The Poetry of Real Life A New Edition, Much Enlarged and Improved. By Henry Ellison |
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ON GIFFORD'S PRAISE OF BEN JOHNSON'S PLAYS,
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 | The Poetry of Real Life |  |
ON GIFFORD'S PRAISE OF BEN JOHNSON'S PLAYS,
“That the representation occupies scarcely an hour more on the stage, than the action would require in real life.”
Critic, thou comprehendest what is made
By rule and measure better than the scope
Of that imagination which doth ope
The world of fancy, and new realms invade;
For art, if it stand still, must retrograde.
Thou with inspired genius must not cope,
But by the rules of Rhetoric judgest trope
And figure, like thy brethren of the trade!
The true aim of the drama is, t' extend
Man's sympathies beyond the selfish hour
He struts and frets before his little end;
Therefore, it grasps him with a hand of power,
And makes him Fancy's heights sublime ascend,
That he may Life o'erlook, as from a tower!
By rule and measure better than the scope
Of that imagination which doth ope
The world of fancy, and new realms invade;
For art, if it stand still, must retrograde.
Thou with inspired genius must not cope,
But by the rules of Rhetoric judgest trope
And figure, like thy brethren of the trade!
The true aim of the drama is, t' extend
Man's sympathies beyond the selfish hour
He struts and frets before his little end;
Therefore, it grasps him with a hand of power,
And makes him Fancy's heights sublime ascend,
That he may Life o'erlook, as from a tower!
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'Tis not to tie him down to one poor space
Or spot of earth, one paltry hour of time;
As Critics, who would count the poet's rhyme
Upon their fingers, and maintain, with face
Profound, the unities of time and place,
Assert,—No! 'tis that he the heights sublime
Of universal Truth thereby may climb,
And the beginning and the end embrace,
The soul's diviner unity! the soul,
Which knows not this or that place, neither this
Nor that time, but itself of all time is!
So he, whom Critics vainly would controul,
Great Shakspeare held, and, well content to miss
Mere local Truth, made universal Truth his goal!
Or spot of earth, one paltry hour of time;
As Critics, who would count the poet's rhyme
Upon their fingers, and maintain, with face
Profound, the unities of time and place,
Assert,—No! 'tis that he the heights sublime
Of universal Truth thereby may climb,
And the beginning and the end embrace,
The soul's diviner unity! the soul,
Which knows not this or that place, neither this
Nor that time, but itself of all time is!
So he, whom Critics vainly would controul,
Great Shakspeare held, and, well content to miss
Mere local Truth, made universal Truth his goal!
| The Poetry of Real Life | |