But besides starting these minor controversies Dacier's preface states some of the typical themes of neo-Aristotelian criticism: the idea that proper tragedy is based on a fable that imitates an "Allegorical and Universal Action" intended "to Form the Manners," a view that closely relates tragic fable to epic fable as interpreted by Le Bossu;[16] that modern tragedy, being concerned with individuals and their intrigues, cannot be universal and is therefore necessarily defective; that love is an improper subject for tragedy; that the Aristotelian _katharsis_ proposes as its end not the expulsion of passions from the soul, but the moderation of excessive passions and the inuring of the audience to the inevitable calamities of life, and so on. Finally, he is nowhere more typical of French critics in his time than in his vigorous defense of the rules, which he declares are valid because of the nature of poetry which, being an art, must have an end, and there must necessarily be some way to arrive at it; because of the authority of Aristotle, whose knowledge of our passions equipped him to give rules for poetry; because of the illustrious works from which Aristotle deduced his rules; because of the quality of the poetry that they produce when followed; because, since they are drawn from "the common Sentiment of Mankind," they must be reasonable; because nothing can please that is not conformable to the rules, "for good Sense and right Reason, is of all Countries and places;" and finally "because they are the Laws of Nature who always acts uniformly, reviews them incessantly, and gives them a perpetual Existence." It is his simultaneous appeal to the authority of the ancients, to the _consensus gentium_, to general nature, and to good sense that makes Dacier seem to us to represent the final phase of French neo-classical critical theory. Samuel Holt Monk University of Minnesota Notes to the Introduction [1] Willard H. Durham, ed., _Critical Essays of the Eighteenth Century_, New Haven, 1915, pp. 62-72. [2] _Tatler_ 165. [3] _Spectator_ 592. [4] For Dacier in England see A.F.B. Clark, _Boileau and the French Classical Critics in England (1660-1830)_, Paris, 1925, pp. 286-288. As late as 1895, S.H. Butcher, in _Aristotle's Theory of Poetry and Fine Art_, mentioned Dacier frequently, if only to disagree with him as often as he mentioned him. [5] Thomas Rymer, _Critical Works_ (ed. C.A. Zimansky), New Haven, 1956, p. 83. [6] This view, announced in the Preface, was elaborately argued by Dacier in Remarque 27, Ch. XIX. [7] Rymer, _op. cit._, p. 84. Zimansky, in his introduction and notes, discusses the influence of Dacier on Rymer and other English critics. [8] _Ibid._ p. 84 and pp. 80-93.