This is an OCR edition without illustrations or index. It may have numerous typos or missing text. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from GeneralBooksClub.com. You can also preview excerpts from the book there. Purchasers are also entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Original Published by: Clarendon Press in 1889 in 177 pages; Subjects: Drama; Drama / General; Drama / American; Drama / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh; Literary Criticism / General; Literary Criticism / Semiotics & Theory; Literary Criticism / Drama; Literary Criticism / Poetry; Performing Arts / Theater / Playwriting; Poetry / American / General; Poetry / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh;

A facsimile edition of Dryden's famous essay preceded by a dialogue on poetic drama by T. S. Eliot. This is a very rare work.

Dryden S Main Contribution To Literary Criticism Is Represented By An Essay Of Dramatic Poesy In Which In The Form Of A Lively Dialogue His Views On Drama Are Propounded. In This Landmark Of English Criticism, Dryden Examines Five Important Issues : The Relative Merits Of Ancient And Modern Poets, The French Versus The English School Of Drama, The Elizabethan Dramatists Versus Those Of Dryden S Own Time, Conformation To The Dramatic Rules Laid Down By The Ancients And The Question Of Substituting Rhyme For Blank Verse.Considering The Fact That Dryden Had No Settled Body Of English Criticism To Bank Upon, His Theorising On The Form Of Drama Is A Distinguished Achievement And Many Of The Issues Raised By Him Can By No Means Be Treated As Finally Decided. Dryden S Special Advantages Were A Strong, Clear, Common-Sense Judgement And A Very Remarkable Faculty Of Arguing The Point . Add To This His Intimate Knowledge Of Both Ancient And Modern Playwrights, Including The French Masters, And His Personal Initial Experiments In Writing Plays.Thomas Arnold S Explanatory Notes Make This Volume All The More Valuable To The Scholars And Students Of Dryden As A Critic. William T. Arnold In His Revision Of The Third Edition, Made The Notes Fuller And More Helpful By, Among Other Things, Adding Quotations From Corneille.

If your quarrel (said Eugenius) to those who now write, be grounded onely upon your reverence to Antiquity, there is no man more ready to adore those great Greeks and Romans than I am: but on the other side, I cannot think so contemptibly of the Age I live in, or so dishonourably of my own Countrey, as not to judge we equal the Ancients in most kinds of Poesie.