If Tragedy shall some time hence suffer any sort of Eclipse, 'twill be by the Laziness, and Haste of those Poets, who Write without being rightly Instructed. Plato in his Phedrus Introduces a young Poet seeking Sophocles and Euripides, and Accosting them thus. I can make Verses tolerably well; and I know how in my Descriptions to extend a mean Subject, and Contract a great one: I know how to excite Terror, and Compassion, and to make pitiful things appear Dreadful and Menacing. I will therefore go, and write Tragedies. Sophocles and Euripides answer'd him, Don't go so fast, Tragedy is not what you take it to be; 'tis a Body, composed of many different, and well-suited Parts, of which you will make a Monster, unless you know how to adjust them; you may know what is to be learn'd, before the Study of the Art of Tragedy; but you don't yet know that Art.
If there are Poets now, which don't know so much as the Young Man, of whom Plato speaks, these Rules can be of no Advantage to them; but those who are like him, and in the same Circumstances, need only keep to these Rules, which will teach them what they are Ignorant of, and the fourth time restore Tragedy to its first Lustre and Brightness. This is the most profitable Present, can be made them, if by Meditation and Practice they will endeavour to make a right use of it; for Precepts alone are not sufficient to make us Learned, the Advantage, and Profit of any Rules, depend on our Labour and Pains. If these Rules are not for them, they will be against them, and their Works shall be Judg'd by them.
Footnotes:
[17] In his Treatise of Ancient Physick.
[18] Chap. 18. Rem. 8. &c.
[19] Chap. 13. Rem. 25.
[20] A Town in Thessaly.
[21] Called Impious, because he writ against Homer.
[22] Grandfather to Alexander the Great.
Sig. [A 3], recto, 11. 17-18. "Horace's Art of Poetry." Published, Paris, 1689, in Vol. X of Dacier's Remarques Critiques sur les Oeuvres [d'Horace] Avec une Nouvelle Traduction.
Sig. [A 5], verso, 1.2, note. "Chap. 18, Rem. 8." In this remark, Dacier explicates Aristotle's injunction that the poet should sketch the general outline of the fable before filling in episodes and naming characters, thus making it general and universal.
Sig. [A 6], verso, 1.7, note. "Chap. 13, Rem. 25." Dacier says in this remark that a regular tragedy submitted to the judgment of the learned and the ignorant will always please best, "car l'un remarque une chose, l'autre une autre, & tous ensemble ils remarquent tout."
Sig. [A 8], recto, 1.7. "History is much less grave." "Ch. IX, Rem. 5" (Dacier's note) Dacier adds nothing to the traditional discussion of the superiority of poetry to history and philosophy.
Sig. [A 8], verso, 1.18. "Alexander of Pherea." See Plutarch's oration "On the Fortune or the Virtue of Alexander," II, in Moralia (tr. F.C. Babbitt, Loeb Classical Library), IV, 424.
Sig. [b 1], recto, 1.1. "A Very Grave Historian." Polybius, Histories, IV, 20.
Sig. [b 1], verso 1.20. "Mr. Racine ... his last two pieces..." Esther (1689) and Athalie, 1691.
Sig. [b 2], recto, 11. 23-24. "Victorius." Pietro Vettori, Commentarii in Primum Librum Aristotelis de Arte Poetarum, Florentiae, 1560.
Ibid., 1.27. "Castelvetro." Ludovico Castelvetro, La Poetica d'Aristotele vulgarizzata et sposta, 1570. This view of Castelvetro, who was remarkable for his independence of Aristotle, was fairly common in France. La Mesnardière, for instance, was extremely hostile to him.
Sig. [b 2], verso, 1.13. "Mesnardière." Jules de La Mesnardière, La Poëtique, Paris, 1693.
Ibid., 1.20. "D'Aubignac." Aubignac (abbé Hédelin d'), La Pratique du Theatre, Paris, 1657. English translation, 1684.
Ibid., 1.26. "Father Bossu." Traité du Poëme Epique, Paris, 1675.
Sig. [b 3], recto, 1.22. "Corneille." "Discours de l'Utilité et des Parties du Poëme Dramatique," Oeuvres (ed. Ch. Marty-Laveaux), Paris, 1862, I, 16.
Sig. [b 4], verso, 1. 12. "Dionysius of Halicarnassus." See "Epistola ad Cn. Pompeio de Platone," Dionysii Halicarnassensis, Opera Omnia, Lipsiae, 1774-1777, VI, 750-752.
Sig. [b 6], verso, 1. 27. "Pindar" Fragment 159, Odes (tr. Sir John Sandys, Loeb Classical Library) p. 600.
Sig. [b 7], recto, 1. 5. "verse of Agathon" Ars atque fortuna invicem se diligunt. "Agathones Fragmenta" 6, in Fragmenta Euripides (ed. F.G. Wagner), Paris, 1843-1846, II, 58.
Ibid., 1.10. "Plato in his Phaedrus." "Phaedrus," 268, Dialogues (tr. B. Jowett) Third Edition, Oxford, 1892, I, 477.
| General Editors | ||
| R. C. Boys University of Michigan | Ralph Cohen University of California, Los Angeles | |
| Vinton A. Dearing University of California, Los Angeles | Lawrence Clark Powell Wm. Andrews Clark Memorial Library | |
| Corresponding Secretary: Mrs. Edna C. Davis, Wm. Andrews Clark Memorial Library | ||
The Society exists to make available inexpensive reprints (usually facsimile reproductions) of rare seventeenth and eighteenth century works. The editorial policy of the Society remains unchanged. As in the past, the editors welcome suggestions concerning publications. All income of the Society is devoted to defraying cost of publication and mailing.
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| André Dacier, Preface to Aristotle's Art of Poetry (1705). Introduction by Samuel Holt Monk. |
| William Herbert, Third Earl of Pembroke. Poems (1660). Introduction by Gaby Onderwyzer. |
| Francis Hutcheson, Reflections on Laughter (1729). Introduction by Scott Elledge. |
| Eighteenth-Century Newspaper Essays on the Theatre. Selected, with an introduction, by John Loftis. |
| Samuel Johnson, Notes to Shakespeare, Vol. III, Tragedies. Edited by Arthur Sherbo. |
| John Joyne, A Journal (1679). Edited by R. E. Hughes. |
| Richard Savage, An Author to be Let (1732). Introduction by James Sutherland. |
| Seventeenth-Century Tales of the Supernatural. Selected, with an introduction, by Isabel M. Westcott. |
Transcriber's Notes:
Elongated "s" has been modernized.
Additional spacing after some of the quotes is intentional to indicate
both the end of a quotation and the beginning of a new paragraph as presented in the original text.