A Course of Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature, Volume 1 |
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action actors admiration altogether ancient appears Aristophanes Aristotle Beaumont and Fletcher beautiful Ben Jonson Cæsar Calderon character chorus circumstances Clytemnestra composition considered Corneille critics death dignity display dramatic art effect Electra elevation endeavour English Eschylus Euripides exhibited expression fancy favour feeling foreign French Tragedy frequently give Grecian Greek tragedies Greeks hand heroes heroic honour human idea imitation intrigue invention Italian Julius Cæsar labours language literature Lope de Vega manner masks means Menander merely Metastasio mind modern Molière moral nature never noble object observed Old Comedy opera opinion Orestes original passion peculiar persons Philoctetes picture pieces Plautus play players poet poetical poetry possess produce Racine racter representation resemblance respect Roman scene Shakspeare Shakspeare's Sophocles Spanish species spectators spirit stage style talent taste theatre theatrical thing tion tone tragedians tragic true truth unity verse versification Voltaire whole
Popular passages
Page 431 - Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts ; Into a thousand parts divide one man, And make imaginary puissance ; Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them Printing their proud hoofs i...
Page 372 - element,' but the word is over-worn. \Exit. r" Vio. This fellow is wise enough to play the fool ; And to do that well craves a kind of wit : He must observe their mood on whom he jests, The quality of persons, and the time, And, like the haggard, check at every feather That comes before his eye. This is a practice As full of labour as a wise man's art : For folly that he wisely shows is fit ; But wise men, folly-fall'n, quite taint their wit.
Page 350 - How absolute the knave is ! we must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us. By the Lord, Horatio, these three years I have taken note of it ; the age is grown so picked that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe. How long hast thou been a grave-maker? First Clo. Of all the days i' the year, I came to 't that day that our last king Hamlet overcame Fortinbras.
Page 410 - Tis two or three, my lord, that bring you word, Macduff is fled to England. Macb. Fled to England ? Len. Ay, my good lord. Macb. Time, thou anticipat'st my dread exploits : The flighty purpose never is o'ertook, Unless the deed go with it : from this moment, The very firstlings of my heart shall be The firstlings of my hand.
Page 398 - Say, there be ; Yet nature is made better by no mean, But nature makes that mean ; so, o'er that art Which, you say, adds to nature, is an art That nature makes.
Page 461 - The New Inn : or the Light Heart, a Comedy. As it was never acted, but most negligently played by some, the King's servants ; and more squeamishly beheld and censured by others, the King's subjects.
Page 99 - I can truly say, that pauvre inconnu as I then was, I had pretty nearly as high an idea of myself and of my works as I have at this moment, when the public has decided in their favour.
Page 404 - Hamlet is singular in its kind : a tragedy of thought inspired by continual and never-satisfied meditation on human destiny and the dark perplexity of the events of this world, and calculated to call forth the very same meditation in the minds of the spectators. This enigmatical work resembles those irrational equations in which a fraction of unknown magnitude always remains, that will in no way admit of solution.