Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature
Format: Paperback
ISBN13: 9781153636896
Paperback|9781153636896
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Excerpt: ...drawing without scruple from this source was so universal, that the French imitators, when they borrowed without the least disguise, did not even give themselves the trouble of naming the author of the original, and assigning to the true owner a part of the applause which they might earn. In the Cid alone the text of the Spanish poet is frequently cited, and that only because Corneille's claim to originality had been called in question. We should certainly derive much instruction from a discovery of the prototypes, when they are not among the more celebrated, or already known by their titles, and thereupon instituting a comparison between them and their copies. We must, however, go very differently to work from Voltaire in Heraclius, in which, as Garcia de la Huerta Footnote: In the introduction to his Theatro Hespanol. has incontestably proved, he displays both great ignorance and studied and disgusting perversions. If the most of these imitations give little pleasure to France in the present day, this decision is noways against the originals, which must always have suffered considerably from the recast. The national characters of the French and Spanish are totally different; and consequently also the spirit of their language and poetry. The most temperate and restrained character belongs to the French; the Spaniard, though in the remotest West, displays, what his history may easily account for, an Oriental vein, which luxuriates in a profusion of bold images and sallies of wit. When we strip their dramas of these rich and splendid ornaments, when, for the glowing colours of their romance and the musical variations of the rhymed strophes in which they are composed, we compel them to assume the monotony of the Alexandrine, and submit to the fetters of external regularities, while the character and situations are allowed to remain essentially the same, there can no longer be any harmony between the subject and its mode of treatment, and it loses...
| ISBN-13 | 9781153636896 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10 | 1153636891 |
| Weight | 1.13 Pounds |
| Dimensions | 9.00 x 6.00 x 0.78 In |
| List Price | $28.66 |
| Format | Paperback |
|---|---|
| Pages | 348 pages |
| Publisher | |
| Published On | 2010-03-01 |
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