Beschreibung:
<jats:p>We are told that Louis XIV once submitted a sonnet he had written to the judgment of Boileau, who said, after reading it: “Sire, nothing is impossible for your Majesty. You set out to write some bad verses and you have succeeded.” The point of this story for the modern reader lies not so much in the courage of the critic as in the meekness of the king. With the progress of democracy one man's opinion in literature has come to be as good as another's—a deal better too, the Irishman would add—and such words as deference and humility are in a fair way to become obsolete. We can scarcely conceive to what an extent men once allowed their personal impressions to be overawed and held in check by a body of outer prescriptions. Only a century ago an Edinburgh reviewer could write: “Poetry has this much at least in common with religion, that its standards were fixed long ago by certain inspired writers whose authority it is no longer lawful to question.” Racine tells us that the audience did not dare laugh at the first performance of his comedy <jats:italic>Les Plaideurs</jats:italic> for fear that “it might not laugh according to the rules.”</jats:p>