John Mavrogordato - "The World in Chains"

r, The Inner Life of the Author - "Ernest Linwood"

J.G. Adams - "Hymns for Christian Devotion"

Forbes Robinson - "Letters to His Friends"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Poetical Works of Akenside

M >> Mark Akenside >> Poetical Works of Akenside




But others there are who believe beauty to be merely a relative and
arbitrary thing; that, indeed, it was a benevolent provision in
nature to annex so delightful a sensation to those objects which are
best and most perfect in themselves, that so we might be engaged to
the choice of them at once, and without staying to infer their
usefulness from their structure and effects; but that it is not
impossible, in a physical sense, that two beings, of equal
capacities for truth, should perceive, one of them beauty, and the
other deformity, in the same proportions. And upon this supposition,
by that truth which is always connected with beauty, nothing more
can be meant than the conformity of any object to those proportions
upon which, after careful examination, the beauty of that species is
found to depend. Polycletus, for instance, a famous ancient sculptor,
from an accurate mensuration of the several parts of the most perfect
human bodies, deduced a canon or system of proportions, which was
the rule of all succeeding artists. Suppose a statue modelled
according to this: a man of mere natural taste, upon looking at it,
without entering into its proportions, confesses and admires its
beauty; whereas a professor of the art applies his measures to the
head, the neck, or the hand, and, without attending to its beauty,
pronounces the workmanship to be just and true.

[Footnote 1: This the Athenians did in a peculiar manner, by the
words [Greek: kalokagathus] and [Greek: kalokagathia].]


ENDNOTE G.

'_As when Brutus rose_,' etc.--P. 18.

Cicero himself describes this fact--'Cassare interfecto--statim
cruentum alte extollens M. Brutus pugionem, Ciceronem nominatim
exclamavit, atque ei recuperatam libertatem est gratulatus.'
--_Cic. Philipp_. ii. 12.


ENDNOTE H.

'_Where Virtue rising from the awful depth
Of Truth's mysterious bosom_,' etc.--P. 20.

According to the opinion of those who assert moral obligation to be
founded on an immutable and universal law; and that which is usually
called the moral sense, to be determined by the peculiar temper of
the imagination and the earliest associations of ideas.


ENDNOTE I.

'_Lyceum_.'--P. 21.

The school of Aristotle.


ENDNOTE J.

'_Academus_.'--P. 21.

The school of Plato.


ENDNOTE K.

'_Ilissus_.'--P. 21.

One of the rivers on which Athens was situated. Plato, in some of
his finest dialogues, lays the scene of the conversation with
Socrates on its banks.

* * * * *


BOOK SECOND.


ENDNOTE L

'_At last the Muses rose_,' etc.--P. 22.

About the age of Hugh Capet, founder of the third race of French
kings, the poets of Provence were in high reputation; a sort of
strolling bards or rhapsodists, who went about the courts of princes
and noblemen, entertaining them at festivals with music and poetry.
They attempted both the epic, ode, and satire; and abounded in a
wild and fantastic vein of fable, partly allegorical, and partly
founded on traditionary legends of the Saracen wars. These were the
rudiments of Italian poetry. But their taste and composition must
have been extremely barbarous, as we may judge by those who followed
the turn of their fable in much politer times; such as Boiardo,
Bernardo, Tasso, Ariosto, etc.


ENDNOTE M.

'_Valclusa_.'--P. 22.

The famous retreat of Francisco Petrarcha, the father of Italian
poetry, and his mistress, Laura, a lady of Avignon.


ENDNOTE N.

'_Arno_.'--P. 22.

The river which runs by Florence, the birth-place of Dante and
Boccaccio.


ENDNOTE O.

'_Parthenope_.'--P. 23.

Or Naples, the birth-place of Sannazaro. The great Torquato Tasso was
born at Sorrento in the kingdom of Naples.


ENDNOTE P.

'_The rage
Of dire ambition_,' etc.--P. 23.

This relates to the cruel wars among the republics of Italy, and
abominable politics of its little princes, about the fifteenth
century. These, at last, in conjunction with the papal power,
entirely extinguished the spirit of liberty in that country, and
established that abuse of the fine arts which has been since
propagated over all Europe.


ENDNOTE Q.

'_Thus from their guardians torn, the tender arts_,' etc.--P. 23.

