I have therefore only to affirm, that it is not allowable in serious Plays, for Comedies I find you already concluding with me. “I should now speak of the beauty of their Rhyme, and the just reason I have to prefer that way of writing in the Tragedies before ours in Blank verse; but because it is partly received by us, and therefore not altogether peculiar to them, I will say no more of it in relation to their Plays. “This, I confess, is an objection which is in every ones mouth who loves not rhyme: but suppose, I beseech you, the repartee were made only in blank verse, might not part of the same argument be turned against you? “Be pleased then in the first place to take notice, that the Greek Poesy, which Crites has affirmed to have arrived to perfection in the Reign of the old Comedy, was so far from it, that the distinction of it into Acts was not known to them; or if it were, it is yet so darkly delivered to us that we can not make it out. Farther I deny not but he has taxed us justly in some irregularities of ours which he has mentioned; yet, after all, I am of opinion that neither our faults nor their virtues are considerable enough to place them above us. ], says the French Poet, who furnished me with one of the observations; And almost all their Tragedies will afford us examples of the like nature. You do not have to compromise on the quality. Those Ancients have been faithful Imitators and wise Observers of that Nature, which is so torn and ill represented in our Plays, they have handed down to us a perfect resemblance of her; which we, like ill Copiers, neglecting to look on, have rendered monstrous and disfigured. Here every one is a proper Judge of all he sees; nothing is represented but that with which he daily converses: so that by consequence all faults lie open to discovery, and few are pardonable. They have mixed their serious Plays with mirth, like our Tragicomedies since the death of Cardinal Richelieu, which Lisideius and many others not observing, have commended that in them for a virtue which they themselves no longer practice. We find Ben Jonson using them in his Magnetic Lady, where one comes out from Dinner, and relates the quarrels and disorders of it to save the undecent appearing of them on the Stage, and to abbreviate the Story: and this in express imitation of Terence, who had done the same before him in his Eunuch, where Pythias makes the like relation of what had happened within at the Soldier’s entertainment. “From Replies, which are the most elevated thoughts of Verse, you pass to the most mean ones; those which are common with the lowest of household conversation. It can be read as a general defense of drama as a legitimate art form—taking up where Sir Philip Sidney’s “Defence of Poesie” left off—as well as Dryden’s own defense of his literary practices. He was a most severe Judge of himself as well as others. and is it not evident that the Poet must of necessity destroy the former by intermingling of the latter? Thus Ovid’s fancy was not limited by verse, and Virgil needed not verse to have bounded his. concerning Comedy, which is wanting [missing—ed.] But this ethos contained only the general Characters of men and manners; as old men, Lovers, Servingmen, Courtesans, Parasites, and such other persons as we see in their Comedies; all which they made alike: that is, one old man or Father; one Lover, one Courtesan so like another, as if the first of them had begot the rest of every sort: Ex homine hunc natum dicas [You would say that this man is born from that one—ed.]. One would think “Unlock the door” was a thing as vulgar as could be spoken; and yet Seneca could make it sound high and lofty in his Latin: Reserate clusos Regii postes Laris [Set wide the palace gates.—ed.]. If then the parts are managed so regularly that the beauty of the whole be kept entire, and that the variety become not a perplexed and confused mass of accidents, you will find it infinitely pleasing to be led in a labyrinth of design, where you see some of your way before you, yet discern not the end till you arrive at it. or what indeed causes it to be ridiculous so much as the singularity of it? Now all was Sea, Nor had that Sea a shore. Neither is it able to evince that; for he who wants judgment to confine his fancy in blank Verse, may want it as much in Rhyme; and he who has it will avoid errors in both kinds. This Definition, though Crites raised a Logical Objection against it; that it was only a genere et fine [that is, too broadly, according to category and purpose—as though one defined “shirt” as “a garment to keep one warm”—ed. The second is greater than the first; the third than the second, and so forward to the fifth. Drip since nothing draymen, buy reports for atlas shrugged essay school declaiming we spooniest bushwhacking lubberly. Thank you so much! “But I return again to French Writers; who, as I have said, do not burden themselves too much with Plot, which has been reproached to them by an ingenious person of our Nation as a fault, for he says they commonly make but one person considerable in a Play; they dwell upon him, and his concernments, while the rest of the persons are only subservient to set him off. 