John Dryden: An essay of Dramatic Poesy

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John Dryden: An essay of Dramatic Poesy

John Dryden (1631-1700) was an English poet, critic, and playwright

active in the second half of the 17th century. As a poet, Dryden is best

known as a satirist and was England's first poet laureate in 1668. In

addition to satires, Dryden wrote elegies, prologues, epilogues, odes,

and panegyrics. His most famous poem is Absalom and Achitophel

(1681). Dryden was so influential in Restoration England that the period

was known to many as the Age of Dryden.

• Samuel Johnson calls John Dryden “the father of English criticism.”

• Sir Walter Scott calls John Dryden “Glorious John.”

An Essay of Dramatic Poesy

In this Essay, Dryden has put forward his criticism of dramatic poetry.

Occasion

In the summer of 1665 when Dryden and his wife fled plague-stricken London for the countryside taking along only a few books, the theatres had been re-opened for only a few years and there were exciting new critical ideas from France to be debated. There, in a quiet rustic setting, Dryden went fishing and wrote theory (An Essay of Dramatic Poesy), paraphrasing and quoting directly from Corneille's Prefaces that lay open on the desk. Never having been to France, Dryden knew the French dramatist's plays not from theatre, but from the study.

The Setting & Four Interlocutors The essay begins with the scene that Four friends, Crites, Neander, Eugenius, and Lesidius are sailing to see a navy battle between the British and Dutch armies. These four characters of the essay are thought to have been related to four critics including Dryden himself. In between, they talk about the poetry which is going to produce after the naval battle.

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Each one of the interlocutors represents a famous contemporary critic and Dryden himself as Neander or the New Man:

1. Crites: Sir Robert Howard 2. Eugenius: Lord Buckhurst or Charles Sackville 3. Lisedeius: Sir Charles Sedley 4. Neander: John Dryden

Dryden's Aim In his address, "To the Reader" prefixed to the Essay, Dryden says that his aim was, "to vindicate the honour of our English writers, from the censure of those who unjustly prefer the French before them." However, the real aim is much wider than this. The Essay is also an attempt to evolve the principles which ought to guide us in judging a play, as well as an effort to discover the rules which could help a dramatist in writing a good play. The Essay is also a contribution to two current controversies:

1. The comparative superiority of the ancient and the moderns. Dryden demonstrates the superiority of the moderns over the ancients, and also the superiority of contemporary (Restoration) English dramatists over the Elizabethan dramatists.

2. The comparative merits and demerits of blank verse and rhyme for dramatic purpose. Dryden upholds the superiority of rhymed verse.

The Essay's Plan The Essay handles five critical questions:

1. The relative merits of ancient and modern poets. 2. Whether the existing French school of drama is superior or

inferior to the English. 3. Whether the Elizabethan dramatists were in all points superior to

those of Dryden's time.

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4. Whether plays are more perfect in proportion as they conform to the dramatic rules laid down by the ancients.

5. Whether the substitution of rhyme for blank verse in serious plays is an improvement.

The Essay's Form The Essay is written in the form of a Dialogue in the manner of Plato's Republic, and by his skillful handling of it, Dryden made it a popular literary form during the next seventy-five years. The Critical Positions of the Interlocutors

Crites argues in favor of the ancients: they established the unities; dramatic rules were spelled out by Aristotle which the current-and esteemed-French playwrights follow; and Ben Jonson-the greatest English playwright, according to Crites-followed the ancients' example by adhering to the unities.

Crites 1. He supports the ancients. 2. The Moderns are dependent upon the ancients. 3. The Moderns do not follow the three unities. 4. The Ancients are the law-givers and they should be the models for

other writers to follow. Eugenius favors the moderns over the ancients, arguing that the moderns exceed the ancients because of having learned and profited from their example.

