Neoclassicism in England had its roots in the work of Ben
Jonson, who looked to ancient Roman and Renaissance Italian
sources for inspiration. He emphasized the importance of
adhering to the rules of dramatic form and sought to
distinguish genuine poets from mere rhymesters.
English neoclassical criticism was heavily influenced by and
sometimes reacted against French neoclassicism. This French
influence was further strengthened during the Restoration of
1660 when Charles II, who had spent time in France during
the English Civil War, returned to England with his court.
Dryden translated Boileau's "Art Poétique" into English,
which had a notable impact. Boileau's influence was
particularly strong on Alexander Pope, while Dryden himself
defended English drama against certain French critics.
John Dryden (1631 –1700) was an English poet, literary critic, translator,
and playwright who in 1668 was appointed England's first Poet
Laureate. He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration England
to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the
Age of Dryden. Romanticist writer Sir Walter Scott called him "Glorious
John".
John Dryden occupies a seminal place in English critical history. Samuel
Johnson called him “the father of English criticism,” and affirmed of his
Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668) that “modern English prose begins
here.” Dryden’s critical work was extensive, treating of various genres
such as epic, tragedy, comedy and dramatic theory, satire, the relative
virtues of ancient and modern writers, as well as the nature of poetry and
translation. In addition to the Essay, he wrote numerous prefaces, reviews,
and prologues, which together set the stage for later poetic and critical
developments embodied in writers such as Pope, Johnson, Matthew
Arnold, and T. S. Eliot.
It is a treatise in which he attempts to justify drama as a legitimate form of
"poetry” comparable to the epic, as well as defend English drama against
that of the ancients and the French. The Essay was probably written
during the plague year of 1666, and first published in1668.
The treatise is a dialogue among four speakers:
Crites (Represents Sir Robert Howard)- Defends Classical/Ancient
Drama and Blank Verse [Name meaning: “Judge” or “critic”].
Eugenius [Represents Charles Sackville (then Lord Buckhurst)]
Defends Modern Drama [Name meaning: “well Born”].
Lisideius (Represents Sir Charles Sedley); Defends French Drama.
Neander (Represents Dryden himself)- Defends English drama and
Rhyme (neander means "new man" and implies that Dryden, as a
respected member of the gentry class, is entitled to join in this dialogue
on an equal footing with the three older men who are his social
superiors) Neander famously calls Shakespeare “the greatest soul,
ancient or modern.”
The Essay, as Dryden himself was to point out in a later defense of it, was
occasioned by a public dispute with Sir Robert Howard (Crites) over the use of
rhyme in drama. In a note to the reader prefacing the Essay, he suggests that the
chief purpose of his text is “to vindicate the honour of our English writers, from
the censure of those who unjustly prefer the French.” Yet the scope of the Essay
extends far beyond these two topics, effectively ranging over a number of crucial
debates concerning the nature and composition of drama.
On the day that the English fleet encounters the Dutch at sea near the
mouth of the thames, the four friends take a barge downriver towards the
noise from the battle rightly concluding, as the noise subsides, that the
English have triumphed, they order the bargeman to row them back upriver
as they begin a dialogue on the advances made by modern civilization.
They agree to measure progress by comparing ancient arts with
modern, focusing specifically on the art of drama (or "dramatic
poesv").
Lisideius offers the following definition of a play: “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”.
Invoking the so-called unities from Aristotle's Poetics, the four speakers discuss
what makes a play "a just and lively imitation" of human nature in action. This
definition of a play, supplied by Lisideius/Sedley, gives the debaters a versatile and
richly ambiguous touchstone. To Crites' argument that the plots of classical drama
are more "just," Eugenius can retort that modern plots are more "lively" thanks
to their variety. Lisideius shows that the French plots carefully preserve Aristotle's
unities of action, place, and time; Neander replies that English dramatists such
as Ben Jonson also kept the unities when they wanted to, but that they preferred
to develop character and motive. Even Neander's final argument with Crites over
whether rhyme is suitable in drama depends on Aristotle's Poetics: Neander says
that Aristotle demands a verbally artful ("lively") imitation of nature, while
Crites thinks that dramatic imitation ceases to be "just" when it departs from
ordinary speech—i.e. prose or blank verse.
