| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Ion by Plato: inferior also;--he who can judge of the good speaker is able to judge of
the bad. And poetry is a whole; and he who judges of poetry by rules of
art ought to be able to judge of all poetry.' This is confirmed by the
analogy of sculpture, painting, flute-playing, and the other arts. The
argument is at last brought home to the mind of Ion, who asks how this
contradiction is to be solved. The solution given by Socrates is as
follows:--
The rhapsode is not guided by rules of art, but is an inspired person who
derives a mysterious power from the poet; and the poet, in like manner, is
inspired by the God. The poets and their interpreters may be compared to a
chain of magnetic rings suspended from one another, and from a magnet. The
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott: old room seemed to brighten up amazingly when the first romance of
the family began there.
"You can't say nothing pleasant ever happens now, can you, Meg?"
said Amy, trying to decide how she would group the lovers in a sketch
she was planning to make.
"No, I'm sure I can't. How much has happened since I said that!
It seems a year ago," answered Meg, who was in a blissful dream
lifted far above such common things as bread and butter.
"The joys come close upon the sorrows this time, and I rather
think the changes have begun," said Mrs. March. "In most families
there comes, now and then, a year full of events. This has been such
Little Women |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle: At this merry Robin Hood laughed amain, and bade him stay
and become one of their band if he wished.
That night there was such a feast held in the greenwood as Nottinghamshire
never saw before. To that feast you and I were not bidden, and pity it is
that we were not; so, lest we should both feel the matter the more keenly,
I will say no more about it.
Robin Hood Aids a Sorrowful Knight
SO PASSED the gentle springtime away in budding beauty; its silver
showers and sunshine, its green meadows and its flowers. So, likewise,
passed the summer with its yellow sunlight, its quivering heat and deep,
bosky foliage, its long twilights and its mellow nights, through which
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood |
