DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.48955#0130
124 NARRATION AND Ch. XXI.
Many writers of that kind abound soin epithets,
as if'poetry consided entirely in high-sounding
words. Take the following insiance.
When black-brow’d Night her dusky mantle spread.
And wrapt in soiemn gloom the sable Iky;
When soothing Sleep her opiate dews had sired,
And seal'd in silken (lumbers, ev'ry eye:
My wakeful thoughts admit no balmy rest,
Nor the sweet bliss os soft oblivion share i
But watchful wo distrads my aching bread: ,
My heart the subjeft os corroding care :
From haunts of men with wand’ring steps and ssow
I solitary Real, and sooth my pensive wo.
Here every substantive is faithfully attended by
some tumid epithet; like young matter, who can-
not, walk abroad without having a laced livery-man
at his heels. Thus in reading without taste , an
emphasis is laid on every word; and in smging
without taste, every note is graced. Such redun-
dancy of epithets, instead of pleasing, produce sa-
tiety and disgust.
The power of language to imitate thought, is
not confined to the capital circumstances above
mentioned : itreacheth even the (lighter modifica-
tions. Slow action , for example , is imitated by
words pronounced ssow ; labor or toil, by w’ords
harsti or rough in their sound. But this subjedhas
been already handled 8.
Ch. 18. sed. 4.
Many writers of that kind abound soin epithets,
as if'poetry consided entirely in high-sounding
words. Take the following insiance.
When black-brow’d Night her dusky mantle spread.
And wrapt in soiemn gloom the sable Iky;
When soothing Sleep her opiate dews had sired,
And seal'd in silken (lumbers, ev'ry eye:
My wakeful thoughts admit no balmy rest,
Nor the sweet bliss os soft oblivion share i
But watchful wo distrads my aching bread: ,
My heart the subjeft os corroding care :
From haunts of men with wand’ring steps and ssow
I solitary Real, and sooth my pensive wo.
Here every substantive is faithfully attended by
some tumid epithet; like young matter, who can-
not, walk abroad without having a laced livery-man
at his heels. Thus in reading without taste , an
emphasis is laid on every word; and in smging
without taste, every note is graced. Such redun-
dancy of epithets, instead of pleasing, produce sa-
tiety and disgust.
The power of language to imitate thought, is
not confined to the capital circumstances above
mentioned : itreacheth even the (lighter modifica-
tions. Slow action , for example , is imitated by
words pronounced ssow ; labor or toil, by w’ords
harsti or rough in their sound. But this subjedhas
been already handled 8.
Ch. 18. sed. 4.