A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 02. VoltaireЧитать онлайн книгу.
us the funeral oration has taken possession of the poetic style in prose; but this branch of oratory, consisting almost entirely of exaggeration, seems privileged to borrow the ornaments of poetry.
The writers of romances have sometimes taken this licence. La Calprenède was, I think, the first who thus transposed the limits of the arts, and abused this facility. The author of "Telemachus" was pardoned through consideration for Homer, whom he imitated, though he could not make verses, and still more in consideration of his morality, in which he infinitely surpasses Homer, who has none at all. But he owed his popularity chiefly to the criticism on the pride of Louis XIV. and the harshness of Louvois, which, it was thought, were discoverable in "Telemachus."
Be this as it may, nothing can be a better proof of Aristotle's good sense and good taste than his having assigned to everything its proper place.
Aristotle on Poetry.
Where, in our modern nations, shall we find a natural philosopher, a geometrician, a metaphysician, or even a moralist who has spoken well on the subject of poetry? They teem with the names of Homer, Virgil, Sophocles, Ariosto, Tasso, and so many others who have charmed the world by the harmonious productions of their genius, but they feel not their beauties; or if they feel them they would annihilate them.
How ridiculous is it in Pascal to say: "As we say poetical beauty, we should likewise say geometrical beauty, and medicinal beauty. Yet we do not say so, and the reason is that we well know what is the object of geometry, and what is the object of medicine, but we do not know in what the peculiar charm – which is the object of poetry – consists. We know not what that natural model is which must be imitated; and for want of this knowledge we have invented certain fantastic terms, as age of gold, wonder of the age, fatal wreath, fair star, etc. And this jargon we call poetic beauty."
The pitifulness of this passage is sufficiently obvious. We know that there is nothing beautiful in a medicine, nor in the properties of a triangle; and that we apply the term "beautiful" only to that which raises admiration in our minds and gives pleasure to our senses. Thus reasons Aristotle; and Pascal here reasons very ill. Fatal wreath, fair star, have never been poetic beauties. If he wished to know what is poetic beauty, he had only to read.
Nicole wrote against the stage, about which he had not a single idea; and was seconded by one Dubois, who was as ignorant of the belles lettres as himself.
Even Montesquieu, in his amusing "Persian Letters," has the petty vanity to think that Homer and Virgil are nothing in comparison with one who imitates with spirit and success Dufrénoy's "Siamois," and fills his book with bold assertions, without which it would not have been read. "What," says he, "are epic poems? I know them not. I despise the lyric as much as I esteem the tragic poets." He should not, however, have despised Pindar and Horace quite so much. Aristotle did not despise Pindar.
Descartes did, it is true, write for Queen Christina a little divertissement in verse, which was quite worthy of his matière cannelée.
Malebranche could not distinguish Corneille's "Qu'il mourût" from a line of Jodèle's or Garnier's.
What a man, then, was Aristotle, who traced the rules of tragedy with the same hand with which he had laid down those of dialectics, of morals, of politics, and lifted, as far as he found it possible, the great veil of nature!
To his fourth chapter on poetry Boileau is indebted for these fine lines:
Il n'est point de serpent, ni de monstre odieux
Qui, par l'art imité, ne puisse plaire aux yeux.
D'un pinceau délicat l'artifice agréable
Du plus affreux object fait un objet aimable;
Ainsi, pour nous charmer, la tragédie eut pleurs
D'Œdipe tout-sanglant fit parler les douleurs.
Each horrid shape, each object of affright,
Nice imitation teaches to delight;
So does the skilful painter's pleasing art
Attractions to the darkest form impart;
So does the tragic Muse, dissolved in tears.
With tales of woe and sorrow charm our ears.
Aristotle says: "Imitation and harmony have produced poetry. We see terrible animals, dead or dying men, in a picture, with pleasure – objects which in nature would inspire us only with fear and sorrow. The better they are imitated the more complete is our satisfaction."
This fourth chapter of Aristotle's reappears almost entire in Horace and Boileau. The laws which he gives in the following chapters are at this day those of our good writers, excepting only what relates to the choruses and music. His idea that tragedy was instituted to purify the passions has been warmly combated; but if he meant, as I believe he did, that an incestuous love might be subdued by witnessing the misfortune of Phædra, or anger be repressed by beholding the melancholy example of Ajax, there is no longer any difficulty.
This philosopher expressly commands that there be always the heroic in tragedy and the ridiculous in comedy. This is a rule from which it is, perhaps, now becoming too customary to depart.
ARMS – ARMIES
It is worthy of consideration that there have been and still are, upon the earth societies without armies. The Brahmins, who long governed nearly all the great Indian Chersonesus; the primitives, called Quakers, who governed Pennsylvania; some American tribes, some in the centre of Africa, the Samoyedes, the Laplanders, the Kamchadales, have never marched with colors flying to destroy their neighbors.
The Brahmins were the most considerable of all these pacific nations; their caste, which is so ancient, which is still existing, and compared with which all other institutions are quite recent, is a prodigy which cannot be sufficiently admired. Their religion and their policy always concurred in abstaining from the shedding of blood, even of that of the meanest animal. Where such is the regime, subjugation is easy; they have been subjugated, but have not changed.
The Pennsylvanians never had an army; they always held war in abhorrence.
Several of the American tribes did not know what an army was until the Spaniards came to exterminate them all. The people on the borders of the Icy Sea are ignorant alike of armies, of the god of armies, of battalions, and of squadrons.
Besides these populations, the priests and monks do not bear arms in any country – at least when they observe the laws of their institution.
It is only among Christians that there have been religious societies established for the purpose of fighting – as the Knights Templars, the Knights of St. John, the Knights of the Teutonic Order, the Knights Swordbearers. These religious orders were instituted in imitation of the Levites, who fought like the rest of the Jewish tribes.
Neither armies nor arms were the same in antiquity as at present. The Egyptians hardly ever had cavalry. It would have been of little use in a country intersected by canals, inundated during five months of the year, and miry during five more. The inhabitants of a great part of Asia used chariots of war.
They are mentioned in the annals of China. Confucius says that in his time each governor of a province furnished to the emperor a thousand war chariots, each drawn by four horses. The Greeks and Trojans fought in chariots drawn by two horses.
Cavalry and chariots were unknown to the Jews in a mountainous tract, where their first king, when he was elected, had nothing but she-asses. Thirty sons of Jair, princes of thirty cities, according to the text (Judges, x, 4), rode each upon an ass. Saul, afterwards king of Judah, had only she-asses; and the sons of David all fled upon mules when Absalom had slain his brother Amnon. Absalom was mounted on a mule in the battle which he fought against his father's troops; which proves, according to the Jewish historians, either that mares were beginning to be used in Palestine, or that they were already rich enough there to buy mules from the neighboring country.
The Greeks made but little use of cavalry. It was chiefly with the Macedonian phalanx that Alexander gained the battles which laid