Dramatic Poesy

John Drydens Of Dramatic Poesie (also known as An Essay of Dramatic Poesy) is an

exposition of several of the major critical positions of the time, set out in a semidramatic
form that gives life to the abstract theories. Of Dramatic Poesie not only offers a capsule
summary of the status of literary criticism in the late seventeenth century; it also provides a
succinct view of the tastes of cultured men and women of the period. Dryden synthesizes the
best of both English and Continental (particularly French) criticism; hence, the essay is a
single source for understanding neoclassical attitudes toward dramatic art. Moreover, in his
discussion of the ancients versus the moderns, in his defense of the use of rhyme, and in his
argument concerning Aristotelian prescripts for drama, Dryden depicts and reflects upon the
tastes of literate Europeans who shaped the cultural climate in France and England for a
century.
Although it is clear that Dryden uses Neander as a mouthpiece for his own views about
drama, he is careful to allow his other characters to present cogent arguments for the
literature of the classical period, of France, and of Renaissance England. More significantly,
although he was a practitioner of the modern form of writing plays himself, Dryden does not
insist that the dramatists of the past are to be faulted simply because they did not adhere to
methods of composition that his own age venerated. For example, he does not adopt the
views of the more strident critics whose insistence on slavish adherence to the rules derived
from Aristotle had led to a narrow definition for greatness among playwrights. Instead, he
pleads for commonsensical application of these prescriptions, appealing to a higher standard
of judgment: the discriminating sensibility of the reader or playgoer who can recognize
greatness even when the rules are not followed.
For this reason, Dryden can champion the works of William Shakespeare over those of many
dramatists who were more careful in preserving the unities of time, place, and action. It may
be difficult to imagine, after centuries of veneration, that at one time Shakespeare was not
held in high esteem; in the late seventeenth century, critics reviled him for his disregard for
decorum and his seemingly careless attitudes regarding the mixing of genres. Dryden,
however, recognized the greatness of Shakespeares productions; his support for
Shakespeares natural genius had a significant impact on the elevation of the Renaissance
playwright to a place of preeminence among dramatists.
The period after the restoration of the Stuarts to the throne is notable in English literary
history as an age in which criticism flourished, probably in no small part as a result of the
emphasis on neoclassical rules of art in seventeenth century France, where many of King
Charles IIs courtiers and literati had passed the years of Cromwells rule. Dryden sets his
discussion in June, 1665, during a naval battle between England and the Netherlands. Four
cultivated gentlemen, Eugenius, Lisideius, Crites, and Neander, have taken a barge down the
River Thames to observe the combat and, as guns sound in the background, they comment on
the sorry state of modern literature; this naval encounter will inspire hundreds of bad verses
commending the victors or consoling the vanquished. Crites laments that his contemporaries
will never equal the standard set by the Greeks and the Romans. Eugenius, more optimistic,
disagrees and suggests that they pass the remainder of the day debating the relative merits of
classical and modern literature. He proposes that Crites choose one literary genre for
comparison and initiate the discussion.

As Crites begins his defense of the classical drama, he mentions one point that is accepted by
all the others: Drama is, as Aristotle wrote, an imitation of life, and it is successful as it
reflects human nature clearly. He also discusses the three unities, rules dear to both the
classicist and the neoclassicist, requiring that a play take place in one locale during one day,
and that it encompass one action or plot.
Crites contends that modern playwrights are but pale shadows of Aeschylus, Sophocles,
Seneca, and Terence. The classical dramatists not only followed the unities successfully; they
also used language more skillfully than their successors. He calls to witness Ben Jonson, the
Elizabethan dramatist most highly respected by the neoclassical critics, a writer who
borrowed copiously from many of the classical authors and prided himself on being a modern
Horace. Crites says I will use no further argument to you than his example: I will produce
before you Father Ben, dressed in all the ornaments and colours of the ancients; you will need
no other guide to our party, if you follow him.
Eugenius pleads the cause of the modern English dramatists, not by pointing out their virtues,
but by criticizing the faults of the classical playwrights. He objects to the absence of division
by acts in the works of the latter, as well as to the lack of originality in their plots. Tragedies
are based on threadbare myths familiar to the whole audience; comedies revolve around
hackneyed intrigues of stolen heiresses and miraculous restorations. A more serious defect is
these authors disregard of poetic justice: Instead of punishing vice and rewarding virtue,
they have often shown a prosperous wickedness, and an unhappy piety.
Pointing to scenes from several plays, Eugenius notes the lack of tenderness in classical
drama. Crites grants Eugenius his preference, but he argues that each age has its own modes
of behavior; Homers heroes were men of great appetites, lovers of beef broiled upon the
coals, and good fellows, while the principal characters of modern French romances neither
eat, nor drink, nor sleep, for love.
Lisideius takes up the debate on behalf of the French theater of the early seventeenth century.
The French classical dramatists, led by Pierre Corneille, were careful observers of the unities,
and they did not attempt to combine tragedy and comedy, an English practice he finds absurd:
Here a course of mirth, there another of sadness and passion, and a third of honour and a
duel: thus, in two hours and a half, we run through all the fits of Bedlam.
The French playwrights are so attentive to poetic justice that, when they base their plots on
historical events, they alter the original situations to mete out just reward and punishment.
The French dramatist so interweaves truth with probable fiction that he puts a pleasing
fallacy upon us; mends the intrigues of fate, and dispenses with the severity of history, to
reward that virtue which has been rendered to us there unfortunate. Plot, as the preceding
comments might suggest, is of secondary concern in these plays. The dramatists chief aim is
to express appropriate emotions; violent action always takes place offstage, and it is generally
reported by a messenger.
Just as Eugenius devoted much of his discussion to refuting Crites arguments, Neander,
whose views are generally Drydens own, contradicts Lisideiuss claims for the superiority of
the French drama. Stating his own preference for the works of English writers, especially of
the great Elizabethans, Neander suggests that it is they who best fulfill the primary
requirement of drama, that it be an imitation of life. The beauties of the French stage are, to
him, cold; they may raise perfection higher where it is, but are not sufficient to give it where

