Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Poets' Birds
Poetical license of course excuses much, and in homage to the true aim Of poetry almost anything may be condoned. But even poetical license must confess to laws, and, like Nature herself in her most wayward moods, must never permit the extension of an idea except in the direction of its natural progression. It must be produced in a straight line only. There must be no kinks in it, no eccentric liber ties taken. When Nature made a bat She availed herself of a lawful license; but when poets call the bat a bird, they go beyond the justifiable. If a bard is not content with merely saying that the eagle stares at the sun, but goes on to add that its sight pierces through the sun and beyond it, his extension is in a straight line or if another, describing the raven riding on the crest of the swiftly-moving storm, speaks of it as hastening the storm, there is an admissible and pleasing prolongation, so to speak, of the original idea. But when the vulture, because it is opposed to the dove in general Character, is made (as by Savage) to chase the dove and catch it; or when, the sea having becoming calm, the sea-gulls begin (as in Mallet) to warble, we resent the liberty taken by the bard, for it is eccentric, and out of the regular plane of Nature's procedure. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.