...them is much better than what I have performed on any other. As I have endeavoured to adom my poem with noble thoughts, so much more to express those thoughts with elocution.' It is written in quatrains, or heroic stanzas of four lines a measure which he had learned from the...

...that it belongs to a witty man, but not to a madman. J. DRYDEN, Preface to Troilus and Cressida, 1679. The composition of all poems is, or ought to be, of wit ; and wit in the poet, or wit writing (if you will give me leave to use a school-distinction), is no other than the imagination,...

...that Dryden was thinking of Davenant's happy phrases when in the preface to Annus Mirabilis he wrote: "The composition of all poems is, or ought to be, of wit; and wit in the poet, or wit writing, (if you will give me leave to use a School distinction), is no other than the faculty...

...instance, compared with Dryden's comparable reference to the part played by the memory in poetry : The composition of all poems is, or ought to be, of wit; and wit in the poet ... is no other than the faculty of imagination in the writer, which, like a nimble spaniel, beats...

...from this digression to a farther account of my poem ; I must crave leave to tell you, that as I have endeavoured to adorn it with noble thoughts, so much...is, or ought to be, of wit ; and wit in the poet, or Wit writing (if you will give me leave to use a school-distinction), is no other than the faculty of...

...whole is less interesting than its preface, which illuminates Dryden's notion of poetic imagination : The composition of all poems is, or ought to be, of wit; and wit in the poet ... is no other than the faculty of imagination in the writer, which, like a nimble spaniel, beats...

...practised by our fathers." Beside this we might put Dryden's remark in his preface to Annus Mirabilis: "The composition of all poems is or ought to be of wit; and wit in the poet ... is no other than the faculty of imagination in the writer; which, like a nimble spaniel, beats...

...(1667). Hier findet sich ein Passus, der wichtig genug erscheint, um als Ganzes zitiert zu werden: The composition of all poems is, or ought to be, of wit, and wit in the poet, or wit writing (...) is no other than the faculty of imagination in the writer which, like a nimble spaniel,...

...does not simply align himself with Davenant and Hobbes on wit; he produces his own triumphant account: the composition of all poems is or ought to be of wit. There is nothing hesitant or equivocal about the poetics of wit in this preface: "Wit written, is that...

...the subject or situation, a rule of thumb extending to the use of figurative language. Dryden writes, The composition of all poems is, or ought to be, of wit, and wit in the poet, or wit writing (if you will give me leave to use a school-distinction) is no other than the faculty of...