Dryden

 

INTRODUCTION

John Dryden was the representative literary luminous star of the Restoration Age. The name of John Dryden, a gentle, modest, unassuming, intelligent person, free from dogmatism and vanity of everykind commands a great respect in the field of literary criticism. Dr. Johnson goes one step ahead and calls him,

“The father of Modern English criticism, as the writer who first taught us to determine upon principles, the merit of composition.”

 

George Watson remarks,

“The first Englishman to attempt any extended descriptive criticism was John Dryden.”

Dryden’s Essay of Dramatic Poesy is one of the earliest examples of descriptive criticism. With the publication of Dryden’s essay in 1668, English criticism attained an individual character. Thomas Arnold put it as,

“The first piece of good, modern English prose on which our literature can pride itself.”

THE DIALOGUE FORM

The Essay begins with a picturesque setting, which represent the four interlocutors. The interlocutors set out to discuss the problems of dramatic poetry. The Essay is written in the form of dialogues. Crites (probably Dryden’s brother-in-law, Sir Robert Howard) speaks for the ancients while Eugenius the Borrowed name for Lord Buckhurt vindicates the moderns. Lisideius(or Sir Charles Sedley) praises the French drama and Neander (Dryden himself)defends English drama.

Through the dialogues among the above four friends Dryden discusses the ancient drama, the Elizabethan drama and Restoration drama.  In his address “To The Reader’ prefixed to the essay Dryden says that his aim was,

“To Vindicate the honor of our English writers from the censure of those who unjustly prefer the French before them.”

 

 

 

THE DEFINITION

After some brief introductory remarks regarding the bad verses, the conversation turns on the comparative merits and demerits of ancient and modern poetry. As a preliminary to the more serious discussion to follow Lisideius defines a play as,

“A 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.”

CRITES’ ARGUMENTS

   His first argument is that the classical drama is superior to all because according to him,

“Those ancients have been faithful imitators and wise observer of that nature which is so torn and ill presented in our plays.”

Secondly he puts forward the extreme classical view that it was the Greeks and the Romans who had discovered and illustrated the immortal rules to which even the modern dramatists have added nothing. So, in this point the classical drama is superior.

  Thirdly according to him, unlike the moderns the ancient observed the three unities with full fidelity. The unity of time restricts the duration of action. Unity of place forbids the change of location or scene, where the event is depicted in the drama considered to have taken place, unity of action implies that one complete plot should dominate the full drama and subordinate incidents, episodes should be avoided.

EUGENIUS’ ARGUMENTS

In response to the arguments of Crites, Eugenius says that it is true that the Moderns have used the advantages of the Ancients but they have illustrated the fundamental rules.  The moderns construct their plays better by dividing them into five acts. As far as plot is concerned according to Euginieus, in the ancient plot,

“Appetites were cloyed with same dish the novelty bring gone, the pleasure vanished.”

And so that one main end of Dramatic poesy, which is to cause delight was of consequence destroyed.

According to Eugenius the ancients failed in the technique of play- writing and also in their moral teaching. They often show vice rewarded and virtue punished. They were strong in scenes of terror, lust, cruelty and revenge but very weak in Pathos. Love that is the most frequent of all the passions was missing in the ancient dramas.

Hence Eugenius tries to establish the superiority of the Moderns over the Ancients. At this Crites remarks that the Moderns have not actually acquired a new perfection in writing, they have only altered the mode of it. He, however admits that if the ancients had lived in later times, they would certainly have made many changes. He says that in the meantime the merits should preserve,

“The dignity of masters and give that honour to their memories.”

The moderation of Crites pleased all the company and thus, put an end to that dispute between the Ancient and Moderns.

LISIDEIUS’ ARGUMENTS

In the beginning Lisideius admits that English plays up to 1625 were better than those of French. But later England had political troubles and so,

“The Muses, who ever follow peace went to plant in another country.”

He says that Classical dramas were the finest achievement of the play writing, the rules come from classical drama, but French Neo- classical drama followed the classical conventions in the best possible way. Thus, classical drama has achieved their maturity in French Neo- classical drama.

He rejects the absurd and unnatural mixture of geners in English tragicomedy in favour of regular French plot. He further says that the mingling of tragic and comic takes away all the unity of impression. So the tone should be either be tragic or comic. In the fourth argument he says that French neo- classical playwright wrote on some well known history with the addition with some fiction. What is fact, teaches and fiction, pleases so, both the functions are performed.

His fifth argument is that French Neo classical writers mastered the art of exposition, which is not achieved by other dramatists. He gives the example of Shakespeare's poor art of exposition in the play like ‘The Tempest’. So, in this base also French Neo-classical dramatists are superior.

He mentions sixth point about the superiority of French Neo- Classical drama. According to him they are very careful about the unity of time and place. Aristotle had given the dictum that the scope of a play was to be restricted to the events of a day. The unity of place should be preserved by not exceeding the compass of the same town or city. This the poets carefully observed.

The next point which Lisideius puts forth in favour of the French drama is the economy of the plot in their plays.  Their plots are simple and clear. There is no multiplicity of action and incident in their plays and therefore there is enough time to represent one passion fully instead of hurrying from one to another as in English plays.

