Things to keep in mind:
The secret of voice.
There is a kind of Writing, wherein the Poet quite loses Sight of Nature, and entertains his Reader's Imagination with the Characters and Actions of such Persons as have many of them no Existence, but what he bestows on them. Such are F--ries, Witches, Magicians, Demons, and departed Spirits. This Mr. Dryden calls the F--ry Way of Writing, which is, indeed, more difficult than any other that depends on the Poet's Fancy, because he has no Pattern to follow in it, and must work altogether out of his own Invention.
There is a very odd Turn of Thought required for this sort of Writing, and it is impossible for a Poet to succeed in it, who has not a particular Cast of Fancy, and an Imagination naturally fruitful and superstitious. Besides this, he ought to be very well versed in Legends and Fables, antiquated Romances, and the Traditions of Nurses and old Women, that he may fall in with our natural Prejudices, and humour those Notions which we have imbibed in our Infancy. For otherwise he will be apt to make his F--ries talk like People of his own Species, and not like other Setts of Beings, who converse with different Objects, and think in a different Manner from that of Mankind;
Sylvis deducti caveant, me Judice, Fauni
Ne velut innati triviis ac pœne forenses
Aut nimium teneris juvenentur versibusHor.
—John Addison, “—mentis gratissimus Error”
—posted 4411 days ago
