An Essay of Dramatic Poesy

Written during an outbreak of plague that occasioned the shuttering of theaters in 1665-1666, the essay functions almost like a play itself. There are five acts—as Horace sanctioned “correct” (164)—and a central plot (to determine the highest and best form of theater, with the action of the literal battle in the background juxtaposed against the rhetorical battle on the barge floating down the Thames). There is also a cast of characters: Dryden’s friends rechristened with Latinate names. These faux-Roman names lend credence and authority to their arguments, in keeping with the era’s admiration for Greco-Roman culture. The setting gives this cast an occasion to debate the competence of contemporary English writers and the state of the English theater in comparison to the revered ancients and modern European rivals.

In discussing the work of contemporary poets, Crites initially compares them to “ravens and birds of prey” (149), swooping in to the battleground in order to pluck the choicest bits of “quarry” for their badly composed poems. They are metaphorical vultures, scavenging carrion from the ground: dead matter for leaden poetry. He gets even more worked up when Lisideius agrees with him and employs another—historically relevant, culturally sensitive—metaphor when he calls for “ill poets” to be “as well silenced as seditious preachers” (149). Coming on the heels of a civil war and 11 years of Puritan rule, in which much artistic expression was brutally suppressed, Crites’s comment resonates more harshly than the modern reader might suspect. Later, when describing the habits of certain bad poets whose ideas are banal and whose words fall flat, Crites compares them to swallows: “these swallows which we see before us on the Thames are the just resemblance of his wit: you may observe how near the water they stoop, […] they skim over it but to catch a gnat, and then mount into the air and leave it” (151). The implication is that not only do these insipid poets fail to catch the gnat, but that they are also only looking for gnats—diminutive, unimportant quarry. He has demoted these bad poets even from his earlier comparison to opportunistic birds of prey.

When the conversation shifts to the extended discussion on theater in particular, all parties must first agree on “the definition of a play” (155). They settle on Lisideius’s “rude notion of it”: “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” (155). Thus, their argument circles around a very specific ideal of what a play should be: It must represent nature—a loaded term during this era (see: Themes) and function to instruct, not just entertain. Hence, the reliance on the three unities (see: Index of Terms) as rules that derive from natural sources—like keeping a play bound to the 24-hour day, when possible. This perspective also reflects the proto-Enlightenment thinking of the day and the primacy of the new scientific method. It stands to reason (according to this worldview) that the moderns will surpass the ancients in most endeavors because progress is inevitable—a teleological march toward greater knowledge and finer accomplishments. Crites argues against this by claiming that poetry was held “in more esteem than now it is” (156), but he is outargued by Eugenius, whose views more closely represent those of the author himself: “[H]e maintains that the moderns have acquired a new perfection in writing” (173). Dryden, an already renowned modern writer, has a vested interest in the argument.

The attention then turns to national comparisons, pitting the theatrical work of the French against the English. This debate turns on whether it is more appropriate for passions to be stoked or tempers to be soothed: while Lisideius argues in favor of the French, who have perfected the ancient rules of the theater and kept the dramatic action off the stage, Neander responds that these tactics actually hinder French theater. The English play is “infinitely pleasing” with its “labyrinth of design, where you see some of your way before you yet discern not the end till you arrive at it” (191). The French theater, Neander argues, is not only too predictable but also too solemn, crafting “long harangues” that “comply with the gravity of a churchman” (190)—again, the reference to religion is meant to sting. Neander also argues that Englishmen, whether by custom or nature, “will scarcely suffer combats and other objects of horror to be taken from them” (192), ultimately concluding that the English theatrical tradition is “more masculine” than the French. The feminine (not a compliment, given the gender politics of the era) French prefer soothing plays about manners rather than rousing renditions of battle, like the heartier English. The English even possess a superior imagination, able to discern that the battle scenes, like the play itself, are meant only to represent reality, not mimic it: “[F]or why may not our imagination as well suffer itself to be deluded with the probability of it [battle] as with any other thing in the play?” (192). The willing suspension of disbelief sets the English audience above the French; concomitantly, the originality and robustness of the English theater outperforms the French.

All of this leads to the discussion of the suitability of “poesy” for dramatic works. Neander makes short work of the argument against the use of rhyme in dramatic plays: “If then verse may be made natural in itself, how becomes it unnatural in a play?” (213). Rhyme, Neander asserts, can be “natural and easy” in the right hands (212). As a play should always strive—as with every other form of art during this age—toward what is most natural, verse is appropriate when applied with good judgment. Neander explains that the verse actually improves the quality of the play: “When a poet has found the repartee, the last perfection he can add to it is to put it into verse” (218). As evidence, Neander notes that the most renowned works of literature, the ancient epics, employ verse. Essentially, the argument claims that poesy elevates prose; it accentuates the inherent drama of the tragedy as narration does for the epic poem.