A metaphor is almost all the
stage can suffer, which is a kind of similitude comprehended in a
word. But this figure has a contrary effect in heroic poetry; there
it is employed to raise the admiration, which is its proper
business; and admiration is not of so violent a nature as fear or
hope, compassion or horror, or any concernment we can have for such
or such a person on the stage. Not but I confess that similitudes
and descriptions when drawn into an unreasonable length must needs
nauseate the reader. Once I remember (and but once) Virgil makes a
similitude of fourteen lines, and his description of Fame is about
the same number. He is blamed for both, and I doubt not but he
would have contracted them had be lived to have reviewed his work;
but faults are no precedents. This I have observed of his
similitudes in general--that they are not placed (as our unobserving
critics tell us) in the heat of any action, but commonly in its
declining; when he has warmed us in his description as much as
possibly he can, then (lest that warmth should languish) he renews
it by some apt similitude which illustrates his subject and yet
palls not his audience.
Pages:
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258