An Essay of Dramatic

Poesy

Content of this presentation :

About John Dryden
General facts about his work
The 3 topics
Work with the text
About the critics
Q&A

John Dryden (1631-1700)

- a playwright, a critic, a poet, a satirist and
a translator; 1669: Poet Laureate (until
1689);
1686: converted to Catholicism
a/ Plays: heroic tragedies with superheroes
and superheroines eg. The Indian Queen
(1664),
The Conquest of Granada (1670); All for
Love (1678) based on Shakespeares
Antony and Cleopatra

 -- comedies eg. Secret Love (1667), Marriage ala

Mode (1672) and The Kind Keeper (1678)
-- tragi-comedies eg. The Rival Ladies (1664) and
opera-libretti eg.King Arthur, Paradise Lost
b/ Criticism: father of English criticism (Dr.
Johnson)
-- on the versification in drama: blank verse vs.
rhyming couplet
-- An Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668): the
theoretical principles on which to construct the new
drama that the age demanded; Shakespeares plays
are valued high; contemporary French drama is
criticized
c/ Poetry: neo-classical features: allusions to
classical and Biblical works used to refer to
contemporary events (and sometimes to highten his

An Essay of Dramatic Poesy

written in 1666 during the closure of the
London theaters due to plague

a general defense of drama as a legitimate

art form

structured as a dialogue among four friends

on the river Thames
an ironic and witty conversation on the
subject of poetry

The 3 topics
the relative merit of classical drama (upheld by
Crites) vs. modern drama (championed by
Eugenius);
whether French drama, as Lisideius maintains, is
better than English drama ;
whether plays in rhyme are an improvement upon
blank verse drama--a proposition that Neander,
despite having defended the Elizabethans, now
advances against the skeptical Crites.

Work with the text

It

was that memorable day, in the first Summer of the late War,
when our Navy engaged the Dutch: a day wherein the two most mighty and
best appointed Fleets which any age had ever seen, disputed the command
of the greater half of the Globe, the commerce of Nations, and the riches of
the Universe. While these vast floating bodies, on either side, moved
against each other in parallel lines, and our Country men, under the
happy conduct of his Royal Highness, went breaking, by little and little, into
the line of the Enemies; the noise of the Cannon from both Navies reached
our ears about the City: so that all men, being alarmed with it, and in a
dreadful suspense of the event, which we knew was then deciding, every
one went following the sound as his fancy led him; and leaving the Town
almost empty, some took towards the Park, some cross the River, others
down it; all seeking the noise in the depth of silence.
Amongst the rest, it was the fortune of Eugenius, Crites,
Lisideius and Neander, to be in company together: three of them
persons whom their wit and Quality have made known to all the Town: and
whom I have chose to hide under these borrowed names, that they may not
suffer by so ill a relation as I am going to make of their discourse.

The critics
1) Eugenius (whose name may mean "well born")--favors the
moderns over the ancients, arguing that the moderns exceed the
ancients because of having learned and profited from their example.
2) 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.
3) Lisideius--argues that French drama is superior to English
drama,basing this opinion of 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
. . . in two hours and a half, we run through all the fits of Bedlam."
4) Neander (thought to represent Dryden)--favors the moderns,
but does not disparage the ancients. He also favors English
drama--and has some critical things to say of French drama

Answers
I.
1. France.
2. classical Greek.
3. action; one;
time; place.
4. plots; years;
place.
5. Dryden; French.

II.
1. naval; Dutch;
Thames; English
drama.
2.Ancients; rules
3.Moderns; Aristotle;
perfections
4. French; classical
5. Dryden; lively;
French; statue; man;
animated

Thank you for

watching and listening
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Anca Bunescu ( GE-EN)
Hurducas Patricia ( GE EN)
Music : The Secular Masque - a Poem by John
Dryden
Set to Music by William Boyce