k a translation of these Milton papers
out of the _Spectator_. Gottsched replied; Bodmer retorted. Bodmer
translated Paradise Lost; and what was called the English or Milton
party (but was, in that form, really a German national party) were at
last left masters of the field. It was right that these papers of
Addison should be brought in as aids during the contest. Careful as he
was to conciliate opposing prejudices, he was yet first in the field,
and this motto to the first of his series of Milton papers, Yield place
to him, Writers of Greece and Rome, is as the first trumpet note of the
one herald on a field from which only a quick ear can yet distinguish
among stir of all that is near, the distant tramp of an advancing host.
[Footnote 2: [so irksom as]]
[Footnote 3: say]
[Footnote 4: Aristotle, _Poetics_, III. Sec. I, after a full discussion of
Tragedy, begins by saying,
with respect to that species of Poetry which imitates by _Narration_
... it is obvious, that the Fable ought to be dramatically
constructed, like that of Tragedy, and that it should have for its
Subject one entire and perfect action, having a beginning, a middle,
and an end;
forming a complete whole, like an animal, and therein differing,
Aristotle says, from History, which treats not of one Action, but of one
Time, and of all the events, casually connected, which happened to one
person or to many during that time.]
[Footnote 5: _Poetics_, I. Sec. 9.
Epic Poetry agrees so far with Tragic as it is an imitation of great
characters and actions.
Aristotle (from whose opinion, in this matter alone, his worshippers
departed, right though he was) ranked a perfect tragedy above a perfect
epic; for, he said,
all the parts of the Epic poem are to be found in Tragedy, not all
those of Tragedy in the Epic poem.]
[Footnote 6:
Nec reditum Diomedis ab interitu Meleagri,
Nec gemino bellum Trojanum orditur ab ovo,
Semper ad eventum festinat, et in medias res,
Non secus ac notas, auditorem rapit--
De Arte Poet. II. 146-9.]
[Footnote 7: with great Art]
[Footnote 8: the Story]
[Footnote 9: _Poetics_, V. Sec. 3. In arguing the superiority of Tragic to
Epic Poetry, Aristotle says,
there is less Unity in all Epic imitation; as appears from this--that
any Epic Poem will furnish matter for several Tragedies ... The
_Iliad_, for example, and the _Odyssey_, contain many such subordinate
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