Nor were they only losers by the separation. For philosophy itself,
to use the words of a noble philosopher, 'being thus severed from
the sprightly arts and sciences, must consequently grow dronish,
insipid, pedantic, useless, and directly opposite to the real
knowledge and practice of the world.' Insomuch that 'a gentleman,'
says another excellent writer, 'cannot easily bring himself to like
so austere and ungainly a form: so greatly is it changed from what
was once the delight of the finest gentlemen of antiquity, and their
recreation after the hurry of public affairs! From this condition it
cannot be recovered but by uniting it once more with the works of
imagination; and we have had the pleasure of observing a very great
progress made towards their union in England within these few years.
It is hardly possible to conceive them at a greater distance from
each other than at the Revolution, when Locke stood at the head of
one party, and Dryden of the other. But the general spirit of liberty,
which has ever since been growing, naturally invited our men of wit
and genius to improve that influence which the arts of persuasion
gave them with the people, by applying them to subjects of
importance to society. Thus poetry and eloquence became considerable;
and philosophy is now, of course, obliged to borrow of their
embellishments, in order even to gain audience with the public.


ENDNOTE R.

'_From passion's power alone_,' etc.--P. 26.

This very mysterious kind of pleasure, which is often found in the
exercise of passions generally counted painful, has been taken
notice of by several authors. Lucretius resolves it into self-love:--

'Suave mari magno,' etc., lib. ii. 1.

As if a man was never pleased in being moved at the distress of a
tragedy, without a cool reflection that though these fictitious
personages were so unhappy, yet he himself was perfectly at ease and
in safety. The ingenious author of the _Reflections Critiques sur la
Poesie et sur la Peinture_ accounts for it by the general delight
which the mind takes in its own activity, and the abhorrence it
feels of an indolent and inattentive state: and this, joined with the
moral approbation of its own temper, which attends these emotions
when natural and just, is certainly the true foundation of the
pleasure, which, as it is the origin and basis of tragedy and epic,
deserved a very particular consideration in this poem.


ENDNOTE S.

'_Inhabitant of earth_,' etc.--P. 31.

The account of the economy of Providence here introduced, as the
most proper to calm and satisfy the mind when under the compunction
of private evils, seems to have come originally from the Pythagorean
school: but of the ancient philosophers, Plato has most largely
insisted upon it, has established it with all the strength of his
capacious understanding, and ennobled it with all the magnificence
of his divine imagination. He has one passage so full and clear on
this head, that I am persuaded the reader will be pleased to see it
here, though somewhat long. Addressing himself to such as are not
satisfied concerning divine Providence: 'The Being who presides over
the whole,' says he, 'has disposed and complicated all things for
the happiness and virtue of the whole, every part of which,
according to the extent of its influence, does and suffers what is
fit and proper. One of these parts is yours, O unhappy man, which
though in itself most inconsiderable and minute, yet being connected
with the universe, ever seeks to co-operate with that supreme order.
You in the meantime are ignorant of the very end for which all
particular natures are brought into existence, that the
all-comprehending nature of the whole may be perfect and happy;
existing, as it does, not for your sake, but the cause and reason of
your existence, which, as in the symmetry of every artificial work,
must of necessity concur with the general design of the artist, and
be subservient to the whole of which it is a part. Your complaint
therefore is ignorant and groundless; since, according to the
various energy of creation, and the common laws of nature, there is
a constant provision of that which is best at the same time for you
and for the whole.--For the governing intelligence clearly beholding
all the actions of animated and self-moving creatures, and that
mixture of good and evil which diversifies them, considered first of
all by what disposition of things, and by what situation of each
individual in the general system, vice might be depressed and subdued,
and virtue made secure of victory and happiness with the greatest
facility and in the highest degree possible. In this manner he
ordered through the entire circle of being, the internal
constitution of every mind, where should be its station in the
universal fabric, and through what variety of circumstances it
should proceed in the whole tenor of its existence.' He goes on in
his sublime manner to assert a future state of retribution, 'as well
for those who, by the exercise of good dispositions being harmonised
and assimilated into the divine virtue, are consequently removed to
a place of unblemished sanctity and happiness; as of those who by
the most flagitious arts have risen from contemptible beginnings to
the greatest affluence and power, and whom you therefore look upon
as unanswerable instances of negligence in the gods, because you are
ignorant of the purposes to which they are subservient, and in what
manner they contribute to that supreme intention of good to the whole.'
--_Plato de Leg_. x. 16.

