THE ILLUSTRIOUS GOETHE
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STRANGERPRESUMES TO OFFER THE HOMAGEOF A LITERARY VASSAL TO HIS LIEGE LORD,THE FIRST OF EXISTING WRITERS,WHO HAS CREATEDTHE LITERATURE OF HIS OWN COUNTRY,AND ILLUSTRATED THAT OF EUROPE.THE UNWORTHY PRODUCTIONWHICH THE AUTHOR VENTURES TO INSCRIBE TO HIMIS ENTITLED SARDANAPALUS.[2] PREFACE In publishing the following Tragedies[3] I have only to repeat, thatthey were not composed with the most remote view to the stage. On theattempt made by the managers in a former instance, the public opinionhas been already expressed. With regard to my own private feelings, asit seems that they are to stand for nothing, I shall say nothing. For the historical foundation of the following compositions the readeris referred to the Notes. The Author has in one instance attempted to preserve, and in the otherto approach, the "unities;" conceiving that with any very distantdeparture from them, there may be poetry, but can be no drama. He isaware of the unpopularity of this notion in present English literature;but it is not a system of his own, being merely an opinion, which, notvery long ago, was the law of literature throughout the world, and isstill so in the more civilised parts of it. But "nous avons change toutcela," and are reaping the advantages of the change. The writer is farfrom conceiving that any thing he can adduce by personal precept orexample can at all approach his regular, or even irregular predecessors:he is merely giving a reason why he preferred the more regular formationof a structure, however feeble, to an entire abandonment of all ruleswhatsoever. Where he has failed, the failure is in the architect,--andnot in the art. In this tragedy it has been my intention to follow the account ofDiodorus Siculus;[4] reducing it, however, to such dramatic regularityas I best could, and trying to approach the unities. I therefore supposethe rebellion to explode and succeed in one day by a sudden conspiracy,instead of the long war of the history.
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