On the Limits of Descriptive Writing, Apropos of Lessing's Laocoon (Classic Reprint) - Tapa blanda

Excerpt from On the Limits of Descriptive Writing, Apropos of Lessing's Laocoon

Many of the objections that this monograph urges against the theories of the Laocoon first occurred to me in the spring of 1901 while I was a graduate student at the University of Michigan. It was not until the next year, however, while a fellow in English at Yale, that the ideas were put into written form. They were at that time embodied in a paper read before the Yale English Club. Since then I have given considerable attention to the subject, have enlarged the scope of the inquiry, and have collected much new material.

In spite of my apparently hostile attitude to the Laocoon in the begin ning of the paper, the ultimate purpose of my work has been much the same as Lessing's. It is an attempt to get past the mere externals of criticism to the fundamental principle, and by means of this principle to discover the aesthetic and linguistic limitations of descriptive literature. In carry ing out this programme I hope that everywhere I'have used scientific cau tion. Though some of the theories advanced are new, I have tried to base them 011 adequate psychological foundations. If I have made mistakes I shall be glad to rectify them.

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