2..0 Objectives
2..1 Introduction
2.1.1 Dryden as a Critic
Self-Check Questions for 2.1.1
2.1.2 Dryden on The Nature of Poetry
Self-Check Questions for 2.1.2
2.1.3 Dryden on The Function of Poetry
Self-Check Questions for 2.1.3
2..2 An Essay on Dramatic Poesy: An Introduction
Self-Check Questions for 2.2.1
2..2..2 Violation of the Three Unities
Self-Check Questions for 2.2.2
2.2.3 Eugenius Arguments on Superiority of Moderns over the Ancients
Self-Check Questions for 2.2.3
2.2..4 Crites’s Arguments in favour of the Ancients
Self-Check Questions for 2.2.4
2..2.5 Lisideius’s view in favour of Superiority of the French Drama over English Drama
Self-Check Questions for 2.2.5
2.2..6 Neander’s view in favour of Modern (English) Drama
Self-Check Questions for 2.2.6
2...3 The Ancients versus Modern Playwrights
2..4 Mixture of Tragedy and Comedy
2..5 Advocacy of writing plays in Rhymed Verse
(A) Bibliography
(B) Further Reading
As we know, Plato wanted poetry to instruct the reader, Aristotle to delight, Horace to do both, and Longinus to transport. Dryden was a bit moderate and considerate in his views and familiar with all of them. He was of the opinion that the final end of poetry is delight and transport rather than instruction. It does not imitate life but presents its own version of it. According to Dryden, the poet is neither a teacher nor a bare imitator – like a photographer – but a creator, one who, with life or Nature as his raw material, creates new things altogether resembling the original. According to him, poetry is a work of art rather than mere imitation. Dryden felt the necessity of fancy, or what Coleridge later would call “the shaping spirit of imagination”.
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