This theory has been delivered of late, especially abroad, in a
manner which subverts the freedom of human actions; whereas Plato
appears very careful to preserve it, and has been in that respect
imitated by the best of his followers.

ENDNOTE T.

'_One might rise,
One order_,' etc.--P. 31.

See the _Meditations_ of Antoninus and the _Characteristics_, passim.

ENDNOTE U.

'_The best and fairest_,' etc.--P. 32.

This opinion is so old, that Timaeus Locrus calls the Supreme Being
[Greek: demiourgos tou beltionos], the artificer of that which is
best; and represents him as resolving in the beginning to produce
the most excellent work, and as copying the world most exactly from
his own intelligible and essential idea; 'so that it yet remains, as
it was at first, perfect in beauty, and will never stand in need of
any correction or improvement.' There can be no room for a caution
here, to understand the expressions, not of any particular
circumstances of human life separately considered, but of the sum or
universal system of life and being. See also the vision at the end
of the _Theodicee_ of Leibnitz.

ENDNOTE V.

'_As flame ascends_,' etc.--P. 32.

This opinion, though not held by Plato nor any of the ancients, is
yet a very natural consequence of his principles. But the
disquisition is too complex and extensive to be entered upon here.

ENDNOTE W.

'_Philip_.'--P. 44.

The Macedonian.


BOOK THIRD.

ENDNOTE X.

'_Where the powers
Of Fancy_,' etc.--P. 46.

The influence of the imagination on the conduct of life is one of
the most important points in moral philosophy. It were easy, by an
induction of facts, to prove that the imagination directs almost all
the passions, and mixes with almost every circumstance of action or
pleasure. Let any man, even of the coldest head and soberest industry,
analyse the idea of what he calls his interest; he will find that it
consists chiefly of certain degrees of decency, beauty, and order,
variously combined into one system, the idol which he seeks to enjoy
by labour, hazard, and self-denial. It is, on this account, of the
last consequence to regulate these images by the standard of nature
and the general good; otherwise the imagination, by heightening some
objects beyond their real excellence and beauty, or by representing
others in a more odions or terrible shape than they deserve, may, of
course, engage us in pursuits utterly inconsistent with the moral
order of things.

If it be objected that this account of things supposes the passions
to be merely accidental, whereas there appears in some a natural and
hereditary disposition to certain passions prior to all
circumstances of education or fortune, it may be answered, that
though no man is born ambitious or a miser, yet he may inherit from
his parents a peculiar temper or complexion of mind, which shall
render his imagination more liable to be struck with some particular
objects, consequently dispose him to form opinions of good and ill,
and entertain passions of a particular turn. Some men, for instance,
by the original frame of their minds, are more delighted with the
vast and magnificent, others, on the contrary, with the elegant and
gentle aspects of nature. And it is very remarkable, that the
disposition of the moral powers is always similar to this of the
imagination; that those who are most inclined to admire prodigious
and sublime objects in the physical world, are also most inclined to
applaud examples of fortitude and heroic virtue in the moral. While
those who are charmed rather with the delicacy and sweetness of
colours, and forms, and sounds, never fail in like manner to yield
the preference to the softer scenes of virtue and the sympathies of
a domestic life. And this is sufficient to account for the objection.

Among the ancient philosophers, though we have several hints
concerning this influence of the imagination upon morals among the
remains of the Socratic school, yet the Stoics were the first who
paid it a due attention. Zeno, their founder, thought it impossible
to preserve any tolerable regularity in life, without frequently
inspecting those pictures or appearances of things, which the
imagination offers to the mind (_Diog. Laert_. I. vii.) The
meditations of M. Aurelius, and the discourses of Epictetus, are
full of the same sentiment; insomuch that the latter makes the
[Greek: Chresis oia dei, fantasion], or right management of the
fancies, the only thing for which we are accountable to Providence,
and without which a man is no other than stupid or frantic (_Arrian_.
I. i. c. 12. and I. ii. c. 22). See also the _Characteristics_,
vol. i. from p. 313 to 321, where this Stoical doctrine is embellished
with all the elegance and graces of Plato.

ENDNOTE Y.

'_How Folly's awkward arts_,' etc.--P. 47.

Notwithstanding the general influence of ridicule on private and
civil life, as well as on learning and the sciences, it has been
almost constantly neglected or misrepresented, by divines especially.
The manner of treating these subjects in the science of human nature,
should be precisely the same as in natural philosophy; from
particular facts to investigate the stated order in which they appear,
and then apply the general law, thus discovered, to the explication
of other appearances and the improvement of useful arts.