Declaring the superiority of the French drama Lisideius then indicates that in the French dramas, the main focus is on the emotional entanglements of the principle characters or the hero.  All superfluous characters are carefully avoided by French dramatists even then each character, which is present, has a subtle role to play.

The french use narration to describe things that happen, like battle, deaths and scenes of cruelty, that are ridiculous when shown on the stage. The representation of incidents that can not be portrayed as realistic, possible or believable anyway are better omitted.

Finally, Lisideius prefers the rhymed verse of the French dramatists to the blank verse of the English tragedies.  Thus, Lisideius argues in order to establish the superiority of the French Neo- classical drama over the English. His argument is answered by Neander who is Dryden himself.

NEANDER’S ARGUMENTS

Neander is Dryden himself, whose task is to prove superiority of English drama over French Neo- Classical drama. For that he accepts merits of others and faults of English dramatists. He agrees with Lisideius that the French plays are more regular and that the decorum of the stage is maintained by them with mere exactness than the English.

He also admits that the French dramatists avoid such irregularities as are found in the English drama. But then he nullifies the effect of all of Lisideius’s claims and all that he himself had agrees to by one swift stroke. He says that,

“Neither our faults nor their virtues are considerable enough to place them above us.”

Neander , in order to take the argumen to the opposite camp goes back to the commonly agreed definition of a play being a , lively image of Nature He says that the French drama may be regular but its adherence to regularity and formality succeeds only in marrying the liveliness. Unlike the English dramas the French dramas lack life and variety. Hence Neander says that the beauties of the French play are,

The beauties of a statue but not of a man.

He then answers Lisideius’s charge of mingling of tragic and comic is vice. He denies the argument and says that it is not vice nor it affects the unity of tone but adds variety to the play.

 

Moreover, the continuous dose of the tragic would ‘make our spirit too bent’ and hence a dose of comic is needed so that it may freshen the audience for the journey ahead.

Neander also defends the variety and complexity of plots in English drama against the singleness of French plots. He says,

“Variety, if well ordered afford a greater pleasure to the audience.”

By defending English drama against Lisideius’s charge regarding the variety of characters Neander says,

“It is evident that the more the persons are, the greater will be the variety of plot.”

Neander agrees with Lisideus that scenes of death and violence should not be shown on stage but then he says that the temperament of the English is different from the French and hence they seem to enjoy the violent expression of passion.

Coming to the discussion of the validity of the three unities, Neander says that the strict adherence to the three unities often results in absurdities. It affects the plot and many possible artistic beauties have to be sacrificed. He argues that rules are means and not the end. They are the part of craftsmanship, what is more important is the ultimate effect of the play. Moreover the French critic Corneille himself admitted that the unities have cramping effect.

In order to supplement all his arguments with concrete examples Neander gives a general critical estimate of Shakeshpeare, Beaumont, Fletcher and Ben Jonson.

The tribute to Shakespeare is an example of Dryden’s critical acumen and sympathetic understanding. Eulogising  Shakeshpeare, he writes,

“He was the man, who of all moderns and perhaps ancient poets had the largest and most comprehensive soul.”

Commenting on Beaumont and Flecther, Neander says that there was some gaiety in their comedies and pathos in their more sensitive play which generally suit every man’s humour.

Comparing Ben Jonson with Shakespeare, he writes,

“I admire him, (Ben Jonson) but I love Shakespeare.”

This critical estimate reveals Dryden’s comparative method of criticism. Within a short space, he discusses the development of English drama from Shakespeare to Ben Jonson. In the words of R.A. Scott James, “Dryden opens a new field of comparative criticism.”

Thereafter Neander, examines The Salient Women , a play by Jonson in order to prove that even if an English play is judged by those rules which the French so much emphasise upon, it comes off with flying colours.

Thus Neander successfully defends the English drama against the onslaught of Lisideius.

Then the discussion turns to rhyme and Crites attacks rhyme violently by saying that it is unnatural, because it is an artificial form of  expression. According to him Blank Verse, which is nearest prose should be used in drama. On the other hand Neander defends the use of rhyme by saying that rhyme is more effective than Blank verse. Rhyme expresses a thought musically. He further says that  rhyme disciplines the poet and controls his fancy and prevents him from running too freely.

The essay ends in a picturesque fashion. The discussion has been tentative and exploratory. In the words of Donald Daive,

“…conclusions are not reached, or rather too many conclusions are reached.”

CONCLUSION

The real greatness of this founder of descriptive criticism in English is that at a time when literature was cramped with formulas, he found it impossible to write otherwise than freely. It was he who first observed that,

“It is not enough that Aristotle has said so, for Aristotle drew his models of tragedy from Sophocles and Euripides. And if had seen ours, might have changed his mind.”

Dryden drew attention to the higher function of criticism which is the appreciation of literary excellence. He is the true father of English practical criticism.

The ‘Essay of Dramtatic Poesy’ is Dryden’s masterpiece, it is a work which presents Dryden at his critical best as Wimsalt and Brooks, correctly says,

“It is the most ambitiously constructed critical document of his career and most important for general literary theory.”