couplet, and must contrive that sense into such words, that the rhyme, shall naturally follow them, not they the rhyme; the fancy then gives leisure to the judgment to come in; which seeing so heavy a tax imposed, is ready to cut off all unnecessary expences. This last consideration has already answered an objection which some have made; that rhyme is only an embroidery of sense, to make that which is ordinary in itself, pass for excellent with less examination. But certainly, that which most regulates the fancy, and gives the judgment its busiest employment, is like to bring forth the richest and clearest thoughts. The poet examines that most which he produceth with the greatest leisure, and which, he knows, must pass the severest test of the audience, because they are aptest to have it ever in their memory; as the stomach makes the best concoction, when it strictly embraces the nourishment, and takes account of every little particle as it passes through. But as the best medicines may lose their virtue by being ill applied, so is it with verse, if a fit subject be not chosen for it. Neither must the argument alone, but the characters and persons, be great and noble; otherwise (as Scaliger says of Claudian) the poet will be ignobiliore materia depressus. The scenes, which, in my opinion, most commend it, are those of argumentation and discourse, on the result of which the doing or not doing some considerable action should depend.",,19547,"","""But that benefit which I consider most in it [rhyme], because I have not seldom found it, is, that it bounds and circumscribes the fancy: for imagination in a poet is a faculty so wild and lawless, that, like an high-ranging spaniel, it must have clogs tied to it, lest it outrun the judgment.""",Fetters,2012-01-28 20:29:25 UTC,""
3626,"",Reading,2012-01-28 20:27:40 UTC,"The advantages which rhyme has over blank verse, are so many, that it were lost time to name them. Sir Philip Sydney, in his Defence of Poesy, gives us one, which, in my opinion, is not the least considerable; I mean the help it brings to memory: which rhyme so knits up by the affinity of sounds, that by remembering the last word in one line, we often call to mind both the verses. Then in the quickness of repartees, which in discoursive scenes fall very often, it has so particular a grace, and is so aptly suited to them, that the sudden smartness of the answer, and the sweetness of the rhyme, set off the beauty of each other. But that benefit which I consider most in it, because I have not seldom found it, is, that it bounds and circumscribes the fancy: for imagination in a poet is a faculty so wild and lawless, that, likean high-ranging spaniel, it must have clogs tied to it, lest it outrun the judgment. The great easiness of blank verse renders the poet too luxuriant; he is tempted to say many things which might better be omitted, or at least shut up in fewer words: but when the difficulty of artful rhyming is interposed, where the poet commonly confines his sense to his couplet, and must contrive that sense into such words, that the rhyme, shall naturally follow them, not they the rhyme; the fancy then gives leisure to the judgment to come in; which seeing so heavy a tax imposed, is ready to cut off all unnecessary expences. This last consideration has already answered an objection which some have made; that rhyme is only an embroidery of sense, to make that which is ordinary in itself, pass for excellent with less examination. But certainly, that which most regulates the fancy, and gives the judgment its busiest employment, is like to bring forth the richest and clearest thoughts. The poet examines that most which he produceth with the greatest leisure, and which, he knows, must pass the severest test of the audience, because they are aptest to have it ever in their memory; as the stomach makes the best concoction, when it strictly embraces the nourishment, and takes account of every little particle as it passes through. But as the best medicines may lose their virtue by being ill applied, so is it with verse, if a fit subject be not chosen for it. Neither must the argument alone, but the characters and persons, be great and noble; otherwise (as Scaliger says of Claudian) the poet will be ignobiliore materia depressus. The scenes, which, in my opinion, most commend it, are those of argumentation and discourse, on the result of which the doing or not doing some considerable action should depend.
",,19548,"","""[B]ut when the difficulty of artful rhyming is interposed, where the poet commonly confines his sense to his couplet, and must contrive that sense into such words, that the rhyme, shall naturally follow them, not they the rhyme; the fancy then gives leisure to the judgment to come in; which seeing so heavy a tax imposed, is ready to cut off all unnecessary expences.""",Coinage,2012-01-28 20:27:40 UTC,""
7270,"",Searching in HDIS (Drama),2012-06-29 16:44:28 UTC,"JACINTHA.
What have you laid an ambush for me?
WILDBLOOD.
Only to make a Reprisal of my heart.
JACINTHA.
'Tis so wild, that the Lady who has it in her keeping, would be glad she were well rid on't: it does so flutter about the Cage. 'Tis a meer Bajazet; and if it be not let out the sooner, will beat out the brains against the Grates.
WILDBLOOD.
I am afraid the Lady has not fed it, and 'tis wild for hunger.
JACINTHA.
Or perhaps it wants company; shall she put another to it?
WILDBLOOD.
I; but then 'twere best to trust 'em out of the Cage together; let 'em hop about at libertie.
JACINTHA.
But if they should lose one another in the wide world.
WILDBLOOD.
They'll meet at night I warrant 'em.
JACINTHA.
But is not your heart of the nature of those Birds that breed in one Countrie, and goe to winter in another?
WILDBLOOD.
Suppose it does so; yet I take my Mate along with me. And now to leave our parables, and speak in the language of the vulgar, what think you of a voyage to merry England?
JACINTHA.
Just as Æsop's Frog did, of leaping into a deep Well in a drought: if he ventur'd the leap, there might be water; but if there were no water, how should he get out again?
(II)",,19817,"","""'Tis so wild [Wildblood's heart], that the Lady who has it in her keeping, would be glad she were well rid on't: it does so flutter about the Cage. 'Tis a meer Bajazet; and if it be not let out the sooner, will beat out the brains against the Grates.""",Beasts,2012-06-29 16:45:15 UTC,Act II
7270,"","Searching ""heart"" and ""bird"" in HDIS (Drama)",2012-06-29 16:46:16 UTC,"JACINTHA.
What have you laid an ambush for me?
WILDBLOOD.
Only to make a Reprisal of my heart.
JACINTHA.
'Tis so wild, that the Lady who has it in her keeping, would be glad she were well rid on't: it does so flutter about the Cage. 'Tis a meer Bajazet; and if it be not let out the sooner, will beat out the brains against the Grates.
WILDBLOOD.
I am afraid the Lady has not fed it, and 'tis wild for hunger.
JACINTHA.
Or perhaps it wants company; shall she put another to it?
WILDBLOOD.
I; but then 'twere best to trust 'em out of the Cage together; let 'em hop about at libertie.
JACINTHA.
But if they should lose one another in the wide world.
WILDBLOOD.
They'll meet at night I warrant 'em.
JACINTHA.
But is not your heart of the nature of those Birds that breed in one Countrie, and goe to winter in another?
WILDBLOOD.
Suppose it does so; yet I take my Mate along with me. And now to leave our parables, and speak in the language of the vulgar, what think you of a voyage to merry England?
JACINTHA.
Just as Æsop's Frog did, of leaping into a deep Well in a drought: if he ventur'd the leap, there might be water; but if there were no water, how should he get out again?
(II)",,19818,"Meta-metaphorical comment on the ""language of parable""","""But is not your heart of the nature of those Birds that breed in one Countrie, and goe to winter in another?""",Beasts,2012-06-29 16:46:39 UTC,Act II