Laocoon

A translation of the Laocoon was given to the English public by E. C. BEASLEY, one of the tutors of Leamington College, in 1853. Very few copies found their way to America, and the book is now difficult to obtain.

The desire of the present translator has been to make a version which could be easily read by persons ignorant of any language save English. To this end an attempt was made to banish all foreign languages from the text, and substitute for the original quotations their equivalents, as near as possible, in English. This method was found, however, on trial, to be incompatible with the closeness of Lessing’s criticism, depending, as that in many cases does, on the shade of meaning of the original word. For the sake of consistency, therefore, Lessing’s method has been adhered to in every instance; the words of the author cited being retained in the text, and a translation given in a foot-note wherever the meaning was not sufficiently indicated by the context. The same course has been pursued with the modern as with the ancient languages.

Dryden’s translation of Virgil has been used throughout, and Bryant’s of Homer in every case but one, where a quotation from the Æneid and the Odyssey stood in close connection. In this single instance Pope’s version was preferred; his style being more in harmony with that of Dryden, and his want of literalness being here not objectionable.

Such notes as were not necessary to the understanding of the text have been transferred to the end of the book.

The translator would here acknowledge the valuable assistance received from Mr. W. T. BRIGHAM in the rendering of quotations from the classics.

ELLEN FROTHINGHAM.

BOSTON, June, 1873.

PREFACE.

The first who compared painting with poetry was a man of fine feeling, who was conscious of a similar effect produced on himself by both arts. Both, he perceived, represent absent things as present, give us the appearance as the reality. Both produce illusion, and the illusion of both is pleasing.

A second sought to analyze the nature of this pleasure, and found its source to be in both cases the same. Beauty, our first idea of which is derived from corporeal objects, has universal laws which admit of wide application. They may be extended to actions and thoughts as well as to forms.

A third, pondering upon the value and distribution of these laws, found that some obtained more in painting, others in poetry: that in regard to the latter, therefore, poetry can come to the aid of painting; in regard to the former, painting to the aid of poetry, by illustration and example.

The first was the amateur; the second, the philosopher; the third, the critic.

The first two could not well make a false use of their feeling or their conclusions, whereas with the critic all depends on the right application of his principles in particular cases. And, since there are fifty ingenious critics to one of penetration, it would be a wonder if the application were, in every case, made with the caution indispensable to an exact adjustment of the scales between the two arts.

If Apelles and Protogenes, in their lost works on painting, fixed and illustrated its rules from the already established laws of poetry, we may be sure they did so with the same moderation and exactness with which Aristotle, Cicero, Horace, and Quintilian, in their still existing writings, apply the principles and experiences of painting to eloquence and poetry. It is the prerogative of the ancients in nothing either to exceed or fall short.