UGC NET English Literature

Neoclassical Criticism
French critics and Dryden
By : Ayesha Ma’am
Neoclassic period (1660-1780)
• Drew inspiration from the art and culture of classical antiquity.
• A return to classical models and values of Greek and Roman authors.
• Ancient works were considered the surest models for modern greatness.
• The Ancients were believed to be repository of good sense and order.
• Believed that literature was subject to a system of rules.
• Saw literary composition as a rational process.
• Emphasis on reason and logic.
Neoclassical Literary Criticism in France
Neoclassical Literary Criticism first took roots in France.

Focus:
• A strict orthodoxy regarding the dramatic unities
• The requirements of each distinct genre
• The idea of separate genres
• The established laws of craftsmanship

French critics- Pierre Corneille and Nicolas Boileau

Neoclassical Literary Criticism in France
Focus on the Classical values of
• Objectivity
• Impersonality
• Rationality
• Decorum
• Balance
• Harmony
• Proportion
• Moderation
Academie Francaise
➢ Founded in 1635
➢ Mission of Academy:
• To standardize language through creation of a dictionary and
grammar
• To standardize rules of poetics and rhetoric
➢ Result: Uniform and systematic nature of French neoclassical
theory.
Pierre Corneille (1606–1684)
• A French tragedian.
• ‘Founder of French tragedy’
• One of the three great 17th-century French
dramatists, along with Molière and Racine.
• Corneille’s play Le Cid (1637)
Pierre Corneille (1606–1684)

Corneille’s play Le Cid (1637)

❑ Subtitled a tragicomedy, acknowledging that it intentionally
defies the classical tragedy/comedy distinction.
❑ Harsh reviews by critics for flouting classical norms
❑ Le Cid (1637) was defective because
1. it did not respect the classical unities of time, place, and
action
2. it did not follow the Aristotelian percepts of probability and
necessity
Pierre Corneille (1606–1684)
• In 1660, Cornielle produced “Trois Discours sur le
poème dramatique”.

• Three Discourses on Dramatic Poetry (1660)

• Aim: To justify his dramatic practices.

Pierre Corneille (1606–1684)

Three Discourses on Dramatic Poetry

(1660)
o To ‘make ancient rules agree with modern pleasures’
o Need to attune Greco-Roman values to modern
sensibilities
o Corneille attempted to show his mastery of Classical
percepts
o He asserted that classical conventions can be used to
modern requirements of the stage
o Emphasized a more liberal interpretation of those
classical percepts
o A relatively liberal neoclassicist
Nicolas Boileau- Desperaux
(1636-1711)
• French poet and critic of Neoclassical age.
• Le Art Poetique (The Art of Poetry, 1674)
• “The Art of Poetry” is itself written in form of a poem.

(REMEMBER: Ars Poetica by Horace was also a poem about

poetry!)
Nicolas Boileau- Desperaux
(1636-1711)
Important Facts:
• Nicolas Boileau- Desperaux translated Longinus’s “On
the Sublime” into English
• The Art of Poetry was translated by Dryden into English
Nicolas Boileau- Desperaux (1636-1711)

“The Art of Poetry” (1674)

• “To study nature be your only care”
• The poet must know the human nature and the “secrets of
the heart”

“Your actors must by reason be controlled,

Let young men speak like young,
Old men like old.”
Nicolas Boileau- Desperaux (1636-1711)

“The Art of Poetry” (1674)

“Your actors must by reason be controlled,
Let young men speak like young,
Old men like old.”
• That is, each person must be portrayed in his “proper character”.
• The ‘proper character’ must be self-consistent and consistent with
the character’s country, rank and native customs.
• “Observe the town and study well the court”.
• That is, the poet must not only know human nature, but must also be
an observer of various customs and ages.
Neoclassical Literary Criticism in
England
• Neoclassical Literary Criticism first took roots in France.

• Its influence spread to other parts of Europe, notably

England.

