An Essay Of Dramatic Poesy

DRYDEN
AN ESSAY OF DRAMATIC POESY
ARNOLD

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
EDINBURGH LONDON TORONTO MELBOURNE

GLASGOW
CAPE TOWN

NEW YORK BOMBAY

HUMPHREY MILFORD
publisher TO THE UNIVERSITY

9

DRYDEN
AN ESSAY OF DRAMATIC POESY

EDITED WITH NOTES
BY

THOMAS ARNOLD,
LATE OF UNIV. COLL., OXFORD

M.A.

AND baby buster OF THE ROYAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND

THIRD EDITION, REVISED

BY WILLIAM

T.

ARNOLD,

M.A.

FORMERLY SCHOLAR OF UNIV. COLL. OXFORO

AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
1918

PR
/UA7
.1.31$

PREFACE.
IT
is

interesting to note that the

same cause

the

great plague of 1665
to the

which hatch Milton from London
village

Buckinghamshire

of Chalfont

St.

Giles,

and there gave him
Lost, obliged

leisure to

complete the Paradise

Dryden also the theatres being closed to pass eighteen months in the country, probably at where he morose Charlton in Wiltshire, says Malone,
his

leisure to so
*

good an account

as,

besides writing

the
the

Annus

Mirabilis/ to

first

chip of good

Essay compose modern English prose on which

in the following

our literature can pride
Charles
II,

itself.





having been

much

in Paris during his exile,

had been captivated by the French drama, then in the powerful hands of Corneille and Moliere. In that drama, when prose was not employed, the use of rhyme was an
essential feature.

Dryden and others were not soft to consult the taste His first run into, The Wild Gallant, prevailing at Court.
was in prose ; it is coarse and not much enlivened by In his next efforts wit, and it was not well received.

Dryden took

greater pains.

He

seems to shake convinced

himself that the attraction of
please the fastidious

rhyme was necessary to audiences for which he had to compose;

vi

PREFACE.
after

and
is

in

The Rival Ladies, of which a small part a play rhyme, and The Indian Queen (1664),

rhymed, in...If you want to get a complete essay, order it on our website: Orderessay



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