Eugenius

1. Although the Moderns have profited from the Ancients, they now excel the ancients through their work.

2. The Ancients have not followed the unities.

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3. The Ancients did not have any sense of the division of the play. 4. The Ancients plays lack originality. 5. The Ancients did not include emotions like Love in their plays.

Lisideius argues that French drama is superior to English drama, basing this opinion on the French writer's close adherence to the classical separation of comedy and tragedy. For Lisideius "no theater in the world has anything so absurd as the English tragicomedy..."

Lisideius

1. He favors French plays. 2. According to him, the French plays follow the unities properly. 3. Their plots are simple, not complicated like the English plots. 4. He criticizes the English plays for mixing tragedy and comedy. 5. French plays are more authentic. 6. They prefer emotions over action/plots (violence) 7. They write their dialogues in rhyming verse.

Neander favors the moderns but does not underestimate the ancients. He also favors English drama and has some critical -things to say of French drama: "those beauties of the French poesy are such as will raise perfection higher where it is, but are not sufficient to give it where it is not: they are indeed the beauties of a statue, but not of a man." Neander goes on to defend tragicomedy: "contraries, when placed near, set off each other. A continued gravity keeps the spirit too much bent; we must refresh it sometimes." Tragicomedy increases the effectiveness of both tragic and comic elements by 'way of contrast. Neander asserts that "we have invented, increased, -and perfected a more pleasant way of writing for the stage . . . tragicomedy."

Neander criticizes French drama essentially for its smallness: its pursuit of only one plot without subplots; its tendency to show too little action; its "servile observations of the unities…dearth of plot, and narrowness of imagination" are all qualities which render it inferior to English drama.

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Neander extends his criticism of French drama - into his reasoning for his preference for Shakespeare over Ben Jonson. Shakespeare "had the largest and most comprehensive soul," while Jonson was "the most learned and judicious writer which any theater ever had." Ultimately, Neander prefers Shakespeare for his greater scope, his greater faithfulness to life, as compared to Jonson's relatively small scope and French/Classical tendency to deal in "the beauties of a statue, but not of a Man."

Neander

1. He supports the English plays. 2. Tragicomedy relieves our audiences from the heaviness of

tragedy. 3. Lisideius criticizes English Plays for showing violence or death on

the stage. Neander defends this by saying that death is the ultimate reality and the English dramatists are only presenting a lively image of nature.

4. He criticizes French dialogues as being too cold and long to suit the taste of the English audience.

5. He defends the violation of the unities by the English dramatists by claiming that there is no harm in violating if the drama is fulfilling its purpose.

Crites objects to rhyme in plays: "since no man without premeditation speaks in rhyme, neither ought he to do it on the stage." He cites Aristotle as saying that it is, "best to write a tragedy in that kind of verse . . . which is nearest prose" as a justification for banishing rhyme, from the drama in favor of blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter). Even though blank verse lines are no more spontaneous than are rhymed lines, they are still to be preferred because they are "nearest nature": "Rhyme is incapable of expressing the greatest thought naturally, and the lowest it cannot with any grace: for what is more unbefitting the majesty of verse than to call a servant or bid a door be shut in rhyme?"

Neander responds to the objections against rhyme by admitting that "verse so tedious" is inappropriate to drama (and to anything else). "Natural" rhymed verse is, however, just as appropriate to dramatic as to non-dramatic poetry: the test of the "naturalness" of rhyme is how

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well-chosen the rhymes are. Is the sense of the verses tied down to, and limited by, the rhymes, or are the rhymes in service to, and an enhancement of, the sense of the verses?

The Main Points of Dryden's Essay

1. The appreciation of the worth of the striving, nature-imitating, large scope of tragicomedy and Shakespeare over the static perfection of the ideal-imitating Classical/French/Jonsonian drama.

2. A dramatic act is defined as " an imitation with the aim to delight and to teach, and is considered a just and lively image of human nature representing its passions and humors for the delight and instruction of mankind."

3. The idea of decorum in the work of art is emphasized.