Essays of John Dryden: Introduction ; List of Dryden's works ; Epistle dedicatory of the rival ladies (1664) ; Preface to Annus Mirabillis (1667) ; Of dramatic poesy, an essay (1668) ; Prologue to Secret Love or the Maiden Queen (1668) ; Defence of an essay of dramatic poesy (1668) ; Preface to An Evening's Love or The Mock Astrologer (1671) ; Of heroic plays, an essay (1672) ; Epilogue to the second part of the Conquest of Granada (1672) ; Defence of the epilogue (1672) ; The author's apology for heroic poetry and poetic license (1677) ; Preface to All for Love (1678) ; Preface to Troilus and Cressida, containing the grounds of criticism in tragedy (1679) ; Preface to Ovid's Epistles (1680) ; Dedication of the Spanish Friar (1681) ; Preface to Sylvæ (The second miscellany) (1685) ; Preface to Albion and Albanius (an opera) (1685) ; Notes |
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Popular passages
Page 225 - And thus still doing, thus he pass'd along. Duch. Alas ! poor Richard ! where rides he the while ? York. As in a theatre, the eyes of men, After a well-graced actor leaves the stage, Are idly bent on him that enters next, Thinking his prattle to be tedious : Even so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes Did scowl on Richard ; no man cried, God save him...
Page 79 - He was the man who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the images of nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily: when he describes anything, you more than see it, you feel it too.
Page 80 - I cannot say he is everywhere alike; were he so, I should do him injury to compare him with the greatest of mankind. He is many times flat, insipid ; his comic wit degenerating into clenches, his serious swelling into bombast. But he is always great when some great occasion is presented to him...
Page 82 - Catiline. But he has done his robberies so openly that one may see he fears not to be taxed by any law. He invades authors like a monarch; and what would be theft in other poets is only victory in him. With the spoils of these writers he so represents old Rome to us, in its rites, ceremonies, and customs, that if one of their poets had written either of his tragedies, we had seen less of it than in him.
Page 159 - ... those poets writ. Then, one of these is, consequently, true ; That what this poet writes comes short of you, And imitates you ill (which most he fears), Or else his writing is not worse than theirs. Yet, though you judge (as sure the critics will), That some before him writ with greater skill, In this one praise he has their fame surpast, To please an age more gallant than the last. DEFENCE Of THE EPILOGUE; OR, AN ESSAY ON THE DRAMATIC POETRY OF THE LAST AGE.
Page 80 - All the images of nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily : when he describes anything, you more than see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning give him the greater commendation : he was naturally learned ; he needed not the spectacles of books to read nature ; he looked inwards, and found her there.
Page 34 - They can produce nothing so courtly writ, or which expresses so much the conversation of a gentleman, as Sir John Suckling; nothing so even, sweet, and flowing, as Mr. Waller; nothing so majestic, so correct, as Sir John Denham; nothing so elevated, so copious, and full of spirit, as Mr.
Page 36 - 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.
Page 8 - But that benefit which I consider most in it, because I have not seldom found it, is, that it bounds and circumscribes the fancy : for imagination in a poet is a faculty so wild and lawless, that like an high-ranging spaniel, it must have clogs tied to it, lest it outrun the judgment.
Page 52 - ... we cannot read a verse of Cleveland's without making a face at it, as if every word were a pill to swallow: he gives us many times a hard nut to break our teeth, without a kernel for our pains.
Bibliographic information
| Title | Essays of John Dryden: Introduction ; List of Dryden's works ; Epistle dedicatory of the rival ladies (1664) ; Preface to Annus Mirabillis (1667) ; Of dramatic poesy, an essay (1668) ; Prologue to Secret Love or the Maiden Queen (1668) ; Defence of an essay of dramatic poesy (1668) ; Preface to ... Volume 1 of Essays of John Dryden, William Paton Ker Microbook library of English literature |
| Author | John Dryden |
| Editor | William Paton Ker |
| Publisher | Clarendon Press, 1900 |
| Original from | Harvard University |
| Digitized | 13 Feb 2008 |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |