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Jobb Posted 22 years ago
Grammar
Epithet
Context:
To derive all from native power, to owe nothing to another, is the praise which men, who do not much think what they are saying, bestow sometimes upon others, and sometimes on themselves; and their imaginary dignity is naturally heightened by a supercilious censure of the low, the barren, the grovelling, the servile imitator.
It would be no wonder if a student, frightened by these terrors and disgraceful epithets, with which the poor imitators are so often loaded, should let fall his pencil in mere despair, conscious how much he has been indebted to the labours of others, how little, how very little of his art was born with him; and, considering it as hopeless, to set about acquiring by the imitation of any human master what he is taught to suppose is matter of inspiration from heaven.
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I think "epithets" refers to "the low, the barren, the grovelling, the servile imitator". Right?
Imaginary dignity = unreal dignity = a dignity that just exists in imagination, not reality?
To derive all from native power, to owe nothing to another, is the praise which men, who do not much think what they are saying, bestow sometimes upon others, and sometimes on themselves; and their imaginary dignity is naturally heightened by a supercilious censure of the low, the barren, the grovelling, the servile imitator.
It would be no wonder if a student, frightened by these terrors and disgraceful epithets, with which the poor imitators are so often loaded, should let fall his pencil in mere despair, conscious how much he has been indebted to the labours of others, how little, how very little of his art was born with him; and, considering it as hopeless, to set about acquiring by the imitation of any human master what he is taught to suppose is matter of inspiration from heaven.
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I think "epithets" refers to "the low, the barren, the grovelling, the servile imitator". Right?
Imaginary dignity = unreal dignity = a dignity that just exists in imagination, not reality?
Top answer
Spot on, Jobb. Epithets = the 4 adjectives that qualify 'imitator', as types of the insulting adjectives the 'poor imitators' have to endure. 'Imaginary dignity' = as you say, 'a dignity that just exists in imagination, not reality'.
- Spot on, Jobb.
- Epithets = the 4 adjectives that qualify 'imitator', as types of the insulting adjectives the 'poor imitators' have to endure.
- 'Imaginary dignity' = as you say, 'a dignity that just exists in imagination, not reality'.
- MrP
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2 Answers
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Spot on, Jobb.
Epithets = the 4 adjectives that qualify 'imitator', as types of the insulting
adjectives the 'poor imitators' have to endure.
'Imaginary dignity' = as you say, 'a dignity that just exists in
imagination, not reality'.
MrP
Epithets = the 4 adjectives that qualify 'imitator', as types of the insulting
adjectives the 'poor imitators' have to endure.
'Imaginary dignity' = as you say, 'a dignity that just exists in
imagination, not reality'.
MrP
00
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