ENDNOTE Z.

'_Behold the foremost band_,' etc.--P. 48.

The first and most general source of ridicule in the characters
of men, is vanity or self-applause for some desirable quality or
possession which evidently does not belong to those who assume it.


ENDNOTE AA.

'_Then comes the second order_,' etc.--P, 49.

Ridicule from the same vanity, where, though the possession be real,
yet no merit can arise from it, because of some particular
circumstances, which, though obvious to the spectator, are yet
overlooked by the ridiculous character.


ENDNOTE BB.

'_Another tribe succeeds_,' etc.--P. 50.

Ridicule from a notion of excellence in particular objects
disproportioned to their intrinsic value, and inconsistent with the
order of nature.


ENDNOTE CC.

'_But now, ye gay_,' etc.--P. 51.

Ridicule from a notion of excellence, when the object is absolutely
odious or contemptible. This is the highest degree of the ridiculous;
as in the affectation of diseases or vices.


ENDNOTE DD.

'_Thus far triumphant_,' etc.--P. 51

Ridicule from false shame or groundless fear.


ENDNOTE EE.

'_Last of the motley bands_,' etc.--P. 52.

Ridicule from the ignorance of such things as our circumstances
require us to know.


ENDNOTE FF.

'_Suffice it to have said_,' etc.--P. 52.

By comparing these general sources of ridicule with each other, and
examining the ridiculous in other objects, we may obtain a general
definition of it, equally applicable to every species. The most
important circumstance of this definition is laid down in the lines
referred to; but others more minute we shall subjoin here.
Aristotle's account of the matter seems both imperfect and false.
[Greek: To ghar geloion], says he, [Greek: estin hamartaema ti kai
aischos]: 'The ridiculous is some certain fault or turpitude without
pain, and not destructive to its subject' (_Poet_. c. 5). For
allowing it to be true, as it is not, that the ridiculous is never
accompanied with pain, yet we might produce many instances of such a
fault or turpitude which cannot with any tolerable propriety be
called ridiculous. So that the definition does not distinguish the
thing designed. Nay, further, even when we perceive the turpitude
tending to the destruction of its subject, we may still be sensible
of a ridiculous appearance, till the ruin become imminent, and the
keener sensations of pity or terror banish the ludicrous
apprehension from our minds; for the sensation of ridicule is not a
bare perception of the agreement or disagreement of ideas, but a
passion or emotion of the mind consequential to that perception; so
that the mind may perceive the agreement or disagreement, and yet
not feel the ridiculous, because it is engrossed by a more violent
emotion. Thus it happens that some men think those objects ridiculous,
to which others cannot endure to apply the name, because in them
they excite a much intenser and more important feeling. And this
difference, among other causes, has brought a good deal of confusion
into this question.

'That which makes objects ridiculous is some ground of admiration or
esteem connected with other more general circumstances comparatively
worthless or deformed; or it is some circumstance of turpitude or
deformity connected with what is in general excellent or beautiful:
the inconsistent properties existing either in the objects themselves,
or in the apprehension of the person to whom they relate, belonging
always to the same order or class of being, implying sentiment or
design, and exciting no acute or vehement emotion of the heart.'

To prove the several parts of this definition: 'The appearance of
excellence or beauty connected with a general condition
comparatively sordid or deformed' is ridiculous; for instance,
pompous pretensions of wisdom joined with ignorance or folly in the
Socrates of Aristophanes, and the ostentations of military glory
with cowardice and stupidity in the Thraso of Terence.

'The appearance of deformity or turpitude in conjunction with what
is in general excellent or venerable,' is also ridiculous: for
instance, the personal weaknesses of a magistrate appearing in the
solemn and public functions of his station.

'The incongruous properties may either exist in the objects
themselves, or in the apprehension of the person to whom they relate:'
in the last--mentioned instance, they both exist in the objects; in
the instances from Aristophanes and Terence, one of them is
objective and real, the other only founded in the apprehension of
the ridiculous character.

'The inconsistent properties must belong to the same order or class
of being.' A coxcomb in fine clothes, bedaubed by accident in foul
weather, is a ridiculous object, because his general apprehension of
excellence and esteem is referred to the splendour and expense of
his dress. A man of sense and merit, in the same circumstances, is
not counted ridiculous, because the general ground of excellence and
esteem in him is, both in fact and in his own apprehension, of a
very different species.

