An Essay Of Dramatic Poesy

by John Dryden

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Poetry, Literature, Literary Criticism, Criticism, Theory

162 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1889

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

John Dryden was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who was made Poet Laureate in 1668. He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden. Walter Scott called him "Glorious John."

Reviews

[Emad · Rating 4 out of 5]

An Essay of Dramatic Poesy can be considered to be the first literary criticism book on interpretation of the Ancients' literary criticism fundamentals which contains some notes on contemporary drama as well.

The book narrates the debate between four people. Each two of them are in opposition and concern about a specific realm of drama and poesy.

On one side, there are Crites and Eugenius, whose main debate is on the Ancients vs the Contemporaries. Crites is a defender of the Ancients. He thinks that if Contemporaries want to be great dramatists, they should imitate the Ancients. This is the only way they can be better than the Ancients: "Dwarfs who stand on the shoulders of giants may see farther than the giants themselves." Eugenius, on the other hand, praises the Ancients; but he thinks that they did have defects in their plays and Contemporaries excel them in many points. Some basic interpretation of drama rules which was invented by the Ancients (such as the three unities of time, action, and place) is another topic that is discussed by Crites and Eugenius.

The other side of debate consist of Lisideius and Neander (Considered to be the symbol of the writer by many.) Lisideius is a fan of French drama. He thinks that their works stick to the real drama rules more than the English. He objects mingling comedy with tragedy in plays and considers it as a ridiculous job. Therefore, he cannot tolerate works of Shakespeare, and instead praises the works of Corneille. Neander, as a response to Lisideius, mentions the benefits of mingling mirth with tragedy in plays. He praises English drama and thinks it is far better than that of French. Further, Neander defends English drama from different aspects. For example he says that combining comedy and tragedy is not in opposition with unity of action. Or that it is not necessary for plays to concentrate only on one main character and they can have multiple side characters, which also is not harmful to the play or the three unities.

The final part of the debate is on praising salient English dramatists such as Shakespeare, Fletcher, and Ben Jonson, with a detailed examen of the latter one's work The Silent Woman.

An Essay of Dramatic Poesy is a useful book to understanding the Ancient's fundamentals of criticism and having a better view of what and how they thought. If you feel disappointed to understand Aristotle's Poetics, Horace's Art of Poetry, or Plato's Republic, I suggest you to read this book. It will explain the most part of those works to you in an easy way.

[andreea. · Rating 1 out of 5]

.

[Archie Hamerton · Rating 1 out of 5]

puts the dry in dryden

[Nabiha Ibnat]

Some four are arguing with one another in an open Bazaar circled by numerous curious audiences eyeing them, enjoying their verbal fight, eagerly hoping at any moment a wrestling to break out _
   
     its reading provides such an imaginary visual image.

Dryden has always been in search of a juicy bone of contention to chew and crash, in order that his diseased neural skeleton gets nourishment out of dispute.


There exists people who keep nagging irritatingly.
"Perhaps I have insisted too long on this objection..." 
I am glad that he admits it.



Thanks to the Rev Sir TSS.

[Lae · Rating 3 out of 5]

An essay on drama, following literary debates between Eugenius, Crities, Lysidieus and Neander.

Each debate focuses on a different aspect of drama: Ancient versus Modern; English versus French; and Aristotle's Three Unities of Place, Time and Action.

It was interesting to read Dryden's views on drama and compare it with other notable dramatists like William Shakespeare

[Agnibhu · Rating 2 out of 5]

You just made everything up

[Syd Enslen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This guy seriously hates the French and dedicated like five pages to why plays shouldn’t rhyme.

[Anu_reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the concept of four friends having a friendly debate and parting ways with no hard feelings. Shows how "witty people" choose facts over feelings.. A nice read for my lit studies...

[Iqra Tasmiae]

6th January, 2018 (12:45am): Spend three days in between in reading "Eunuchus", "Rollo" and "The Silent Woman". All seems useless since taking so long to finish off with a stupid essay.

Text: https://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch...

[Danica is Booked · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dryden can be incredibly dense, but I did find this to be a fascinating read.

[Daniel Triumph · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brief, useful.