Dramatic Poesie - John Dryden

 Bridge Course

Essay of Dramatic Poesie by John Dryden

         This blog is in response to the Bridge Course - Essay of Dramatic Poesie by John Dryden assigned by Dr. Dilip Barad sir, Department of English MK Bhavnagar University. In this blog I am going to discuss my understanding of John Dryden's Essay of Dramatic Poesy and I will also deal with various aspects of it. 

        Before looking at major concerns and further debate, it is necessary to first have an introduction of "What is Dramatic Poesy". So Let's first have a brief introduction of John Dryden's "Essay of Dramatic Poesie" and Introduction of the writer himself.

John Dryden:-

          John Dryden (1631-1700) was an English poet, critic, and active playwright 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. Though he is a Neo-classical critic, he does't believe in following the tradition blindly or we can say he is not a blind classicist. He is a mixture of Classicism and Romanticism 

• Samuel Johnson calls John Dryden “the father of English criticism.” 
• Sir Walter Scott calls John Dryden “Glorious John."
• He was the first poet Laureate of England 

 His major works include,

• Of Dramatic Poesie, an Essay
• Absalom and Achitophel
• The Hind and the Panther
• All for Love
• Alexander's Feast

Of Dramatic Poesie, an Essay:-

             The Essay of Dramatic Poesie is written by John Dryden. This is one of his best critical works and that's why he is called as the father of  English criticism. It was written in 1666 and was first published in 1668. In this work he attempts to justify drama as a legitimate form of "poetry" comparable to the Epic, as well as defend English drama against the ancient and the French.

           The essay begins with the scene where Four friends, Crites, Neander, Eugenius, and Lesidius are sailing to see a naval 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 be produced after the naval battle. These Four critics who are imagined as these four personages are,

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

So, in this essay all four present their view on Dramatic Poesie. In this essay he presents 5 ideas of criticism.

• Ancients vs Moderns
• Unities
• French vs English Drama
• Separation of Tragedy and Comedy vs Tragicomedy
• Rhyme vs Blank verse

In this work Dryden Offers a definition of Play. According to him,

"A play ought to be just and lively image of human nature, representing its passions and humours, and the changes of fortune to which it is subject, for the delight and instruction of mankind."

While talking about the play, He doesn't say that he is giving definition of the play but, he says that he is rather giving description of the play. 

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."

Difference between Aristotle's definition of Tragedy and Dryden's definition of Play:-

Before we jump into the discussion of difference between Aristotle's definition of Tragedy and Dryden's definition of Play, let's understand each of their Definitions.

According to Aristotle, 

"Tragedy is an imitation [mimesis] of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude…through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation [catharsis] of these emotions.”

According to Dryden,

"A play ought to be just and lively image of human nature, representing it's passions and humours, and the changes of fortune to which it is subject, for the delight and instruction of mankind."

         Both the definitions can be divided into three parts.

             Aristotle and Dryden, we can say that both have in one way a similar opinion of the work of art when we took the first part of both the definitions. And that is Imitation of an action and A just and lively image of human nature. Both have the same idea that it should be a presentation of human life. The second part of the definition of both is yes, same but while completing the second part, we must understand that Aristotle only defines Tragedy and Dryden defines Play general. So both give the same idea. In the third part there is an idea of instruction and delight. Aristotle's definition of Tragedy ended with the therapeutic word Catharsis while Dryden's definition of Play ended with delight and instructions.

        By the comparison, we can say that both have similar ideas but Dryden moves a step forward when he says it is for the delight and instruction of mankind.

If you are supposed to give your personal predilection, would you be on the side of the Ancient or the Modern?

Ancients vs Moderns:

      In Essay of Dramatic Poesy, Eugenius, Crites, Lisidius and all four present different opinions of Ancient and Modern plays, and French and English plays.

       If I am supposed to give my personal predilection I would be on the side of the Modern. I would also be in favour of the English plays.

In Of Dramatic Poesy, Eugenius is in the defence of the Moderns. 

"Moderns are standing on the shoulders of the Ancients."

          Modernity is always both a mixture of History as well as a new way of looking. It is the same in every aspect of life. Say for the example of education system,

            First image presents an idea of "Gurukul" education and Digital education. We cannot say that One of them is not good. If we say that the Ancient tradition of education is good, we directly condemn the modern way of education. In this modern time, multi tasking has become very important and Digital skilling has covered all the aspects. So, if we compare both we would find that the modern way is much more interesting than the older one. We should not hold only one idea and that's why we have to move a step forward.

        Second image presents equality between the modern and traditional education system. Both are important that we can see that though we are using digital devices to learn, we are much connected with traditional ways of reading.

       This image is about the journey of Cell phone to smartphone. If we only hold the old one, we would not be able to accept the newest one which is more unbefitting and important in the modern world.

       While thinking about the superiority of modern and ancient's playwrights or the plays, we should not underestimate the contribution of Ancients. As we all know that Ancients give us a way to look upon, they are pillars of the modern world. At the same time it is not right if we would say that ancients are the superior or Moderns are not. Because Moderns have both quality, adaption of Ancient tradition and Idea and power of Modern way of looking or we can say that they are mixture of Old and New ideology. We cannot ignore that all we have is because of Ancients but Moderns have their different way of looking with the new ideas towards life.

      In the essay, Neander favours the moderns but does not underestimate the ancients. He also favours 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.

So, for this reason I want to be on the side of Moderns.

What would be your preference so far as poetic or prosaic dialogues are concerned in the play? 

     The last and very important part of the essay is which way of writing the play is more appropriate poetic or prosaic dialogues. 

Crites:-

In this essay, Crites objects to rhyme in plays:

 "Since no man without premeditation speaks in rhyme, neither ought he to do it on the stage." 

     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:-

Neander responds to the objections against rhyme by admitting that 

"Verse so tedious" is inappropriate to drama.

           I would be on the side of Prosaic dialogues. It is fine that the verses are very essays to remember, but it is very difficult to understand. For example, Shakespeare's works are written in blank verse and other works are written in verse, which language is very difficult to understand or even read. It is easy to read or understand prose dialogues. For that I would prefer the Prose style of drama.

        To sum up my arguments of The Essay of Dramatic Poesy, we come to know that the ideas of the play given by Dryden is much more appropriate than earlier critics.

I hope my blog will be helpful to you.

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