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OBSERVATION PREFIXED TO PART OF THE WORK PRINTED IN 1811.

THE declaration in the Preface that these Lectures were, with some additions, printed as they were delivered, is in so far to be corrected, that the additions in the second part are much more considerable than in the first.* The restriction, in point of time in the oral delivery, compelled me to leave more gaps in the last half than in the first. The part respecting Shakspeare and the English theatre, in particular, have been almost altogether re-written. I have been prevented, partly by the want of leisure and partly by the limits of the work, from treating of the Spanish theatre with that fulness which its importance deserves.

• The English edition of this book was printed in two vols., part of the tenth and the concluding Lectures formed the second part.

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CONTENTS.

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LECTURES

ON

DRAMATIC LITERATURE.

LECTURE I.

Introduction-Spirit of true criticism-Difference of taste between the ancients and moderns Classical and romantic poetry and art-Division of dramatic literature: the ancients, their imitators, and the romantic poets-Definition of the drama-View of the theatres of all nations.

THE object which we propose to ourselves in these Lectures is to investigate the principles of dramatic literature, and to consider whatever is connected with the fable, composition, and representation, of theatrical productions. We have selected the drama in preference to every other department of poetry. It will not be expected of us that we should enter scientifically into the first principles of theory. Poetry is in general closely conpected with the other fine arts; and, in some degree, the eldest ster and guide of the rest. The necessity for the fine arts, and the pleasure derivable from them, originate in a principle of our nature, which it is the business of the philosopher to investigate and to classify. This object has given rise to many profound disquisitions, especially in Germany; and the name of aesthetic* (perceptive) has, with no great degree of propriety, been conferred on this department of philosophy, Aesthetics, or the philosophical theory of beauty and art, is of the utmost importance in its connexion with other inquiries into the human mind; but, considered by itself, it is not of sufficient practical instruction; and it can only become so by its union with the history of the arts. We give the appellation of criticism to the intermediate

• From Altino, sentiendi vim habens.-TRANS.

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