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The Spectator.
Nos. 411-421
[Addison's Table of
Contents from No. 421]
This essay on the Pleasures of the
Imagination having been published in separate papers, I shall conclude
it with a Table of the principal Contents in each paper.
THE CONTENTS.
PAPER I.
The perfection of our sight
above our other senses.
The pleasures of the imagination arise
originally from sight.
The pleasures of the imagination divided under two heads.
The pleasures of the imagination in some respects equal to those
of the understanding.
The extent of the pleasures of the imagination.
The advantages a man receives from a relish of these pleasures.
In what
respect they are preferable to those of the understanding.
PAPER II.
Three sources of all the
pleasures of the imagination, in our survey of outward objects.
How what
is great pleases the imagination.
How what is new pleases the imagination.
How what is beautiful in our own species pleases the imagination.
How what is beautiful in general pleases the imagination.
What other accidental causes may contribute to the
heightening of these pleasures.
PAPER III.
Why the necessary cause of
our being pleased with what is great, new, or beautiful, unknown.
Why
the final cause more known and more useful.
The final cause of our being
pleased with what is great.
The final cause of our being pleased with
what is new.
The final cause of our being pleased with what is beautiful
in our own species.
The final cause of our being pleased with what is
beautiful in general.
PAPER IV. The
works of Nature more
pleasant to the imagination than those of art.
The works of Nature still
more pleasant, the more they resemble those of art.
The works of art
more pleasant, the more they resemble those of Nature.
Our English
plantations and gardens considered in the foregoing light.
PAPER V.
Of architecture as it affects
the imagination.
Greatness in architecture relates either to the bulk or
to the manner.
Greatness of bulk in the ancient Oriental buildings.
The
ancient accounts of these buildings confirmed: I. From the advantages
for raising such works in the first ages of the world and in the Eastern
climates; 2. From several of them which are still extant.
Instances how
greatness of manner affects the imagination.
A French author's
observation on this subject. Why concave and convex figures give a
greatness of manner to works of architecture.
Everything that pleases the
imagination in architecture either great, beautiful, or new.
PAPER VI.
The secondary pleasures of
the imagination.
The several sources of these pleasures (statuary,
painting, description, and music) compared together.
The final cause of
our receiving pleasure from these several sources.
Of descriptions in
particular.
The power of words over the imagination.
Why one reader more
pleased with descriptions than another.
PAPER VII.
How a whole set of ideas
hang together, &c.: a natural cause assigned for it.
How to perfect
the imagination of a writer: who among the ancient poets had this
faculty in its greatest perfection.
Homer excelled in imagining what is
great; Virgil in imagining what is beautiful; Ovid in imagining what is
new.
Our own countryman, Milton, very perfect in all three
respects.
PAPER VIII.
Why anything that is
unpleasant to behold pleases the imagination when well described.
Why the
imagination receives a more exquisite pleasure from the description of
what is great, new, or beautiful.
The pleasure still heightened, if what
is described raises passion in the mind.
Disagreeable passions pleasing
when raised by apt descriptions.
Why terror and grief are pleasing to the
mind, when excited by descriptions.
A particular advantage the writers in
poetry and fiction have to please the imagination. What liberties are
allowed them.
PAPER IX.
Of that kind of poetry which
Mr. Dryden calls the fairy-way of writing.
How a poet should be qualified
for it.
The pleasures of the imagination that arise from it.
In this
respect, why the moderns excel the ancients.
Why the English excel the moderns.
Who the best among the English.
Of emblematical persons.
PAPER X.
What authors please the
imagination who have nothing to do with fiction.
How history pleases the imagination.
How the authors of the new philosophy please the imagination.
The bounds and defects of the imagination.
Whether these
defects are essential to the imagination.
PAPER XI.
How those please the
imagination who treat of subjects abstracted from matter, by allusions
taken from it.
What allusions most pleasing to the imagination.
Great
writers how faulty in this respect.
Of the art of imagining in general.
The imagination capable of pain as well as pleasure.
In what
degree the imagination is capable either of pain or pleasure.
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