ABOUT AN ESSAY OF DRAMATIC POESY
John Dryden (1631-1700) was a literary critic, poet, playwright, translator and also a neo-classicist. He was the most important and dominant figure of Restoration Literature. During his lifetime, he wrote many satires and about thirty plays. Though he wrote also some heroic plays, they were not as much respected as they were to be. Since, the Restoration Period was a no-heroic age. While his best play was All for Love, his best work of art was accepted as An Essay of Dramatic Poesy which was first published in 1668. It was thought to be written during the plague year of 1666. Dryden undertook the subject that was put forward by Sir Philip Sidney in his Defence of Poesie (1580) and tried to justify drama as a legitimate form of art. However, Dryden had a different style of writing. In the need of expressing himself clearly, he used the dialogue technique set among four characters, Crites, Eugenius, Lisideius and Neander to show his preference in the Ancient, Modern, French and English writers. In fact, the characters whom he chose on purpose were not fictional but real ones. These four speakers represented the Earl of Dorset; English poet and courtier, Robert Howard; English playwright and politician, Sir Charles Sedley; English wit, dramatist and politician, and lastly John Dryden, himself. At first, the essay started off like a story which stated a historical fact of the time; the image of four sailing men through the Thames and observing the battle between the British and Dutch navies. Dryden wrote this essay as a dramatic dialogue with four characters representing four critical positions, these four critical positions stand for three important issues, the relative merits of ancient and modern poetry; which one is superior to the other, the relative merits of English and French Drama; which one is inferior to the other and lastly, appropriateness of Rhyme in Drama. Crites comes to the stage with the first discussion and stands for the superiority of the ancients over the moderns. He says that they formed the unities; dramatic rules shaped by Aristotle which the current French playwrights still follow. According to Crites, Ben Jonson as the greatest English playwright followed the ancients’ heritage by referring to the unities. ‘‘… he loved their fashion when he wore their clothes…’’ (112). The speakers actually contrast Ben Jonson who wrote regular plays and also obeyed all the Classical rules, with William Shakespeare who broke these dramatic rules and unities with great abandon. Eugenius, as his counterpart favors the moderns over the ancients, arguing that the moderns exceed the ancients because of having learned and profited from their example. Unlike the ancients, moderns have the chance of benefiting from the works of elder generations. In order to surpass the ancients, something should be added to what was learned from them. Moreover, they also imitate the nature. By this way, moderns are doubly lucky for the sake of art. So, moderns are greater poets and superior to the ancients. Crites interrupts Eugenius saying that they can not come to an agreement. Because, Crites believes that the moderns do not create something new but just changing the appearance. And he concludes the debate saying that the ancients should be accepted as the masters today and in the future as well. Another debate starts between Eugenius and Lisideius on French Drama vs. English Drama then Neander also comes to the stage sharing his ideas as well. Eugenius favors English Drama and accepts it superior to the French Drama. However, Lisideius who glorifies French plays, replies by saying that French Drama is superior to the English and also any other European Drama. He supports himself by accepting the French Drama as the most strictly faithful one to the Aristotle’s three unities. He also argues that French Drama is superior to ancient ones as well. Furthermore, he accepts Shakespeare’s plays as defaults. Since, he conjoins tragedy and comedy. ‘‘There is no theater in the world has anything so absurd as the English tragicomedy…in two hours and a half, we run through all the fits of Bedlam’’(117). Lisideius defines it as ‘‘unnatural mixture of comedy and tragedy’’ (113). Shakespeare’s plays’ consisting of both a plot and a sub plot is also a default according to Lisideius. He goes further by saying that some actions which should be done behind the scene such as a battle or a murder which English Drama lacks and causes turmoil on the scene. He finishes his defense by saying none of the French plays end with any unbelievable conversions. Neander goes on to defend English Drama and tragicomedy. According to him, tragicomedy increases the effectiveness of both tragic and comic elements by way of contrast. He accepts it as a new invention, perfection, a more pleasant way of writing for the stage. He then criticizes French Drama especially for its shallowness: consisting of only one plot without sub plots; showing to the audience too little action but too many words, shortly, its narrowness of imagination. And these are all qualities which makes it inferior to the English Drama. Neander extends his criticism of French Drama by reasoning for his preference of Shakespeare over Ben Jonson. According to him, Shakespeare has ‘‘the largest and most comprehensive soul’’ (125) while Jonson is ‘‘the most learned and judicious writer which any theater ever had’’ (125). Moreover, Neander prefers Shakespeare for his greater faithfulness to the life while Jonson has a French/Classical tendency to deal with the ‘beauties of a statue, but not of man’. ‘‘If I would compare him with Shakespeare, I must acknowledge him the more correct poet, but Shakespeare the greater wit. Shakespeare was the Homer, or father of our Dramatick Poets; Jonson was the Virgil, the pattern of elaborate writing; I admire him but I love Shakespeare’’ (126). The last debate takes its start by Crites’ objecting to rhyme in plays. ‘‘Rhyme is incapable of expressing the greatest thought naturally, and the lowest it can not 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?’’(130). According to him, no man speaks in rhyme, and if the stage is reflection of the real life, then why he ought to do it on the stage. He supports his objection by citing from Aristotle as saying ‘‘plays should be writ in that kind of verse which is nearest prose’’ (131). He uses it as a justification for banishing rhyme from drama in favor of blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter). Although blank verse lines no more spontaneous than rhymed lines are, they are still to be preferred because they are much more nearer to the nature. Neander responds to these objections which are against rhyme by admitting at first that ‘verse so tedious’ is inappropriate to drama and to anything else. On the other hand, ‘Natural rhymed’ verse is appropriate not only to the dramatic but also to the non dramatic poetry. And naturalness of a rhyme shows how well chosen the rhymes are. That is, drama is to be written in rhymes and these rhymed lines should be the ones which are closer to the real life and will make it much more believable for the audience. Lastly, rhymed lines are also necessary to arouse the ‘emotional effect’ which will take the audience to catharsis by the feelings of pity and fear.
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