China and the West

Ye, Wei. Bailun zai wen xue shang de wei zhi yu qi te dian [ID D26461].
Ye Wei's essay is essentially a condensed paraphrase of the chapter “Characteristics : place in literature” in : Nichol, John. Byron. (London : Macmillan, 1902).
Er schreibt : "Goethe ranks him [Byron] as the first English poet after Shakespeare, and is followed by the leading critics of France, Italy, and Spain. Goethe urged Eckermann to study English that he might read him ; remarking : 'A character of such eminence has never existed before, and probably will never come again. The beauty of Cain is such as we shall not see a second time in this world. Byron issues from the sea-wave ever fresh. In Helena, I could not make use of any man as the representative of the modern poetic era except him, who is undoubtedly the greatest genius of our century. The English may think of him as they please ; this is certain, they can show no (living) poety who is comparable to him... Of those poets of the early part of the nineteenth century, Lord John Russell thought Byron the greatest. Macaulay had no hesitation in referring to Byron as 'the most celebrated Englishman of the 19th century... Byron has been sinking at an accelerated rate for the last ten years, and has now reached a very low level. His fame has been very great, but I do not see how it is to endure ; neither does that make him great. No genuine productive thought was ever revealed by him to mankind. He taught me nothing that I had not again to forget... Shelley tells us, 'wheter he went, became the nucleus'. But he was too overbearing to form many equal friendships, and apt to be ungenerous to his rivals. His shifting attitude towards Lady Byron, his wavering purposes, his impulsive acts, are a part of the character we trace through all his life and work, a strange mixture of magnanimity and brutality, of lauther and tears, consistent in nothing but his passion and pride. Many other critics were very lenient towards his excesses, but there is one respect which we cannot be happy with him. He once said, 'I regard them as very pretty but inferior creatures. I look on them as grown-up children give a woman a looking-glass and burnt almonds, and she will be content."