Essays in Literary Interpretation |
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achievement Æschylus Alfred de Musset Aristophanes artist ballad beauty become Browning Browning's century character clear complete conception consciousness creative criticism Dante Dante Gabriel Rossetti Dante's deep deeper deepest depth discerned disclose discover Divine Comedy drama element emotion Endymion English epic experience expression fact feeling force genius gift Goethe Greek growth hand heart Herder human humour humourists idea ideal imagination impulse individual insight inspiration intellectual intensity interpret Keats Keats's knowledge Leigh Hunt lies litera literary literature living lyric man's master mediæval ment mind modern Molière mood movement mystery nature ness never noble Paracelsus passion perfect personality poem poet poet's poetic poetry possess Pre-Raphaelite race reveals Rossetti Saint Agnes Sainte-Beuve Sartor Resartus secret sense Shakespeare significance sonnet Sophocles soul spirit sublime supreme Textual criticism things thought tion touch truth unconscious universal verse vision vital whole word writers
Popular passages
Page 188 - And Good and Infinite Be named here, as thou callest thy hand thine own With knowledge absolute, Subject to no dispute From fools that crowded youth, nor let thee feel alone.
Page 250 - I will write independently. I have written independently without judgment. I may write independently and with judgment, hereafter. The Genius of Poetry must work out its own salvation in a man. It cannot be matured by law and precept, but by sensation and watchfulness in itself. That which is creative must create itself.
Page 188 - Spite of this flesh to-day I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole!" As the bird wings and sings, Let us cry, "All good things Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul!
Page 244 - The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a man is healthy ; but there is a space of life between, in which the soul is in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of life •uncertain, the ambition thick-sighted...
Page 134 - Consider the sea's listless chime : Time's self it is, made audible, — The murmur of the earth's own shell. Secret continuance sublime Is the sea's end : our sight may pass No furlong further. Since time was, This sound hath told the lapse of time.
Page 187 - I see the whole design, I, who saw power, see now love perfect too: Perfect I call Thy plan: Thanks that I was a man! Maker, remake, complete, — I trust what Thou shalt do!
Page 243 - KNOWING within myself the manner in which this Poem has been produced, it is not without a feeling of regret that I make it public. What manner I mean, will be quite clear to the reader, who must soon perceive great inexperience, immaturity, and every error denoting a feverish attempt, rather than a deed accomplished.
Page 249 - Praise or blame has but a momentary effect on the man whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a severe critic on his own works. My own domestic .criticism has given me pain without comparison beyond what Blackwood or the Quarterly could possibly inflict — and also when I feel I am right, no external praise can give me such a glow as my own solitary reperception and ratification of what is fine. JS2 is perfectly right in regard to the slip-shod Endymion.
Page 189 - Look not thou down but up! To uses of a cup, The festal board, lamp's flash and trumpet's peal, The new wine's foaming flow, The Master's lips a-glow! Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what need'st thou with earth's wheel?
Page 146 - Under the arch of Life, where love and death, Terror and mystery, guard her shrine, I saw Beauty enthroned ; and though her gaze struck awe, I drew it in as simply as my breath. Hers are the eyes which, over and beneath, The sky and sea bend on thee, — which can draw, By sea or sky or woman, to one law, The allotted bondman of her palm and wreath.