酷兔英语
    当前位置:
  1. 首页
  2. 文章
  3. 娱乐英语
  4. 原版小说
  5. 正文

Lucasta-Part3_Richard Lovelace(1618-1657)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

0 收藏 0 分享 0 赞

章节正文
文章总共2页


LUCASTA, and is noticeable in so many cases, where it might have

been avoided with very little trouble, that we are naturally led to



the inference that Lovelace, in writing, accepted from indolence or

haste, the first word which happened to occur to his mind. Daniel,



Drayton, and others were, it is well known, indefatigable revisers

of their poems; they "added and altered many times," mostly



for the better, occasionally for the worse. We can scarcely

picture to ourselves Lovelace blotting a line, though it would



have been well for his reputation, if he had blotted many.

In the poem of the LOOSE SARABAND (p. 34) there is some resemblance



to a piece translated from Meleager in Elton's SPECIMENS OF CLASSIC

POETS, i. 411, and entitled by Elton "Playing at Hearts."



"Love acts the tennis-player's part,

And throws to thee my panting heart;



Heliodora! ere it fall,

Let desire catch swift the ball:



Let her in the ball-court move,

Follow in the game with love.



If thou throw me back again,

I shall of foul play complain."



And an address to the Cicada by the same writer, (IBID. i. 415)

opens with these lines:--



"Oh, shrill-voiced insect that, with dew-drops sweet

Inebriate, dost in desert woodlands sing."



In the poem called "The Grasshopper" (p. 94), the author speaks

of the insect as



"Drunk ev'ry night with a delicious tear,

Dropped thee from heaven."----



The similarity, in each case, I believe to have been entirely

accidental: nor am I disposed to think that Lovelace was under any



considerable or direct obligations to the classics. I have taken

occasion to remark that Lovelace seems to have helped to furnish



a model to Cleveland, who carried to an extraordinary length that

fondness for words and figures derived from the alchymist's



vocabulary; but as regards the author of LUCASTA himself, it may

be asserted that there are few writers whose productions exhibit



less of book-lore than his, and even in those places, where he has

employed phrases or images similar to some found in Peele,



Middleton, Herrick, and others, there is great room to question,

whether the circumstance can be treated as amounting to more than



a curious coincidence.

The Master of Dulwich College has obligingly informed me,



that the picture of ALTHEA, as well as that of Lovelace himself,

bequeathed by Cartwright the actor to Dulwich College in 1687,



bears no clue to date of composition, or to the artist's name,

and that it does not assist in the identification of the lady.



This is the more vexatious, inasmuch as it seems probable that

ALTHEA, whoever she was, became the poet's wife, after LUCASTA'S



marriage to another. The CHLOES, &c. mentioned in the following

pages were merely more or less intimateacquaintances of Lovelace,



like the ELECTRA, PERILLA, CORINNA, &c. of Herrick. But at the

same time an obscurity has hitherto hung over some of the persons



mentioned under fictitious names in the poems of Lovelace,

which a little research and trouble would have easily removed.



For instance, no one who reads "Amarantha, a Pastoral,"

doubts that LUCASTA and AMARANTHA are one and the same person.



ALEXIS is Lovelace himself. ELLINDA is a female friend of

the poet, who occasionally stayed at her house, and on one



occasion (p. 79) had a serious illness there. ELLINDA marries

AMYNTOR, under which disguise, I suspect, lurks the well known



Maecenas of his time, Endymion Porter. If Porter be AMYNTOR, of

course ELLINDA must be the Lady Olivia Porter, his wife. ARIGO



(see the poem of AMYNTOR'S GROVE) signifies Porter's friend,

Henry Jermyn. It may be as well to add that the LETTICE mentioned



at p. 121, was the Lady Lettice Goring, wife of Lovelace's friend,

and third daughter of Richard Boyle, first Earl of Cork. This lady






文章总共2页
文章标签:名著  

章节正文
Copyright © 2023 Qeto All rights reserved.
商务合作 | 联系我们 | 关于我们 | 版权声明 | 隐私条款 | 如果智培

京ICP备05059198号-1 京公网安备 11011202003401号