United States or Argentina ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Had this old Song been filled with Epigrammatical Turns and Points of Wit, it might perhaps have pleased the wrong Taste of some Readers; but it would never have become the Delight of the common People, nor have warmed the Heart of Sir Philip Sidney like the Sound of a Trumpet; it is only Nature that can have this Effect, and please those Tastes which are the most unprejudiced or the most refined.
As for the substance of his thinking, as we have already seen in the Discourses, and shall soon have an opportunity of seeing still more clearly, it was often as thin and hollow as if he had belonged to the company of the epigrammatical, who, after all, have far less of a monopoly of shallow thinking than is often supposed.
Had this old song been filled with epigrammatical turns and points of wit, it might perhaps have pleased the wrong taste of some readers; but it would never have become the delight of the common people, nor have warmed the heart of Sir Philip Sidney like the sound of a trumpet; it is only nature that can have this effect, and please those tastes which are the most unprejudiced, or the most refined.
But consider them, one by one, at close quarters, and take a critical look at what they actually wrote: SANAZZARO was a Neapolitan poet and epigrammatist, who could not his times being what they were be expected to overlook the fact that in these slanderous rumours of incest was excellent matter for epigrammatical verse.
Thus it would be easy to go on, perpetrating a score of little epigrammatical allusions, like the above, all kindly meant, but none of them quite hitting the mark, and often striking where they were not aimed. It may be allowable to say, however, that American art is much better represented at Rome in the pictorial than in the sculpturesque department.
It is easy now, as it was easy for Rousseau in the last century, to ask in an epigrammatical manner by how much men are better or happier for having found out this or that novelty in transcendental mathematics, biology, or astronomy; and this is very well as against the discoverer of small marvels who shall give himself out for the benefactor of the human race.
The former became by degrees quite epigrammatical in his poems, terse in "Minna," laconic in "Emilia Galotti," it was not till afterwards that he returned to that serene /naivete/ which becomes him so well in "Nathan."
He has, in defiance of all probability, pointed them in such a way that we might with great propriety give them the name of tragical antitheses, and it becomes almost natural if the personages express themselves in a series of epigrammatical maxims. He is fond of exhibiting perfectly symmetrical oppositions.
Students are now taught to be calm and colloquial; to aim at producing epigrammatical essays; to discuss sociological problems and address the intellects of their auditors rather in the style of the lecture platform or college class room. The great Dr. Chalmers "making the rafters roar" is as much a bygone tradition in many quarters as faith in the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch.
It is heart-rending in its emotional intensity and almost faultless in expression. The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, like most of Meredith's works, contains more than a love story. Many chapters of high-class comedy and epigrammatical wit serve to explode a fallacious educational theory. The Egoist has for its special aim the portrayal and exposure of masculine egotism.
Word Of The Day