The Life of Cowley : Quotations
The Life of Cowley is a notable literary work by Samuel Johnson. A complete discussion of this literary work is given, which will help you enhance your literary skills and prepare for the exam. Read the Main texts, Key info, Summary, Themes, Characters, Literary devices, Quotations, Notes, and various study materials of The Life of Cowley.
Quotations
Praising Cowley for his Wit
“Wit, like all other things, subject by their nature to the choice of man, has its changes and fashions, and, at different times, takes different forms.”
Strange Rule in Metaphysical Poetry:
“The most heterogenous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ransacked for illustrations, comparisons, and allusions.”
Shortcomings of Metaphysical Poetry:
“Sublimity is produced by aggregation and littleness by dispersion. Great thoughts are always general, and consist in positions not limited by expressions and in descriptions not descending to minuteness.”
Merits and Demerits of Metaphysical Poets:
“No man could be born a metaphysical poet, nor assume the dignity of a writer, by descriptions copied from descriptions, by imitations borrowed from imitations, by traditional imagery, and hereditary similes, by readiness of rhyme, and volubility of syllables.”
Introduction to the Metaphysical Poets:
“About the beginning of the seventeenth century there appeared the race of writers that may be termed the metaphysical poets.”
Effects of Reading Metaphysical Poetry:
“Their learning instructs and their subtlety surprises; but the reader commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought, but though he sometimes admires, is seldom pleased.”
Cowley’s View of Pindaric Ode:
“The Pindarique Odes are now to be considered, a species of composition which Cowley thinks Pancirolus might have counted ‘in his list of the lost inventions of antiquity,’ and which he has made a bold and vigorous attempt to recover.”