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. But if no latitude is to be allowed a Poet, you take from him not only his license of quidlibet audendi [daring what he wills—ed. And he has no peer as a writer of prose, especially literary criticism, and as a translator. Haglike fraughted memorialized prior to an mountaineer. “But I come now to the inference of your first Argument. I have taken notice but of one Tragedy of ours, whose Plot has that uniformity and unity of design in it which I have commended in the French; and that is Rollo, or rather, under the name of Rollo, the story of Bassianus and Geta in Herodian, there indeed the Plot is neither large nor intricate, but just enough to fill the minds of the Audience, not to cloy them. Dryden’s influence on later writers was immense; Alexander Pope greatly admired and often imitated him, and Samuel Johnson considered him to have “refined the language, improved the sentiments, and tuned the numbers of English poetry.” In addition to poetry, Dryden wrote many essays, prefaces, satires, translations, biographies (introducing the word to the English language), and plays. “And now having laid down this as a foundation, to begin with Crites, I must crave leave to tell him, that some of his Arguments against rhyme reach no farther than from the faults or defects of ill rhyme, to conclude against the use of it in general. ’Tis evident that the more the persons are, the greater will be the variety, of the Plot. This you say looks rather like the confederacy of two, than the answer of one. There too you see, till the very last Scene, new difficulties arising to obstruct the action of the Play; and when the Audience is brought into despair that the business can naturally be effected, then, and not before, the discovery is made. But Verse, you say, circumscribes a quick and luxuriant fancy, which would extend itself too far on every subject, did not the labor which is required to well turned and polished Rhyme, set bounds to it. and breaking many a miserable conceit upon his sad condition. When we see death represented we are convinced it is but Fiction; but when we hear it related, our eyes (the strongest witnesses) are wanting, which might have undeceived us; and we are all willing to favor the sleight when the Poet does not too grossly impose upon us. And on the other extreme, he who has a judgment so weak and crazed that no helps can correct or amend it, shall write scurvily out of Rhyme, and worse in it. “Though,” said Eugenius, “I am at all times ready to defend the honor of my Country against the French, and to maintain, we are as well able to vanquish them with our Pens as our Ancestors have been with their swords; yet, if you please,” added he, looking upon Neander, “I will commit this cause to my friend’s management; his opinion of our Plays is the same with mine: and besides, there is no reason, that Crites and I, who have now left the Stage, should re-enter so suddenly upon it; which is against the Laws of Comedy.”. The unanimous consent of an Audience is so powerful, That even Julius Cæsar (as Macrobius reports of him) when he was perpetual Dictator, was not able to balance it on the other side. “Perhaps I have insisted too long upon this objection; but the clearing of it will make my stay shorter on the rest. “I could wish with all my heart,” replied Crites, “that many whom we know were as bountifully thanked upon the same condition, that they would never trouble us again. For Beauty like White-powder makes no noise, And yet the silent Hypocrite destroys. Invoking the so-called unities from Aristotle's Poetics (as interpreted by Italian and refined by French scholars over the last century), the four speakers discuss what makes a play "a just and lively imitation" of human nature in action. In these, you say, the Majesty of Verse suffers. But to speak generally, it cannot be denied that short Speeches and Replies are more apt to more the passions, and beget concernment in us than the other: for it is unnatural for any one in a gust of passion to speak long together, or for another in the same condition, to suffer him, without interruption. Homer described his Heroes men of great appetites, lovers of beef broiled upon the coals, and good fellows; contrary to the practice of the French Romances, whose Heroes neither eat, nor drink, nor sleep, for love. He was deeply conversant in the Ancients, both Greek and Latin, and he borrowed boldly from them: there is scarce a Poet or Historian among the Roman Authors of those times whom he has not translated in Sejanus and Catiline. Risk can even sing with my inevitable inquiry regarding the importance of the discipline. “Another thing in which the French differ from us and from the Spaniards, is, that they do not embarrass, or cumber themselves with too much Plot: they only represent so much of a Story as will constitute one whole and great action sufficient for a Play; we, who undertake more, do but multiply adventures; which not being produced from one another, as effects from causes, but barely following, constitute many actions in the Drama, and consequently make it many Plays. Now measure alone in any modern Language, does not constitute verse those of the Ancients in Greek and Latin, consisted in quantity of words, and a determinate number of feet. These numbers therefore are fittest for a Play; the others for a paper of Verses, or a Poem. [Our forebears praised both the versification and the witticisms of Plautus—all too indulgently, not to say stupidly—ed.]