Sir William Jones - K S Ramaswami Sastri

Part III

His Theory of Poetry

Sir William Jones’s Essay on the Arts, commonly called Imitative, is of great value. In it he discusses the theory that all poetry consists in imitation. He shows how poetry originated in a strong and animated expression of the human passions; how cadence and measure accompany strong feeling; and how love and war were the chief inspirers of song. Elegy and Satire also came into being as poetic forms. Music with its harmonies of accessory sounds is also as old as man. He says:

What has been said of poetry may, with equal force, be applied to music, which is poetry dressed to advantage; and even to painting, many sorts of which are poems to the eye, as all poems, merely descriptive, are pictures to the ear.

He shows how the real power of art is in creative power, not in mere imitative accuracy. He says:

Thus will each artist gain his end, not by imitating the works of nature, but by assuming her power, and causing the same effect upon the imagination, which her charms produce upon the senses: This must be the chief object of a poet, a musician, and a painter, who know that great effects are not produced by minute details, but by the general spirit of the whole piece and that a gaudy composition may strike the mind for a short time, but that the beauties of simplicity are both more delightful and more permanent.

© "Eminent Orientalists –– Indian, European, American" published by Asian Educational Services, Second Floor, 2/15 Ansari Road, New Delhi 110 002. Website: www.asianeds.com. Part II of this article appeared in Splendour, October 2006 issue. Reprinted with permission.

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