Letters on Literature, Taste, and Composition, Addressed to His Son

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LETTER HI. SOt'ItCES OF FINK COMPOSITION. .1/r DEAR JOHJ, METAPHYSICAL writers have generalized and classed the various sources whence the pleasures of the. imagination, and the ornaments of style are derived. They are all to be traced into the human passions, for, as I observed, it is by exciting...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LETTER HI. SOt'ItCES OF FINK COMPOSITION. .1/r DEAR JOHJ, METAPHYSICAL writers have generalized and classed the various sources whence the pleasures of the. imagination, and the ornaments of style are derived. They are all to be traced into the human passions, for, as I observed, it is by exciting correspondent emotions in their minds that the imagery employed by any writer affects and interests his readers. The same philosophers have endeavoured to explain why the excitement of moderate emotions, such as are produced by the sight of a tragedy, should be a source of pleasure. The best cause I can assign for this is, that life itself consists chiefly in action, and it is only when in some degree occupied or engaged, that we feel the pleasure of living. Violent action or agitation, on the contrary, pains and fatigues. Hence the moderate excitement of the passions on the sight of a tragedy, or the hearing of a pathetic narrative, gives pleasure, whereas the same event in real life is productive of pain. Whether this account, however, is consistent with truth and nature or not, will make little difference as to the practical part of our subject. It is enough that pleasure is derivable from the following sources, and that what is captivating in writers may in general be traced to one or other of them: 1st, The marvellous; 2d, the new; 3d, the sublime; 4th, the pathetic; 5th, the ridiculous. I. Our taste lor the marvellous is chiefly to be referred to that general principle of our nature, which is so strong a principle of action, the passion of admiration. It may also be increased by the same cause from which I have accounted for the pleasurable sensations excited c by tragedy. Almost every thing wonderful is connected with something of the terrific, and we know that terr..