Crites asserts the superiority of the ancients over the moderns.
He says that the ancients have been faithful imitators and wise observers
of nature while the modern disfigured and ill represented nature in their
plays.
He ascribes all the rules of dramatic poesy to the ancients.
Focusing on the three unities, crites says that the ancients followed unity of
time especially in their tragedies. They were careful on the unity of
place that they set a single scene all through the play.
In this observation the French are the next best after the ancients,
according to crites, as in their plays "if the act begins in a garden, a street, or
a chamber, tis ended in the same place". As for the unity of action it must be
singular otherwise it would no longer be a play but two.
Among the English playwrights Ben Jonson is the best example for
following ancients' rules.
Crites notes that poetry is now held in lower esteem, in an atmosphere of
“few good poets, and so many severe judges”.
He reminds his companions that all the rules for drama – concerning the
plot, the ornaments, descriptions, and narrations – were formulated by
Aristotle, Horace, or their predecessors.
As for us modern writers, he remarks, “we have added nothing of our
own, except we have the confidence to say our wit is better”.
He explains that if there were two major actions, this would destroy the
unity of the play.
Most modern plays, says Crites, fail to endure the test imposed by these
unities, and we must therefore acknowledge the superiority of the ancient
authors.
He points out the deficiencies of the ancients and the merits of the moderns.
First of all he blames the ancients for not establishing a fixed number of acts in a play
as they wrote by the entrances of each character or chorus and not by acts.
By repeating the stories, their characters, though indeed are imitations of nature, are
narrow.
As for the three unities, the unity of place was never followed or invented by them
as neither Aristotle nor Horace wrote about it. It was the French poets who made it
a rule of the stage.
The ancients showed no poetic justice in their plays as their heroes were unhappy in
piety and thrived in wickedness. But we do not see such lack of decorum in modern
plays.
Their elaborate choice of words was not suitable to the palate of common people.
Lastly the ancients were dull and tasteless in presenting love and other softer
passions on stage. They focused so much on harsh emotions such as lust, anger,
cruelty, revenge and ambition that they were more capable for raising horror than
compassion in audience.
It is Eugenius who first defends the moderns, saying that they have
not restricted themselves to “dull imitation” of the ancients; they did
not “draw after their lines, but those of Nature; and having the life
before us, besides the experience of all they knew, it is no wonder if
we hit some airs and features which they have missed.”
Turning to the unities, Eugenius points out (after Corneille) that by the
time of Horace, the division of a play into five acts was firmly
established, but this distinction was unknown to the Greeks.
He undertakes the advocacy of the French drama against the English on the
ground of the former's adherence to the unities, great structural regularity
and the use of rhyme.
French are the best of all nations in following the three unities. The French
take maximum thirty hours of plot time without breaking the golden rule of the
natural time prescribed by the ancients. In following the unity of place they are
so intact that they set the scenes in the compass of the same town or city. To
follow the unity of action they omit under-plots in their plavs.
While praising the French for their scrupulous attention to the three unities
Lisideius criticises the English for their tragicomedies with many under-
plots as they effectively are the most absurd in all the theatres in the world.
The French plavwrights put pleasing fiction into the factuality of their plays
in order to give it poetic justice. Lisideius also criticises Shakespeare's
historical plays for cramming up years of history in two and half hours
which in effect becomes not an imitation of nature but a miniature.
Returning to praising the French Lisideius says that they avoid tumult
on stage by reporting duels and battles on stage while the English
playwrights make their characters fight on stage as if they were
competing for a prize.
This is why the audience laugh instead of feeling sad on watching the
English tragic scenes for dying is art only a roman gladiator can do in
its actual sense.
