Revised and edited by Francis Harvey, 4, St. James's Street, London. GODLEINE 115 FEB 1935 LIBRARY ONLY TWENTY-FIVE COPIES PRINTED AT THE CHISWICK PRESS, BY WHITTINGHAM AND WILKINS, TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE. PREFACE. HE following Lectures upon Dramatic Literature are now printed for the first time, Mrs. Sheridan Knowles reserving the copyright. They have been copied from the original MS. found in memorandum-books, to which considerable interest attaches from the fact that they were the constant and only books of reference used by Mr. Knowles when lecturing. It is surprising that with no other help the author contrived, as he invariably did, to carry on the subject laid down for a lecture fluently and without break. The lectures are very fragmentary and piecemeal, skipping from book to book. Sometimes one book will be found to contain, closely following each other, portions of two or three different lectures, with nothing but the matter to distinguish them; and it is amusing to find another serving perhaps the purpose of a diary or pocket-tablets. A fac-simile is appended of two pages of the original MS. of these Lectures, the first of which illustrates how sometimes the author so warms to his work as to become too impatient to do more than sketch his thoughts on paper. These memorandum-books were placed in the hands of Mr. Sydney Wells Abbott, of the British Museum, who succeeded in deciphering them and making a sequence of their contents. They are now carefully preserved in a series of morocco cases. To add to the interest of the volume, copies are given of two of Sheridan Knowles's announcements of his Lectures, at Belfast in 1830 and Liverpool in 1848. "Shepherd. But what's this I was gaun to say? ou, ay!-heard ye ever Knowles's lectures on dramatic poetry? "North. I have; they are admirable, full of matter, elegantly written and eloquently delivered. Knowles is a delightful fellow and a man of true genius.” PROFESSOR WILSON'S Noctes Ambrosiana, April, 1830. Dramatic Poetry.—Origin of the Drama in the imaginative and imitative faculties of man.-Early History.—The infancy of the dramatic art distinguished by an extraordinary display of genius.-Eschylus, Sophocles, Euripides.-Rules of Aristotle and his followers, founded upon the imperfection of the art.—Unities of time and place violated by the Ancient Dramatists.— Vindication of the Shakspearian Drama.-Illusion of the Novel-of the Pictorial Narrative-of the Drama.—Extracts from Eschylus-Shakespeare-Milton-Lord Byron.-Field of Waterloo. LECTURE 2. Recapitulation of the principal positions advanced. Poetry and the Drama distinct questions.-Lord Byron-His requi- LECTURE 3. Comparison between Euripides and Sophocles.-Masterly delineation of character by the former.-The Phoenician Virgins.— LECTURE 4. Illustration of the Arguments adduced.—Analysis of the first Act of Macbeth.-Happy union of the Romantic with the SINGLE TICKETS for the Course, 10s. 6d.—Double DITTO, admitting a Lady and Gentleman, or two Ladies, 16s. ; to be ADMITTANCE TO A SINGLE LECTURE, 3s.-SCHOOL BOYS, 1s. 6d. Doors to be opened at Half-past Seven.-Lecture to commence precisely at Eight o'clock. Finlay, Printer, Belfast. |