...pleasing." Johnson's opinion of "The Bard" again springs from his basic position on truth and pleasure: "To select a singular event, and swell it to a giant's...as we find something to be imitated or declined." But Johnson makes handsome amends to Gray in his concluding paragraph, on the "Elegy." As always, Johnson...

..."disgusts us with apparent and unconquerable falsehood" and then generalizes in the following terms: "To select a singular event, and swell it to a giant's...he that forsakes the probable may always find the marvellous."10 The term repeated in all three of the above citations is "probability." Johnson was...

...Grays Gedicht, „it has little use: we are affected only äs we believe; we are improved only äs we find something to be imitated or declined. I do not see that The Bard promotes any truth, moral or pohtical", demonstiert deutlich die vorherrschende klassizistische...