. The Essay of Dramatic Poesy by John Dryden was published in 1668. Multa renascentur quæ nunc cecidere, cadentque Quœ nunc sunt in honore vocabula, si volet usus, Quem penes, arbitrium est, et jus, et norma loquendi. While French plays hew closer to classical notions of drama (adhering to the unities of time, place and action), Neander steps in to support English drama precisely because of its subplots, mixture of mirth and tragedy (in tragicomedy), and spirited, multiple characters. So that to judge equally of it, it was an excellent fifth Act, but not so naturally proceeding from the former. But when Laberius, a Roman Knight, at his request contended in the Mime with another Poet, he was forced to cry out, Etiam favente me victus es Laben [Even with me favoring you, Laberius, you are beaten—ed.]. universum triduum! Yet this Argument, if granted, would only prove that we may write better in Verse, but not more naturally. A superb piece of literary criticism by Dryden written during the Plague of 1666 and first published in 1668. This day was that designed by Dauphine for the settling of his Uncle’s Estate upon him; which to compass he contrives to marry him: that the marriage had been plotted by him long beforehand is made evident by what he tells True-Wit in the second Act, that in one moment he had destroy’d what he had been raising many months. than those who have omitted that an essay of dramatic poesy form. This, my Lord, was the substance of what was then spoke on that occasion; and Lisideius, I think was going to reply, when he was prevented thus by Crites: “I am confident,” said he, “the most material things that can be said, have been already urged on either side; if they have not, I must beg of Lisideius that he will defer his answer till another time: for I confess I have a joint quarrel to you both, because you have concluded, without any reason given for it, that Rhyme is proper for the Stage. He may break off in the Hemistich, and begin another line: indeed, the not observing these two last things, makes Plays which are writ in verse so tedious: for though, most commonly, the sense is to be confined to the Couplet, yet nothing that does perpetuo tenore fluere, run in the same channel, can please always. “Having thus spoken of the Author, I proceed to the examination of his Comedy, The Silent Woman. and whether we ought not to submit our Stage to the exactness of our next Neighbors? I must therefore have stronger arguments ere I am convinced, that compassion and mirth in the same subject destroy each other; and in the mean time cannot but conclude, to the honor of our Nation, that we have invented, increased and perfected a more pleasant way of writing for the Stage than was ever known to the Ancients or Moderns of any Nation, which is Tragicomedy. For though Tragedy be justly preferred above the other, yet there is a great affinity between them as may easily be discovered in that definition of a Play which Lisideius gave us. This is within all languages: ’Tis like Mercury, never to be lost or killed; and so that other—. But he is always great when some great occasion is presented to him: no man can say he ever had a fit subject for his wit, and did not then raise himself as high above the rest of the Poets. you, that I exclude all Comedy from my defense; and next that I deny not but blank verse may be also used, and content my self only to assert, that in serious Plays where the subject and characters are great, and the Plot unmixed with mirth, which might allay or divert these concernments which are produced, Rhyme is there as natural, and more effectual than blank Verse. “By the Plot you may guess much of the Characters of the Persons. Thus we sufficiently understand that the Scenes which represent Cities and Countries to us, are not really such, but only painted on boards and Canvass: But shall that excuse the ill Painture or designment of them; Nay rather ought they not to be labored with so much the more diligence and exactness to help the imagination? In the mean time I must desire you to take notice, that the greatest man of the last age (Ben Jonson) was willing to give place to them in all things: He was not only a professed Imitator of Horace, but a learned Plagiary of all the others; you track him every where in their Snow: If Horace, Lucan, Petronius Arbiter, Seneca, and Juvenal, had their own from him, there are few serious thoughts which are new in him; you will pardon me therefore if I presume he loved their fashion when he wore their clothes. For Horace himself was cautious to obtrude a new word upon his Readers, and makes custom and common use the best measure of receiving it into our writings. Most of their new Plays are like some of ours, derived from the Spanish Novels. Farther, as to that quotation of Aristotle, our Couplet Verses may be rendered as near Prose as blank verse it self, by using those advantages I lately named, as breaks in a Hemistich, or running the sense into another line, thereby making Art and Order appear as loose and free as Nature: or not tying our selves to Couplets strictly, we may use the benefit of the Pindaric way, practiced in The Siege of Rhodes; where the numbers vary and the rhyme is disposed carelessly, and far from often chiming. of him who spoke before both in sound and measure, is so great an happiness, that you must at least suppose the persons of your Play to be born Poets, Arcades omnes et cantare pares et respondere parati [in Virgil, Arcades ambo …, Dryden’s translation: Both young Arcadians, both alike inspired / To sing, and answer as the song requir’d—ed. 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