1 john dryden an essay of dramatick poesie
If the words of some Poets who write in it, are either ill chose, or ill placed which makes not onely rhime, but all kind of verse in any language unnatural; Shall I, for their vitious affectation condemn those excellent lines of Fletcher, which are written in that kind? I have therefore onely to affirm, that it is not allowable in serious Playes; for Comedies I find you already concluding with me. Nor does this any thing contradict the opinion of Horace , where he tells us,. 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. 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. And this excellent contrivance is still the more to be admir'd, because 'tis Comedy where the persons are onely of common rank, and their business private, not elevated by passions or high concernments as in serious Playes. In presenting his argument, Dryden takes up the subject that Philip Sidney had set forth in his Defence of Poesie in Not that I commend narrations in general, but there are two sorts of them; one of those things which are antecedent to the Play, and are related to make the conduct of it more clear to us, but, 'tis a fault to choose such subjects for the Stage which will inforce us upon that Rock; because we see they are seldome listned to by the Audience, and that is many times the ruin of the Play: for, being once let pass without attention, the Audience can never recover themselves to understand the Plot; and indeed it is somewhat unreasonable that they should be put to so much trouble, as, that to comprehend what passes in their sight, they must have recourse to what was done, perhaps, ten or twenty years ago. Showing To speak therefore of judgment as it is in the best Poets; they who have the greatest proportion of it, want other helps than from it within. Besides, you see it founded upon the truth of History, onely the time of the action is not reduceable to the strictness of the Rules; and you see in some places a little farce mingled, which is below the dignity of the other parts; and in this all our Poets are extreamly peccant, even Ben Johnson himself in Sejanus and Catiline has given us this Oleo of a Play; this unnatural mixture of Comedy and Tragedy, which to me sounds just as ridiculously as the History of David with the merry humours of Golias. Johnson confining himself to what ought to be said, even in the liberty of blank Verse; and yet Corneille , the most judicious of the French Poets, is still varying the same sence an hundred wayes, and dwelling eternally upon the same subject, though confin'd by Rhyme.
As for that place of Aristotle, where he sayes Playes should be writ in that kind of Verse which is nearest Prose; it makes little for you, blank verse being properly but measur'd Prose.
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Visit Home Events Exhibitions Library. The Ancients had little of it in their Comedies; for the to geloion , of the Old Comedy, of which Aristophanes was chief, was not so much to imitate a man, as to make the people laugh at some odd conceit, which had commonly somewhat of unnatural or obscene in it.
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But I will not on this occasion, take the advantage of the greater number, but only urge such reasons against Rhyme, as I find in the Writings of those who have argued for the other way. And yet this miserable necessity you are forced upon. How does Amazon calculate star ratings?
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A year later, the two brothers-in-law quarreled publicly over this third topic.
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