- Performer Name:
- Performance Venue:
- Performance Date:
- Author:
- Wood, Robert
- Date Written:
- Language:
- English
- Publication Title:
- An Essay on the Original Genius of Homer
- Article Title:
- Page Numbers:
- xi
- Additional Info:
- Publisher:
- [privately printed]
- Place of Publication:
- London
- Date Published:
- 1769
Text:
A curious and attentive observer of nature is perhaps most liable to retain those marks of locality, which it has been my object to trace in the Poet: An elegant conception of external forms cannot easily divest itself of the precise order and arrangement of objects, with which it has at any time connected the idea of beauty; hence that Ionian point of view, to which Homer’s scenery is so much adapted, sometimes even in violation of unity of place.
We shall find this negligence more excusable, if we credit that probable tradition of the wandering Bard's chanting his compositions to his countrymen, in the manner practised at this day in the East: a tradition which is favoured by the dramatick cast of the Iliad and Odyssey. I have often admired the spirited and theatrical action of Italian and Eastern Poets, when they recite in the open air, pointing out each object of description in an imaginary scenery of their own extempore creation, availing themselves however of every real appearance of nature within view of their Audience, that is applicable to their subject, and, by that means, connecting, in some degree, the composition with the scenery of the spot where the recital is made.
Notes:
- Collected by:
- AE