it is not. He compares these beauties to those of a statue, flawless, but without a soul.
Intense human feeling is, Neander feels, an essential part of drama.
Neander argues that tragicomedy is the best form for drama, for it is the closest to life;
emotions are heightened by contrast, and both mirth and sadness are more vivid when they
are set side by side. He believes, too, that subplots enrich a play; he finds the French drama,
with its single action, thin. Like Samuel Johnson, who defended Shakespeares disregard of
the unities, Dryden suggests that close adherence to the rules prevents dramatic depth.
Human actions will be more believable if there is time for the characters emotions to
develop. Neander sees no validity in the argument that changes of place and time in plays
lessen dramatic credibility; theatergoers know that they are in a world of illusion from the
beginning, and they can easily accept leaps in time and place, as well as makeshift battles.
Concluding his comparison of French and English drama, Neander characterizes the best of
the Elizabethan playwrights. His judgments have often been quoted for their perceptivity. He
calls Shakespeare the man who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and
most comprehensive soul. Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher are praised for their wit and
for their language, whose smoothness and polish Dryden considers their greatest
accomplishment: I am apt to believe the English language in them arrived to its highest
perfection.
Dryden commends Jonson for his learning and judgment, for his correctness, yet he feels
that Shakespeare surpassed him in wit, by which he seems to mean something like natural
ability or inspiration. This discussion ends with the familiar comparison: Shakespeare was
the Homer, or father of our dramatic poets; Jonson was the Virgil, the pattern of elaborate
writing; I admire him, but I love Shakespeare.
Neander concludes his argument for the superiority of the Elizabethans with a close critical
analysis of a play by Ben Jonson, which Neander believes a perfect demonstration that the
English were capable of following classical rules triumphantly. Drydens allegiance to the
neoclassical tradition is clear here; Samuel Johnson could disparage the unities in his Preface
to Shakespeare (1765), but Dryden, even as he refuses to be a slave to the rules, makes Ben
Jonsons successful observance of them his decisive argument.
The essay closes with a long discussion of the value of rhyme in plays. Crites feels that blank
verse, as the poetic form nearest prose, is most suitable for drama, while Neander favors
rhyme, which encourages succinctness and clarity. He believes that the Restoration dramatists
can make their one claim to superiority through their development of the heroic couplet.
Dryden is very much of his time in this argument; the modern reader who has suffered
through the often empty declamation of the Restoration hero returns with relief to the blank
verse of the Elizabethans.
Dryden ends his work without a real conclusion; the barge reaches its destination, the stairs at
Somerset House, and the debate is, of necessity, over. Moving with the digressions and
contradictions of a real conversation, the discussion provides a clear, lively picture of many
of the literary opinions of Drydens time.

Discuss Dryden's Of Dramatic Poesie as a survey of

contemporary critical schools.
What is so fascinating about this work of criticism is that Dryden writes it as a semistructured drama, imagining that four friends are in a boat talking about the contemporary
state of poetry in Dryden's day. Dryden uses each of these four characters to represent a
critical view of poetry, using the character of Neander as a mouthpiece for his own views and
opinions. Note, for example, how the character of Eugenius responds to the claims by one of
his friends that there is nothing of value in contemporary poetry:
"If your quarrel, said Eugenius, to those who now write, be grounded only upon your
reverence to Antiquity, there is no man more ready to adore those great Greeks and Romans
than I am: but on the other side, I cannot think so contemptibly of the Age I live in, or so
dishonorably of my own Country, as not to judge we equal the Ancients in most kinds of
Poesy, and in some surpass them..."
Eugenius therefore is shown to represent the critical view that contemporary poetry is
actually the equal of, if not superior to, classical poetry. Crites, on the other hand, clearly
believes that there is nothing of value at all in contemporary poetry. Neander takes a more
nuanced view, finding some aspects of contemporary literature praiseworthy whilst also
identifying other complaints. The form of this treatise therefore presents the argument in a
very convincing way, as characters are created who each represent a different school of
critical thought about literature.