Text
Editionsbericht
Literatur: Shaftesbury
Literatur: Brief
My Lord,
[5] NOW, you are return'd to ......, and before the Season comes that must engage you in the weightier Matters of State; if you care to be entertain'd a while with a sort of idle Thoughts, that pretend only to Amusement, and have no relation to Business or Affairs, you may cast your Eye on what follows; and [6] if there be any thing inviting, you may read it at your leisure.
IT has been an establish'd Custom for Poets, at the entrance of their Work, to address themselves to some Muse: and this Practice of the Antients has gain'd so much Repute, that in our days we find it almost constantly imitated. I cannot but fancy however, that this Imitation, which passes so currently with other Judgments, must at some time or other have stuck a little with your Lordship; who is us'd to examine Things by a better Standard than that of Fashion or the common Taste. You must certainly have observ'd our Poets under a remarkable Constraint, when oblig'd to assume this Character: and you have wonder'd, perhaps, why that Air of Enthusiasm which fits so gracefully with an Antient, [7] shou'd be so spiritless and aukard in a Modern. But as to this Doubt, your Lordship wou'd soon resolve your self: and it wou'd only serve to bring a-cross you a Reflection which you have often made, on many occasions besides; That Truth is the most powerful thing in the World, since even Fiction it self must be govern'd by it, and can only please by its resemblance. The Appearance of Reality is necessary to make any Passion agreeably represented: and to be able to move others, we must first be mov'd our selves, or at least seem to be so, on some probable Grounds. Now what possibility is there that a Modern, who is known never to have worship'd Apollo, or own'd any such Deity as the Muses, shou'd persuade us to enter into his pretended Devotion, and move us by his feign'd Zeal in a Religion out [8] of date? But as for the Antients, 'tis known they deriv'd both their Religion and Polity from the Muses Art. How natural therefore must it have appear'd in any, but especially a Poet of those times, to address himself in Raptures of Devotion to those acknowledg'd Patronesses of Wit and Science? Here the Poet might with probability feign an Extasy, tho he really felt none: and supposing it to have been mere Affectation, it wou'd look however like something natural, and cou'd not fail of pleasing.
Erstdruck und Druckvorlage
A Letter Concerning Enthusiasm, to My Lord *****.
London: Printed for J. Morphew 1708..
Unser Auszug: S. 5-8.
Die Textwiedergabe erfolgt nach dem ersten Druck
(Editionsrichtlinien).
URL: https://books.google.fr/books?id=yigJAAAAQAAJ
URL: https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_a-letter-concerning-enth_shaftesbury-anthony-ash_1708
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Edition
Lyriktheorie » R. Brandmeyer