"You would wonder to hear how close he pushes matters and how thoroughly he carries on the business of self-dissection. By virtue of this soliloquy, he becomes two distinct persons. He is pupil and preceptor. He teaches and he learns."
— Cooper, Anthony Ashley, third earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713)
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
John Morphew
Date
1710, 1714
Metaphor
"You would wonder to hear how close he pushes matters and how thoroughly he carries on the business of self-dissection. By virtue of this soliloquy, he becomes two distinct persons. He is pupil and preceptor. He teaches and he learns."
Metaphor in Context
Go to the poets, and they will present you with many instances. Nothing is more common with them than this sort of soliloquy. A person of profound parts, or perhaps of ordinary capacity, happens on some occasion to commit a fault. He is concerned for it. He comes alone upon the stage, looks about him to see if anybody be near, then takes himself to task without sparing himself in the least. You would wonder to hear how close he pushes matters and how thoroughly he carries on the business of self-dissection. By virtue of this soliloquy, he becomes two distinct persons. He is pupil and preceptor. He teaches and he learns. And, in good earnest, had I nothing else to plead in behalf of the morals of our modern dramatic poets, I should defend them still against their accusers for the sake of this very practice, which they have taken care to keep up in its full force. For whether the practice be natural or no in respect of common custom and usage, I take upon me to assert that it is an honest and laudable practice and that, if already it be not natural to us, we ought however to make it so by study and application.
(p. 72)
(p. 72)
Provenance
Reading
Citation
A complicated publication history. At least 10 entries in ESTC (1710, 1711, 1714, 1733, 1744, 1751, 1757, 1758, 1773, 1790).
See Soliloquy, or Advice to an Author (London: John Morphew, 1710). <Link to ESTC><Link to Google Books>
See also "Soliloquy, or Advice to an Author" in Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times. In Three Volumes. (London: John Darby, 1711). <Link to ESTC>
Some text drawn from ECCO and Google Books; also from Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury. Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, ed. Lawrence E. Klein (Cambridge: CUP, 2001). Klein's text is based on the British Library's copy of the second edition of 1714. [Texts to be collated.]
See Soliloquy, or Advice to an Author (London: John Morphew, 1710). <Link to ESTC><Link to Google Books>
See also "Soliloquy, or Advice to an Author" in Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times. In Three Volumes. (London: John Darby, 1711). <Link to ESTC>
Some text drawn from ECCO and Google Books; also from Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury. Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, ed. Lawrence E. Klein (Cambridge: CUP, 2001). Klein's text is based on the British Library's copy of the second edition of 1714. [Texts to be collated.]
Theme
Soliloquy
Date of Entry
11/06/2003
