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An Essay of Dramatic Poesy
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Themes
The Theater of War
The setting for Dryden’s dialogue concerning the state of English theater is a telling one, and it functions as an extended metaphor: The conversation—a metaphorical war of wits—takes place amidst a literal battleground as the Dutch take on English naval forces. War was omnipresent in Dryden’s life and work: The long and tragic English Civil War, the artistically stifling Puritan Interregnum, the contentious Restoration of Charles II, and the many disputes over what it means to be an author during such an age reverberate throughout his poetry, plays, and prose. “An Essay of Dramatic Poesy” is no exception, and the companions commence their conversation on the subject because they are certain that the current battle will occasion much mediocre poetry. The actual naval skirmish triggers a discussion that pits the ancients against the moderns, the French against the English, and the role of rhyme against plainer speech.
Crites emphasizes this metaphorical battleground most clearly when he argues for the superiority of the ancients’ poesy: “They had judges ordained to decide their merit, and prizes to reward it; and historians have been diligent to record […] both who they were that vanquished in these wars of the theater, and how often they were crowned” (156). The language of coronation is not simply a metaphor for literary prestige but an oblique reference to the Civil War and Restoration. Actual wars and metaphorical ones are conflated and of equal importance to the gentlemen afloat on the barge, listening to cannon fire in the background.
With regard to the relative merits of the French versus the English, Lisideius faults the English for the excessive use of warlike reenactments on the stage: “[T]he French avoid the tumult to which we are subject in England, by representing duels, battles, and the like, which renders our stage too like the theaters where they fight prizes” (181). Not only is this a comment on the English stage, but it is also an implicit critique of the recent English past (the civil wars and social strife) and even of the English character (too tumultuous). Lisideius frames it as a problem regarding the naturalness of the theatrical production—“For what is more ridiculous than to represent an army with a drum and five men behind it” (181)—but it is unmistakably a criticism of the habits and preferences of the English.
When Neander responds, he robustly defends English passions, making it clear that this is a debate about something more than mere theater: “[T]hose beauties of French poesy […] are indeed the beauties of a statue, but not of a man because not animated with the soul of poesy, which is imitation of humour and passions” (187). Later, these characteristics are amplified as England’s masculine passions (valued) over France’s more effeminate spirit (devalued) (197). Neander’s fellow countrymen “will scarcely suffer combats and other objects of horror to be taken from them” (192)—these are proper masculine pursuits. Further, he suggests that these inclinations arise out of one of two sources: “[W]hether custom has so insinuated itself into our countrymen, or nature has so formed them to fierceness, I know not” (192). Perhaps, this equivocation implies, the English have simply become accustomed to the violence and ferocity of war, with the stage a reflection of that.
Finally, when it comes to the role of rhyme in the theater, Neander’s impassioned defense of its propriety in dramatic productions references its use in epic poetry, a genre associated with the glories of ancient wars and their larger-than-life protagonists (The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Aeneid). When utilized in a dramatic play for the English stage, verse similarly serves as a reminder of heroic actions on bloody battlefields. In the most direct reference to recent historical events, Neander argues (in appropriately martial language):
Be it spoken to the honour of the English, our nation can never want in any age such who are able to dispute the empire of wit with any people in the universe. And though the fury of a civil war, and power for twenty years together abandoned to a barbarous race of men, enemies of all good learning, had buried the muses under the ruins of monarchy; yet, with the restoration of our happiness, we see revived poesy lifting up its head and already shaking off the rubbish which lay so heavy on it (206).
In the war of the wits—ancients versus moderns, French versus English, poesy versus prose—there can be no doubt that the English will triumph, just as they triumphed over the schisms of civil war and the oppressions of Puritan rule with the restoration of the rightful monarch. Now poesy—English poesy—can once again reign supreme.
Nature Rules
Like other authors of the age, Dryden is concerned with the definition of nature and, in the context of poetry and theater, how best to reproduce it. Proper literature, according to the sensibility of the time period, should mirror nature—the natural world, realistic events, and, especially, human nature. This vision of nature relates to what is “universal” about the human experience (though in actuality, the “universal” often reflected the white, male, European experience) and how to determine and relay eternal truths. While contemporary readers are potentially familiar with critiques of these Enlightenment values and their inherent suppression of diverse voices and experiences, the characters in “An Essay of Dramatic Poesy” take very seriously the task of reproducing “nature.” The debate about whose literature is best is actually a debate about whose literature best mimics nature as the privileged writers and critics of the day understand it.
This focus drives much of the criticism of the ancients. Held up against the moderns, Greek and Roman writers’ more limited knowledge of the natural world inevitably hinders their ability to reproduce it faithfully: As Eugenius argues, “For if natural causes be more known now than in the time of Aristotle, because more studied, it follows that poesy and other arts may with the same pains arrive still nearer to perfection” (162). Even Crites, in his ostensible defense of the ancients, admits that the modern understanding of science gives their own age an advantage. As he puts it,
[A]lmost a new nature has been revealed to us [and] more useful in experiments in philosophy have been made, more noble secrets in optics, medicine, anatomy, astronomy, discovered […] So true it is that nothing spreads more fast than science when rightly and generally cultivated (156).
