Dryden's Essay on Dramatic poesy

Thinking activity......☘️🌺🍂

      Dryden's Essay on Dramatic poesy.....

          

      Assigned by Dilip Barad sir...

(A) Difference between  Aristotle's definition of tragedy and dryden's of play ?

   

Ans : 

        Aristotle is possessive about the characteristics. He follows traditions. He does not mingle both expressions or emotions of tragedy and comedy. Dryden breaks these rules of play, depicts both expression of happiness and tr4agedy in his play. 

         

   ∆ Aristotle's definition of Tragedy  :

         Tragedy,” says Aristotle, “is an imitation [mimēsis] of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude…through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation [catharsis] of these emotions.” Ambiguous means may be employed, Aristotle maintains in contrast to Plato, to a virtuous and purifying end.   

 

          

     Aristotle defines tragedy as –, Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete,, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of, artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play;, in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear ...

∆ Dryden's definition of play :

  

    function in Dryden's theater; it remains external to the binary struc. ture of the definition and completes it. If we revise the definition to. read: "a play ought to be a just and lively image of human nature, representing its passions and humours, for the delight and instruc.

      In definition, we find a word ‘just’. It means as itself, the exact and the word comes ‘lively’ means it involves the ‘lively’ nature of person or in which we feel it’s real not a melodramatic type.

 

(B) Any topic of you choice but pertaining to Dryden as 'Father of English criticism'. 

  Ans : 

          Jonson the first English critic but Dryden the Father of English Criticism. It was Dr. Johnson who conferred the title of ‘The Father of English Criticism’ on Dryden. Saintsbury, T.S. Eliot and dozens of other modern critics support Dr. Johnson’s views. Of course by saying that Ben Jonson is the first critic of England Dryden’s position has not been degraded. That remark is based on the historical priority of Jonson and not on originality of ideas or novelty of critical precepts propounded by him. However, no one can deny that the younger contemporary of Shakespeare faced boldly the practical problems of the literature and literary aspirants of the day. Jonson exhibited sturdy independence of spirit and displayed “liberal classicism” entitling him to the position of being the first English critic.

      Dryden admired Jonson for various reasons but not for any merit of originality whatsoever. In what is called a critical work, namely, his Discoveries, Jonson was ruthless in his ‘‘liberal classicism” whereas Dryden was highly tolerant. If it is a question of critical output, Jonson’s was limited in critical range and sketchy and meager in output. Dryden was fortunately in possession of a rich and diverse literary tradition behind him enabling him to produce quantitatively prolific and qualitatively more urbane critical output. This fact entitles him to the position of the father of English practical criticism.

    

      Jonson the first English critic but Dryden the Father of English Criticism. It was Dr. Johnson who conferred the title of ‘The Father of English Criticism’ on Dryden. Saintsbury, T.S. Eliot and dozens of other modern critics support Dr. Johnson’s views. Of course by saying that Ben Jonson is the first critic of England Dryden’s position has not been degraded. That remark is based on the historical priority of Jonson and not on originality of ideas or novelty of critical precepts propounded by him. However, no one can deny that the younger contemporary of Shakespeare faced boldly the practical problems of the literature and literary aspirants of the day. Jonson exhibited sturdy independence of spirit and displayed “liberal classicism” entitling him to the position of being the first English critic.

      Dryden admired Jonson for various reasons but not for any merit of originality whatsoever. In what is called a critical work, namely, his Discoveries, Jonson was ruthless in his ‘‘liberal classicism” whereas Dryden was highly tolerant. If it is a question of critical output, Jonson’s was limited in critical range and sketchy and meager in output. Dryden was fortunately in possession of a rich and diverse literary tradition behind him enabling him to produce quantitatively prolific and qualitatively more urbane critical output. This fact entitles him to the position of the father of English practical criticism.

     Dryden’s bold and free spirit. Dryden’s affection for English literature was indisputably deep and he had the courage of conviction. He could never stomach the trivialities of the French critical theorists of his day who were over-scrupulous and meticulous about some stipulated rule and definitions. Dryden was not unaware of the rich variety of life as a consequence of the abundance of genius, rendering these inhibiting rules and regulations incompatible. Professor Scott James aptly expresses how Dryden was successful in realizing and hence clearing for himself the ground by brushing away all arbitrary bans upon freedom of composition and thought. The fact that the tragi-comedy of the sixteenth and seventeenth-century English playwrights which mingled mirth with serious plots did not find favor with their French counterparts could not be a reason for forbidding that type of play itself. The boldness exhibited by Dryden in refusing to render slavish homage to Aristotle is also commendable because he clearly points out that Aristotle himself would have appreciated tragicomedies if only he had seen those English plays directly in the same manner as the works of Sophocles and Euripides which formed the basis for his Rhetoric and Poetics.

    

   There are two other types of criticism, namely, “legislative criticism” which supplies the poet with stock material for discriminating what to write from what not to write and for comprehending the better and more graceful ways of writing. Another type, namely, ‘‘theoretical criticism” deals with the aesthetic aspects of literature. Dryden’s works have enough examples in them to convince any later critic how much he is indebted to Dryden for the full comprehension of the different aspects of literature.

   Dryden’s prose. Above all, Dryden’s inimitable prose adds pungency to his critical pronouncements. Dr. Johnson was a great admirer of Dryden’s prose. He says: “They (Dryden’s prose passages) have not the formality of a settled style in which the first half of the sentence betrays the other. The clauses are never balanced nor the periods modeled; every word seems to drop by chance though it falls into its proper place. Nothing is cold or languish; the whole is airy, animate and vigorous; what is little is gay, what is great is splendid. Everything is excused by the play of images and sprightliness of expression”.

      

   ∆ conclusion : His native sensibility, his classical liberalism, his catholicity of taste and broadness of outlook, his conversational ease, his animate and easy style, the gentlemanly tone all these entitle Dryden to the position of the Father of English Criticism.

     

   Thanking you for visit...😇🌺☘️