• French Neoclassic thinkers were major influences on

English neoclassicism.
John Dryden (1631-1700)
• English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright
• England's first Poet Laureate (appointed in 1668)
• Essay of Dramatick Poesie
• Published in 1668
• Samuel Johnson called Dryden “the father of English criticism”
• Johnson also affirmed of his Essay of Dramatic Poetry that “modern
English prose begins here”.
John Dryden (1631-1700)
Essay of Dramatick Poesie (1668)
• A treatise on drama
• Occasioned by a dispute with Robert Howard over use of rhyme in drama
• Purpose: “to vindicate the honor of our English writers, from the censure
of those who unjustly prefer the French.”
• Written in form of a dialogue among four speakers
1. Eugenius
2. Crites
3. Lisideius
4. Neander
John Dryden (1631-1700)
Essay of Dramatick Poesie (1668)
• Sir Robert Howard (Crites)
• Charles Sackville (Eugenius)
• Sir Charles Sedley (Lisedeius)
• Dryden himself (Neander means "new man“)
John Dryden (1631-1700)
Essay of Dramatick Poesie (1668)
Four friends in a boat on river Thames
The four men debate on a series of three topics:
(1) classical drama (upheld by Crites) vs. modern drama
(championed by Eugenius)
(2) whether French drama (as Lisideius maintains) is
better than English drama (supported by Neander,
who famously calls Shakespeare "the greatest soul,
ancient or modern")
John Dryden (1631-1700)
Essay of Dramatick Poesie (1668)

(3) whether plays in rhyme are an improvement upon

blank verse drama
John Dryden (1631-1700)
Essay of Dramatick Poesie (1668)
Ancients vs. Moderns
➢ Crites is the voice of the Ancients.
➢ Eugenius defends the moderns.
Crites defends Ancients
• the ancients were “faithful imitators and wise
observers of that Nature which is so torn and
ill represented in our plays.
• all the rules for drama – concerning the plot,
the ornaments, descriptions, and narrations –
were formulated by Aristotle, Horace, or their
predecessors.
• As modern writers, we “have added nothing of
our own, except we have the confidence to
say our wit is better”.
• the ancients observed these rules of three
unities, but modern plays, says Crites, fail to
endure the test imposed by these unities.
Eugenius defends the
moderns
• Modern playwrights have not restricted
themselves to “dull imitation” of the ancients.
• Modern playwrights did not “draw after their
(ancients’) lines, but those of Nature”.
• The plots of ancient plays were usually based
on “some tale derived from Thebes or Troy,” a
plot “worn so threadbare . . . that before it came
upon the stage, it was already known to all the
audience.”
• Ancient plays lacked novelty.
• Instead of “punishing vice and rewarding
virtue,” the ancients “have often shown a
prosperous wickedness, and an unhappy piety”.
John Dryden (1631-1700)
Essay of Dramatick Poesie (1668)
French vs. English Drama

➢ Lisideius defends French drama

➢ Neander defends English drama
Lisideius defends French
drama
• French theatre is the best in all Europe
• Observing the unities of time, place, and
action
• French playwrights do not write
tragicomedies, which is a uniquely English
invention.
Neander defends English
drama
• The beauties of French drama are “the beauties
of a statue, but not of a man, because not
animated with the soul of Poesy, which is
imitation of humour and passions”.
• A play should be a “lively imitation of Nature”
• Justifies the genre of tragicomedy.
John Dryden (1631-1700)
Essay of Dramatick Poesie (1668)
Use of Rhyme in Drama

➢ Crites speaks against rhyme

➢ Neander defends the use of rhyme
Crites speaks against rhyme Neander defends the use of rhyme

The most natural verse form for the stage is In serious plays, where the subject and characters
blank verse, since ordinary speech follows an are great, rhyme is there as natural and more
iambic pattern. effectual than blank verse.
Recap of Neoclassical Literary Criticism:
1. Pierre Corneille- Three Discourses on Dramatic
Poetry (1660)
2. Nicolas Boileau- Desperaux -The Art of Poetry (1674)
3. John Dryden- Essay on Dramatic Poetry (1668)