Dryden's view on shakespeare and Ben Jonson with critical comments

 "To evaluate my assignment, click here"
Name- Riva M Pandya
Roll number- 29
 Topic- Dryden’s view on Shakespeare and Ben Jonson with critical comments.
  Paper- 3
     Sem-1
         John Dryden  was  re recognized  as the  greatest poet of his day and his all  for  love  based on Antony and   Cleopatra Is  In fact an  Original  work  enjoy it  is relationship to  the earlier  play  is forgotten.    he was not only  a  playwright  and  poet as   critic  He is still read  With respect partly  because of his critical Insights  partly because  in any way Summarized best attitude of time.

      Dryden was very well known critic in his time view on many writer like,      Ben Johnson, Shakespeare, Beaumont and Fletcher and many other writers.  In an essay of dramatic poesy, he give new concept PR and Ben Johnson give good and bad side of the writers writing   an essay of dramatic poesy.

In1668 he wrote his important prose work of “Dramatic poesy an essay.” Dryden’s own defense of his literary practices.  The four gentlemen, Eugenius, Crites, Lisideius and Neander begin an ironic and witty conversation on the subject of Poetry which soon turns into a debate on the virtue of modern and ancient writers.

Restoration gravity John Dryden in his essay of dramatic poesy explains the favorable public response to plays by citing their Universal appeal.
         in   an essay of dramatic poesy  comment on some writers specially  Shakespeare Johnson Beaumont  especially being so accurate a judge of plays that Ben Johnson while he liv’d submitted all his writing to his censure the first   play   which brought Fletcher and him in esteem  was  their pilaster  four  before that ,they had written two or three  very unsuccessfully  as the like is reported of  Ben Johnson. He rewrites every man in his humor pepper square drilling more regular than Shakespeare’s.

        Dryden’s comparative criticism of Shakespeare:-
                 Android  to  John Dryden Shakespeare  the main who all modern and perhaps ancient poets of the largest and most  comprehensive .in his own time  William Shakespeare was rated as  merely one among  many talented   playwright and poets but since  the last 17 century  he has been considered impaired of the English language .

          No other dramatist has been performed even remotely as often on the world stage as Shakespeare. in his remark on Shakespeare , Dryden ceases to be a classicist and goes over to the other camp of the romantics. His appreciation of the comprehensive soul of Shakespeare is a tribute to his own comprehensive soul and imaginative sensibility.
         He writes:”To begin then with Shakespeare, he was the man who of all moderns and perhaps 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. 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. I cannot where alike i 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 no man can say he ever had a fit subject for his wit and did not raise himself as high above the rest of the poets.”
                 Some of Dryden’s comments are repeated from earlier writers notably the assurance that Shakespeare's  art was natural ,this time used almost as an excuse to justify the awkward fact that he did not follow the classical rules as carefully as Jonson. He did not pull his punches when it came to describing what as Shakespeare’s faults. He found Shakespeare’s plots absurdly loose in construction and deplored bombast of his passionate speeches destiny and imaginary was not admired.
                He is the very Janus of poets he wears almost every where two faces and you have scarce begun to one even you despise the other. He shows love, passion and present situation in his work. Dryden say that Shakespeare is far above him he was quite conscious of both the weakness and greatness of Shakespeare.
                             
                Dryden’s comparative criticism of Ben Jonson:-
                      Ben Jonson is among the best known writers and theorists of English renaissance literature, second in reputation only to Shakespeare. A prolific   dramatist and a man of letters highly learned in the classics, he profoundly influenced Augustan age through his emphasis on the precepts of Horace, Aristotle and other classical Greek and Latin thinkers.
                        He was master of mankind love in any of his scenes. His genius was too serious to do it gracefully; he was deeply conversant in the ancient, Greek and Latin. Some time he translated word to word from ancient. Dryden remarks on Ben Jonson who is compared with Shakespeare and in this way the respective merits of the two are brought out.
     “As for Jonson, to whose character I am now arrived if we look upon him while he was himself (For his last plays were but his dotages) I think him the most learned and judicious writer which any theater ever had. He was a most severe judge of himself as well as others. In his work you find little to retrench or alter.wit and language and humor also in some measure we had before him I but sometime, something drama was waiting till he came .He managed his strength to more advantage then any who preceded him .You seldom find him making love in any of his genius was too sullen and saturnine to do it gracefully especially when he knew he came after those who performed both of such a height”.
           “Humor was his proper sphere and in that he delighted most to represent Mechanic people. He invades authors like a monarch and what would be theft in other poets is only victory in him .His fault in his language in his play he did a little to much to Romanize our tongue .Leaving the word which he translated almost as much Latin as he found them, Wherein though he learnedly followed the Idiom of their language he did not enough comply with ours” .Ben Jonson has done robberies so openly authors like a monarch he was represent old Rome to us.
           
         Thus to conclude of him as he has given us the most correct players so in the precepts which he has laid down in his discoveries we have as many and profitable rules for  prefacing the stage as anywhere which the French can furnish us.
               Thus, Dryden say ,”I must acknowledge him the more correct poet but Shakespeare the greatest wit he was the homer or father of our dramatic poet, Jonson was virgil, the pardner of elaborate writing ,I admire him but I love Shakespeare.”
                   "To evaluate my assignment, click here"