His argument in favor of the ancients instead rests upon their higher reverence for poesy and for their better adherence to the three unities of theater.
When Neander later defends the English stage against the French, he draws attention to the complexity of English plots and characterization as better imitating nature. Plot, action, and character grow organically out of events, rather than being awkwardly fitted to an outdated set of rules (although he is quick to point out that dramatists should follow those rules when the effects are appropriately natural). He also makes the case that this kind of complexity, unique to the English theater, is akin to scientific truth:
Our plays, besides the main design, have under-plots, or by-concernments of less considerable persons […]; as they say the orb of the fixed stars and those of the planets […] are whirled about by the motion of the primum mobile in which they are contained (189).
Thus, he compares an English play to Copernican science: The main plot is the sun around which the subplots (and minor characters) revolve.
Finally, the argument in favor of the use of rhyme in dramatic plays rests almost solely upon its ability to elevate nature. Certainly, Neander concedes, people “in real life” do not spontaneously speak in verse; however, verse itself is “natural” when written by a poet with judgment and wit. The use of poesy in dramatic work is no more unnatural than the use of rhyme and meter in the revered epic poetry of the ancients. Indeed, Neander continues, the judicious use of rhyme actually bestows greater significance to the play: “The plot, the characters, the wit, the passions, the descriptions, are all exalted above the level of common converse […] Heroic rhyme is nearest nature as being the noblest kind of modern verse” (218). Not only is this exaltation “natural”—that is, justified—but it is also a heroic choice, a noble endeavor.
The Poet’s Prerogative: So I Contradict Myself
For all of Dryden’s emphasis on nature and judgment, he often strays from the firmest adherence to rules such as the three unities. Hence, he favors the English tragicomedy—a contradiction in terms—and the messiness of English plots with their proliferation of characters over those of the more rule-bound French productions. Further, though he favors Shakespeare, he is forced to use Ben Jonson as his exemplar of proper theater because Shakespeare himself is too fond of breaking those rules (his plays rarely take place within 24 hours, much less in the same place or without various subplots). He equivocates about the ancients, as well, wanting to proclaim the moderns the superior writers but needing to maintain his reverence—as was the fashion of the day—for the ancients.
With regard to English theater’s superiority over the French, Neander—Dryden’s avatar—downplays the fact that English authors often break the cardinal rules of the unities; instead, he emphasizes that in bending those rules, the English better represent nature. To that end, he references Andromede by the French playwright, Corneille, which is populated by demigods and monsters. Despite these fanciful creatures, Neander points out, “[Corneille] makes it not a ballet or masque, but a play, which is to resemble truth” (193). This serves as a justification for the frequent use of battle scenes and deaths upon the English stage; if a Frenchman can write a play about fantastical creatures, surely an Englishman can write a better play—that is, more truthful, more closely resembling nature—about historical events and occurrences on battlefields. Further, he claims, “[I]f we are to be blamed for showing too much of the action, the French are as faulty for discovering too little of it” (193). It is a circular argument: It assumes that the qualities that (it argues) make English theater superior—tragicomedy rather than straight drama, masculinity rather than femininity, passion rather than meekness, action rather than passivity—are superior themselves.
When comparing Shakespeare and Jonson, Neander must again perform some verbal contortions in order to make his argument stick: “Shakespeare was the Homer, or father of our dramatic poets; Jonson was the Virgil, the pattern of elaborate writing. I admire him, but I love Shakespeare” (200). The poet he “loves” is not the poet who should be emulated; Shakespeare’s wit is greater but Jonson’s work is more “correct” (200). Dryden has written himself into a rhetorical corner—most critics would regard Homer and Shakespeare as better than Virgil and Jonson—but for the sake of his argument he must elevate the poet who adheres more closely to the rules. These are the same rules that he has just argued should be contravened if doing so will better represent nature.
Finally, after concluding early in the essay that the moderns are better writers than the ancients, he expends a great deal of energy defending the use of rhyme in dramatic plays by suggesting that this is in keeping with the noblest tradition of the ancient epic. He directly counters Crites’s argument:
[Y]our argument is almost as strong against the use of rhyme in poems as in plays; for the epic way is everywhere interlaced with dialogue or discursive scenes; and therefore you must either grant rhyme to be improper there […] or admit it into plays by the same title which you have given it to poems (219).
Dryden must both assert the superiority of his modern authorial cohort and maintain his reverence for the ancients, who are the guides in all things poetic. This explains his reliance, throughout the essay, on Greek and Latin phrases and quotations in lieu of the “superior” pens of his contemporaries.
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