'Every ridiculous object implies sentiment or design.' A column
placed by an architect without a capital or base is laughed at: the
same column in a ruin causes a very different sensation.

And lastly, 'the occurrence must excite no acute or vehement emotion
of the heart,' such as terror, pity, or indignation; for in that case,
as was observed above, the mind is not at leisure to contemplate the
ridiculous. Whether any appearance not ridiculous be involved in
this description, and whether it comprehend every species and form
of the ridiculous, must be determined by repeated applications of it
to particular instances.


ENDNOTE GG.

_'Ask we for what fair end'_, etc.--P. 53.

Since it is beyond all contradiction evident that we have a natural
sense or feeling of the ridiculous, and since so good a reason may
be assigned to justify the supreme Being for bestowing it, one cannot,
without astonishment, reflect on the conduct of those men who
imagine it is for the service of true religion to vilify and blacken
it without distinction, and endeavour to persuade us that it is
never applied but in a bad cause. Ridicule is not concerned with
mere speculative truth or falsehood. It is not in abstract
propositions or theorems, but in actions and passions, good and evil,
beauty and deformity, that we find materials for it; and all these
terms are relative, implying approbation or blame. To ask them
whether ridicule be a test of truth, is, in other words, to ask
whether that which is ridiculous can be morally true, can be just and
becoming; or whether that which is just and becoming can be
ridiculous?--a question that does not deserve a serious answer. For
it is most evident, that, as in a metaphysical proposition offered
to the understanding for its assent, the faculty of reason examines
the terms of the proposition, and finding one idea, which was
supposed equal to another, to be in fact unequal, of consequence
rejects the proposition as a falsehood; so, in objects offered to
the mind for its esteem or applause, the faculty of ridicule,
finding an incongruity in the claim, urges the mind to reject it
with laughter and contempt. When, therefore, we observe such a claim
obtruded upon mankind, and the inconsistent circumstances carefully
concealed from the eye of the public, it is our business, if the
matter be of importance to society, to drag out those latent
circumstances, and, by setting them in full view, to convince the
world how ridiculous the claim is: and thus a double advantage is
gained; for we both detect the moral falsehood sooner than in the
way of speculative inquiry, and impress the minds of men with a
stronger sense of the vanity and error of its authors. And this, and
no more, is meant by the application of ridicule.

But it is said, the practice is dangerous, and may be inconsistent
with the regard we owe to objects of real dignity and excellence. I
answer, the practice fairly managed can never be dangerous; men may
be dishonest in obtruding circumstances foreign to the object, and
we may be inadvertent in allowing those circumstances to impose upon
us: but the sense of ridicule always judges right. The Socrates of
Aristophanes is as truly ridiculous a character as ever was drawn:
--true; but it is not the character of Socrates, the divine moralist
and father of ancient wisdom. What then? did the ridicule of the
poet hinder the philosopher from detecting and disclaiming those
foreign circumstances which he had falsely introduced into his
character, and thus rendered the satirist doubly ridiculous in his
turn? No; but it nevertheless had an ill influence on the minds of
the people. And so has the reasoning of Spinoza made many atheists:
he has founded it, indeed, on suppositions utterly false; but allow
him these, and his conclusions are unavoidably true. And if we must
reject the use of ridicule, because, by the imposition of false
circumstances, things may be made to seem ridiculous, which are not
so in themselves; why we ought not in the same manner to reject the
use of reason, because, by proceeding on false principles,
conclusions will appear true which are impossible in nature, let the
vehement and obstinate declaimers against ridicule determine.


ENDNOTE HH.

_'The inexpressive semblance'_, etc.--P. 53.

This similitude is the foundation of almost all the ornaments of
poetic diction.


ENDNOTE II.

_'Two faithful needles'_, etc.--P. 55.

See the elegant poem recited by Cardinal Bembo in the character of
Lucretius.-_Strada Prolus_. vi. _Academ_. 2. c. v.


ENDNOTE JJ.

_'By these mysterious ties'_, etc.--P. 55.

The act of remembering seems almost wholly to depend on the
association of ideas.


ENDNOTE KK.

_'Into its proper vehicle'_, etc.--P. 57.

This relates to the different sorts of corporeal mediums, by which
the ideas of the artists are rendered palpable to the senses: as by
sounds, in music; by lines and shadows, in painting; by diction, in
poetry, etc.

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