Preface to the FablesClarendon Press, 1928 - 43 páginas |
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Términos y frases comunes
Absalom and Achitophel Aeneid Ancient and Modern Bartholomew Fair Baucis and Philemon beauties betwixt Boccace Canterbury Canterbury Tales character Cinyras Cinyras and Myrrha Clar Collier conceit countryman Cowley dalum Decameron Dedication of Examen deserved Discourse Dryden wrote Earl of Leicester English Englishman has borrowed Ennius epic Essays Fables Fairfax fault Fiametta Henry the Fourth heroic Hobbes Homer Homer and Virgil honour Iliad invention Jeremy Collier John Dryden John of Ghant judged Knight's Tale language late Earl Lucilius Lucretius Malone manners Milbourne nature never numbers opinion Ovid and Chaucer Palamon and Arcite Parson peerage of England Petrarch poem poet poetical Preface priests Profaneness Prologue Provençal reader Roman Rymer Satire sense Short View Spenser story tale of Piers thoughts translated Chaucer verse Versus inopes rerum Virgil Virgil and Horace W. P. KER Waller and Denham wholly Wife of Bath words writ writings καὶ
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Página 21 - But enough of this ; there is such a variety of game springing up before me that I am distracted in my choice, and know not which to follow. 'Tis sufficient to say, according to the proverb, that here is God's plenty.
Página 17 - We can only say, that he lived in the infancy of our poetry, and that nothing is brought to perfection at the first. We must be children before we grow men.
Página 21 - If I had desired more to please than to instruct, the Reeve, the Miller, the Shipman, the Merchant, the Sumner, and, above all, the Wife of Bath, in the Prologue to her Tale, would have procured me as many friends and readers as there are beaux and ladies of pleasure in the town.
Página 17 - Gower, his contemporaries: there is the rude sweetness of a Scotch tune in it, which is natural and pleasing, though not perfect.
Página 16 - He is a perpetual fountain of good sense; learn'd in all sciences; and, therefore, speaks properly on all subjects. As he knew what to say, so he knows also when to leave off; a continence which is practised by few writers, and scarcely by any of the ancients, excepting Virgil and Horace.
Página 20 - He must have been a man of a most wonderful comprehensive nature, because, as it has been truly observed of him, he has taken into the compass of his " Canterbury Tales" the various manners and humours (as we now call them) of the whole English nation, in his age.
Página 21 - We have our forefathers and great-grand-dames all before us, as they were in Chaucer's days : their general characters are still remaining in mankind, and even in England, though they are called by other names than those of monks and friars and canons and lady abbesses and nuns ; for mankind is ever the same, and nothing lost out of Nature, though everything is altered.
Página 16 - There was plenty enough, but the dishes were ill sorted; whole pyramids of sweetmeats for boys and women, but little of solid meat for men. All this proceeded not from any want of knowledge, but of judgment. Neither did he want that in discerning the beauties and faults of other poets, but only indulged himself in the luxury of writing; and perhaps knew it was a fault, but hoped the reader would not find it. For this reason, tho...
Página 17 - Tis true, I cannot go so far as he who published the last edition of him; for he would make us believe the fault is in our ears, and that there were really ten syllables in a verse where we find but nine...
Página 17 - ... in Chaucer's age. It were an easy matter to produce some thousands of his verses, which are lame for want of half a foot, and sometimes a whole one, and which no pronunciation can make otherwise.