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Oct 13, 2009 · In addition to poetry, Dryden wrote many essays, prefaces, satires, translations, biographies (introducing the word to the English language), and plays. “An Essay of Dramatic Poesy” was probably written in 1666 during the closure of the London theaters due to plague. It can be read as a general defense of drama as a legitimate art form ...
- John Dryden
This “Historical Poem” celebrating English victories at sea...
- John Dryden
Neander also praises the use of rhymed verse in drama. He claims that it is a powerful and meaningful element that captivates the audience, especially when delivered at key plot moments.
The four men debate a series of three topics: (1) the relative merit of 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"); and (3) whether plays in rhyme are an improvement upon blank verse drama ...
English drama. Neander is formed from two Greek words meaning “new man.” The arguments of the first three critics had all rested on the first term in the definition of a play given earlier (141), the word “just.” That is, they have all tried to set a value on drama according to the degree of its verisimilitude: Does it follow the
Neander favors the moderns, but does not disparage the ancients. He also favors 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."
Nov 17, 2017 · In an important statement he affirms that “Shakespeare was the Homer, or father of our dramatic poets; Johnson was the Vergil, the pattern of elaborate writing” (82). What Neander – or Dryden – effectively does here is to stake out an independent tradition for English drama, with new archetypes displacing those of the classical tradition.
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Dryden wrote “An Essay of Dramatic Poesy” in 1665-1666 during an outbreak of the plague in which London’s theaters were again closed. Four friends—Eugenius, Crites, Lisideius, and Neander—discuss the relative merits of English writing as compared to that of the ancients and the French, among others, while a naval war with the Dutch rages in the background.