Neander’s response takes us by surprise. He does not at all refute the
claims made by Lisideius. He concedes that “the French contrive their
plots more regularly, and observe the laws of comedy, and decorum
of the stage . . . with more exactness than the English”.
Neander effectively argues that the very “faults” of the English are
actually virtues, virtues that take English drama far beyond the pale
of its classical heritage.
What Neander or Dryden takes as a valid presupposition is that a play
should present a “lively imitation of Nature”. The beauties of French
drama, he points out, are “the beauties of a statue, but not of a man,
because not animated with the soul of Poesy, which is imitation of
humour and passions”.
Indeed, in justifying the genre of tragi-comedy, Neander states that the
contrast between mirth and compassion will throw the important
scenes into sharper relief.
He urges that it is “to the honour 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 tragi-comedy”.
This exaltation of tragicomedy effectively overturns nearly all of the
ancient prescriptions concerning purity of genre, decorum, and unity
of plot.
Neander poignantly repeats Corneille’s observation that anyone with
actual experience of the stage will see how constraining the classical
rules are.
Neander now undertakes a brief assessment of the recent English
dramatic tradition. Of all modern and perhaps ancient poets, he says,
Shakespeare “had the largest and most comprehensive soul.” He was
“naturally learn’d,” not through books but by the reading of nature
and all her images: “he looked inwards, and found her there”. Again,
the implication is that, in order to express nature, Shakespeare did not
need to look outwards, toward the classics, but rather into his own
humanity.
Ben Jonson he regards as the “and his peculiar gift was the
representation of humors. most learned and judicious writer which any
theatre ever had,”.
Neander defines “humour” as “some extravagant habit, passion, or
affection” which defines the individuality of a person.
In an important statement he affirms that “Shakespeare was the Homer,
or father of our dramatic poets; Johnson was the Vergil, the pattern
of elaborate writing”.
What Neander – or Dryden – effectively does here is to stake out an
independent tradition for English drama, with new archetypes displacing
those of the classical tradition.
Neander favours the moderns, respects the ancients, critical to rigid
rules of dramas and he favours rhyme if it is in proper place like in
grand subject matter.
Neander a spokesperson of Dryden argues that tragic comedy is the
best form for a play; because it is the closest to life in which emotions
are heightened by both mirth and sadness.
He also finds subplots as an integral part to enrich a play. He finds the
French drama, with its single action.
Neander favours the violation of the unities because it leads to the variety
in the English plays. The unities have a narrowing and crumpling effect
on the Fench plays, which are often betrayed into absurdities from which
the English plays are free. The violation of unities helps the English
playwright to present a mere, just and lively image of human nature.
Crites believes that Blank Verse as the poetic form nearest to prose is most
suitable for drama. Neander supports Rhyme and argues that what most
commends rhyme is the delight it produces:
“for delight is the chief, if not the only, end of poesy: instruction can be
admitted but in the second place, for poesy only instructs as it delights”.
And Dryden states: “I confess my chief endeavours are to delight the age in
which I live”. Crites argues that “rhyme is unnatural in a play”. Following
Aristotle, Crites insists that the most natural verse form for the stage is blank
verse, since ordinary speech follows an iambic pattern. Neander’s reply is
ambivalent (Dryden himself was later to change his mind on this issue): he does not
deny that blank verse may be used; but he asserts that “in serious plays, where
the subject and characters are great . . . rhyme is there as natural and more
effectual than blank verse”. Moreover, in everyday life, people do not speak in
blank verse, any more than they do in rhyme. He also observes that rhyme and
accent are a modern substitute for the use of quantity as syllabic measure in
classical verse.
Opening Line:
It was that memorable day, in the first summer of the late war,
when our navy engaged the Dutch; a day wherein the two most
mighty and best appointed fleets which any age had ever seen
disputed the command of the greater half of the globe, the
commerce of nations, and the riches of the universe.
