Famous Reviews, Selected and Edited with Introductory Notes by R. Brimley Johnson
History
Famous Reviews, Selected and Edited with Introductory Notes by R. Brimley Johnson
Books -- Reviews; Criticism; English literature -- 18th century -- History and criticism; English literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism
Adonis in Moschus--and the more recent Legend of Apuleius, we scarcely
recollect a passage in all the writings of antiquity in which the
passions of an immortal are fairly disclosed to the scrutiny and
observation of men. The author before us, however, and some of his
contemporaries, have dealt differently with the subject;--and,
sheltering the violence of the fiction under the ancient traditionary
fable, have created and imagined an entire new set of characters, and
brought closely and minutely before us the loves and sorrows and
perplexities of beings, with whose names and supernatural attributes we
had long been familiar, without any sense or feeling of their personal
character. We have more than doubts of the fitness of such personages to
maintain a permanent interest with the modern public;--but the way in
which they are here managed, certainly gives them the best chance that
now remains for them; and, at all events, it cannot be denied that the
effect is striking and graceful.
* * * * *
There is a fragment of a projected Epic, entitled "Hyperion," on the
expulsion of Saturn and the Titanian deities by Jupiter and his younger
adherents, of which we cannot advise the completion: For, though there
are passages of some force and grandeur, it is sufficiently obvious,
from the specimen before us, that the subject is too far removed from
all the sources of human interest, to be successfully treated by any
modern author. Mr. Keats has unquestionably a very beautiful
imagination, and a great familiarity with the finest diction of English
poetry; but he must learn not to misuse or misapply these advantages;
and neither to waste the good gifts of nature and study on intractable
themes, nor to luxuriate too recklessly on such as are more suitable.
LORD BROUGHAM ON BYRON
[From _The Edinburgh Review_, January, 1808]
_Hours of Idleness: A series of Poems, Original and Translated._ By
GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON, a minor. Newark, 1807.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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