History of English Literature, Vol. 3 of 4 (Classi - edizione con copertina flessibile

Excerpt from History of English Literature, Vol. 3 of 4

Each little pimple had a tear in it,
To wail the fault its rising did commit...
Or were these gems sent to adorn his skin,
The cabinet of a richer soul within?
No comet need foretel his change drew on
Whose corpse might seem a constellation."

With such a pretty morsel, Dryden, the greatest poet of the classical age, makes his début.

Such enormities indicate the close of a literary age. Excess of folly in poetry, as excess of injustice in political matters, lead up to and foretell revolutions. The Renaissance, unchecked and original, abandoned the minds of men to the eccentricities, curiosities, outbreaks of a fancy which only cares to content itself, breaks out into singularities, has need of novelties, and loves audacity and extravagance, as reason loves justice and truth. After the extinction of genius folly remained; after the removal of inspiration nothing was left but absurdity. Formerly disorder and internal enthusiasm produced and excused concetti and wild flights; thenceforth men threw them out in cold blood, by calculation and without excuse. Formerly they expressed the state of the mind, now they belie it. So are literary revolutions accomplished. The form, no longer original or spontaneous, but imitated and passed from hand to hand, outlives the old spirit which had created it, and is in opposition to the new spirit which destroys it. This preliminary strife and progressive transformation make up the life of Dryden, and account for his impotence and his failures, his talent and his success.

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