Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches
“The perusal of his Works would show that Criticism is also a science of which he is master; that if ever a man had studied Art in all its branches and bearings, from its origin in the depths of the creative spirit to its minutest finish on the canvas of the painter, on the li...
“The perusal of his Works would show that Criticism is also a science of which he is master; that if ever a man had studied Art in all its branches and bearings, from its origin...
2. Part 2How hateful our varnished doll-painters are to me I cannot express. By their theatrical positions, their false tints, and gaily-colored costumes, they have captured the eyes of...
3. Part 3The situation of the three figures is represented with a wise gradation. In the oldest son only the extremities are entangled; the second is encumbered with more folds, and espe...
4. Part 4_Guest._--Ay, ay; that is just the way with you gentlemen of the new school of philosophy. You bring everything upon your own ground and province; and, in fact, it is more conve...
5. Part 5But man finds, usually, such a mode of proceeding too timid and inadequate. He perceives a harmony among many objects, which can only be brought into a picture by sacrificing th...
6. Part 6There being no objective laws, either for the internal or external construction of a poem, the amateur ought to hold fast to acknowledged models much more strongly than the mast...
7. Part 7The question whether this or that occupation to which a man devotes himself is useful recurs often enough in the course of time, and must come before us especially at this time...
8. Part 8Could these discussions and suggestions have been preserved by a shorthand writer, we should have possessed a noteworthy contribution to productive criticism. But even more valu...
9. Part 9Though in these respects I completely approve of the valuable efforts of my old co-worker, I must confess that I differ from him in some of his utterances; as, for instance, tha...
10. Part 10“But the farther I advanced, the more difficult did it become for me to form any image of the whole, in its general bearings; till at last it seemed as if impossible. I next wen...
11. Part 11“Do not interrupt me,” answered Wilhelm; “perhaps you will not always think me right. These errors are like temporary props of an edifice: they must not be removed till we have...
12. Part 12Shakespeare associates himself with the World-Spirit; like it, he explores the world; from neither is anything hidden. But whereas it is the business of the World-Spirit to keep...
13. Part 13The unimportant supernumerary rôles were first designated merely by numbers, but here we find them endowed with honor and significance through being given names. We are thus rem...
14. Part 14Such excellence older readers are likely to prize more highly, for they like to enjoy in comfort a perfectly adequate presentation; younger men, on the contrary, actively engage...
15. Part 15There is little of the æsthetic in the manner in which this writer treats his subjects. In external form he is indeed varied enough, but throughout he makes too much use of dire...
16. Part 16Prussians, and with them Protestant Germany, therefore gained a treasure-trove for their literature, which was lacking to the other party, who have not been able to repair the d...
17. Part 17We admire the tragedies of the ancient Greeks; but, to take a correct view of the case, we ought rather to admire the period and the nation in which their production was possibl...
18. Part 18I look upon the manner in which Schlegel has treated the French drama as a sort of recipe for the formation of a bad critic, who is wanting in every organ for the veneration of...
19. Part 19In this little volume, however, we have most of Goethe’s successive moods represented by some characteristic utterance,--the young reviewer, the lover of Shakespeare and Gothic...