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HERE THEN was Homers first Happiness; He took his plain natural Images from Life: He saw Warriors and Shepherds and Peasants such as he drew; and was daily conversant among such People as he intended to represent: The Manners used in the Trojan Times were not disused in his own: The same way of living in private, and the same Pursuits in publick were still prevalent, and gave him a Model for his Design, which wou'd not allow him to exceed the Truth in his Draught. By frequently and freely looking it over, he cou'd discern what Parts of it were fit to be represented, and what to be palled over y.
FOR SO unaffected and simple were the Manners of those Times, that the Folds and Winddings of the human Breast lay open to the Eye; nor were People ashamed to avow Passions and Inclinations, which were entirely void of Art and Design z. This was Homers Happiness, with respect to Mankind, and the living Part of his Poetry; as for the other Parts, and what a [35] Painter wou'd call Still-life, he cou'd have little Advantage: For we are not to imagine, that he cou'd discover the entertaining Prospects, or rare Productions of a Country better than we can. That is a Subject still remaining to us, if we will quit our Towns, and look upon it: We find it accordingly, nobly executed by many of the Moderns, and the most illustrious Instance of it, within these few Years, doing Honour to the British Poetry *.
IN SHORT, it may be said of Homer, and of every Poet who has wrote well, That what he felt and saw, that he described; and that Homer had the good Fortune to see and learn the Grecian Manners, at their true Pitch and happiest Temper for Verse: Had he been born much sooner, he would have seen nothing but Nakedness and Barbarity: Had he come much later, he had fallen in the Times either of wide Policy and Peace, or of General Wars, when private Passions are buried in the common Order, and established Discipline.
[Die Anmerkungen stehen als Fußnoten auf den in eckigen Klammern bezeichneten Seiten]
[34] y
Et quæ
Desperat tractata nitescere posse, relinquit.
Horat.
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[34] z
Bold Homer durst not fo great Virtue feign
In his best Pattern: Of Patroclus slain.
With such Amazement as weak Mothers use.
And frantick Gesture, he receives the News. WALLER.
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[35] * The SEASONS, by Mr. Thomson,
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Erstdruck und Druckvorlage
An Enquiry into the Life and Writings of Homer.
London: [s.n.] 1735, S. 34-35.
Die Textwiedergabe erfolgt nach dem ersten Druck
(Editionsrichtlinien).
PURL: https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc2.ark:/13960/t6k077c9j
URL: https://archive.org/details/enquiryintolifew00blac
URL: https://www.google.de/books/edition/An_Enquiry_Into_the_Life_and_Writings_of/JjsL8_2tVEsC
Übersetzung
Literatur
Brandmeyer, Rudolf: Poetiken der Lyrik: Von der Normpoetik zur Autorenpoetik.
In: Handbuch Lyrik. Theorie, Analyse, Geschichte.
Hrsg. von Dieter Lamping.
2. Aufl. Stuttgart 2016, S. 2-15.
Briggs, Peter M.: Sensibility Reclaimed:
Thomas Blackwell, Robert Wood, and the "Conjectural History" of Homer.
In: The Age of Johnson. A Scholarly Annual 24 (2021), 160-172.
Domsch, Sebastian: The Emergence of Literary Criticism in 18th-Century Britain.
Discourse between Attacks and Authority.
Berlin u. Boston 2014 (= Buchreihe der Anglia / Anglia Book Series, 47).
Hopkins, David / Martindale, Charles (Hrsg.): The Oxford History of Classical Reception in English Literature.
Bd. 3: 1660-1790.
Oxford 2012.
Lynch, Jack (Hrsg.): The Oxford Handbook of British Poetry, 1660-1800.
Oxford 2016.
McLane, Maureen N.: British Romantic Homer:
Oral Tradition, "Primitive Poetry"
and the Emergence of Comparative Poetics in Britain, 1760-1830.
In: English Literary History 78.3 (2011), S. 687-714.
Riemer, Peter / Singh, Sikander (Hrsg.): Homer und Homer-Rezeption.
Hannover 2023.
Edition
Lyriktheorie » R. Brandmeyer