1. Four Critics in
Dryden’s Essay
Sem 1
Hema Goswami

2. Paper 3
• Literary theory and Criticism
Unit 2. Essay on Dramatic poesy: Dryden

3. Dryden: Father of English Criticism
• Essay of Dramatic poesy 1668
• Leading literary figure of Restoration Age
• Most of the writers of this era specialized or excelled
in drama, and consequently the so-called battle of
the ancients and moderns—the critical comparison
of Greek and Roman authors with more recent
ones—was fought chiefly in that arena.

4. Debate among four friends
• Eugenius (Charles Sackville)
• Crites (Sir Robert Howard
• Lisideius (Sir Charles Sedley)
• Neander (thought to represent
Dryden)

5. Five issues are under discussion in this essay
1)Ancients vs. Moderns
2) Unities
3) French vs. English Drama
4) Separation of Tragedy and Comedy vs.
Tragicomedy
5) Appropriateness of Rhyme in Drama

6. Ancient vs Modern
1.Eugenius favors the
moderns
2.Crites favors the
ancients, blank verse
French vs English
3.Lisideius favors French
drama
4.Neander favors the
modern-English plays,
rhyme

7. Eugenius
• Favors the moderns over the
ancients, arguing that the
moderns exceed the ancients
because of having learned
and profited from their
example.

8. Crites
• Argues in favor of the ancients: they established the
unities; dramatic rules were spelled out by Aristotle
which the current--and esteemed--French
playwrights follow; and Ben Jonson--the greatest
English playwright, according to Crites--followed the
ancients' example by adhering to the unities.

9. Lisideius
• Argues that French drama is superior to English
drama, basing this opinion of the French writer's
close adherence to the classical separation of
comedy and tragedy. For Lisideius "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."

10. Neander
• Favors the modern-English plays, but does not
disparage the ancients. He also favors English
drama--and has some critical things to say of French
drama: "those beauties of the French poesy are such
as will raise perfection higher where it is, but are not
sufficient to give it where it is not: they are indeed
the beauties of a statue, but not of a man."

11. Difference
French
• Smallness
• Pursuit of one plot
• Little action
• Narrowness of imagination
English
• longer
• Subplots
• More action
• Broadness of imagination