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Three kinds of the Heroic Sentiment
79. The Heroic Sentiment is likewise of three kinds, viz. that arising from making gifts, from fulfilling
one’s duty (dharma) and from fighting [one’s enemy].
Three kinds of the Terrible Sentiment
80. The Terrible Sentiment is also of three kinds, viz feigned fear, fear from a wrong action, and fear from
an apprehension of danger.
Three kinds of the Odious Sentiment
81. The Odious Sentiment is of three kind, viz, nauseating, simple, and exciting. Of these, the Sentiment
from a sight of stool and worms is nauseating, and the sight of blood and similar objects is exciting.
Three kinds of the Marvellous Sentiment
82. The Marvellous Sentiment is of two kinds, viz. celestial and joyous. Of these the celestial is due to
seeing heavenly sights, and the joys due to joyful happenings.
83. These are eight Sentiments and their definitions, I shall hereafter speak of the characteristics of the
Psychological States.
CRITICISM NEOCLASSICAL UNIT II
AN ESSAY OF DRAMATIC POESY
JOHN DRYDEN
“For the lively imitation of Nature being in the definition of a Play, those which best fulfill that law ought
to be esteemed superior to the others. ’Tis true, those beauties of the French-poesy are such as will raise
perfection higher where it is, but are not sufficient to give it where it is not: they are indeed the Beauties
of a Statue, but not of a Man, because not animated with the Soul of Poesy, which is imitation of humor
and passions: and this Lisideius himself, or any other, however biased to their Party, cannot but
acknowledge, if he will either compare the humors of our Comedies, or the Characters of our serious
Plays with theirs. He that will look upon theirs which have been written till these last ten years or
thereabouts, will find it an hard matter to pick out two or three passable humors amongst them. Corneille
himself, their Arch-Poet, what has he produced except The Liar, and you know how it was cried up in
France; but when it came upon the English Stage, though well translated, and that part of Dorant acted to
so much advantage by Mr. Hart, as I am confident it never received in its own Country, the most
favourable to it would not put in competition with many of Fletcher’s or Ben Jonson’s. In the rest of
Corneille’s Comedies you have little humor; he tells you himself his way is first to show two Lovers in
good intelligence with each other; in the working up of the Play to embroil them by some mistake, and in
the latter end to clear it up.
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“But of late years de Molière, the younger Corneille, Quinault, and some others, have been imitating of
afar off the quick turns and graces of the English Stage. They have mixed their serious Plays with mirth,
like our Tragicomedies since the death of Cardinal Richelieu, which Lisideius and many others not
observing, have commended that in them for a virtue which they themselves no longer practice. Most of
their new Plays are like some of ours, derived from the Spanish Novels. There is scarce one of them
without a veil, and a trusty Diego, who drolls much after the rate of The Adventures. But their humors, if I
may grace them with that name, are so thin sown that never above one of them come up in any Play: I
dare take upon me to find more variety of them in some one Play of Ben Jonson’s than in all theirs
together: as he who has seen The Alchemist, The Silent Woman, or Bartholomew Fair, cannot but
acknowledge with me.
“I grant the French have performed what was possible on the groundwork of the Spanish Plays; what was
pleasant before they have made regular; but there is not above one good Play to be writ upon all those
Plots; they are too much alike to please often, which we need not the experience of our own Stage to
justify. As for their new way of mingling mirth with serious Plot I do not with Lysideius condemn the
thing, though I cannot approve their manner of doing it: He tells us we cannot so speedily recollect our
selves after a Scene of great passion and concernment as to pass to another of mirth and humor, and to
enjoy it with any relish: but why should he imagine the soul of man more heaven than his Senses? Does
not the eye pass from an unpleasant object to a pleasant in a much shorter time than is required to this?
and does not the unpleasantness of the first commend the beauty of the latter? The old Rule of Logic
might have convinced him, that contraries when placed near, set off each other. A continued gravity keeps
the spirit too much bent; we must refresh it sometimes, as we bait upon a journey, that we may go on with
greater ease. A Scene of mirth mixed with Tragedy has the same effect upon us which our music has
betwixt the Acts, and that we find a relief to us from the best Plots and language of the Stage, if the
discourses have been long. I must therefore have stronger arguments ere I am convinced, that compassion
and mirth in the same subject destroy each other; and in the mean time cannot but conclude, to the honor
of our Nation, that we have invented, increased and perfected a more pleasant way of writing for the
Stage than was ever known to the Ancients or Moderns of any Nation, which is Tragicomedy.
“And this leads me to wonder why Lisideius and many others should cry up the barrenness of the French
Plots above the variety and copiousness of the English. Their Plots are single, they carry on one design
which is pushed forward by all the Actors, every Scene in the Play contributing and moving towards it:
Ours, besides the main design, have under-plots or by-concernments, of less considerable Persons, and
Intrigues, which are carried on with the motion of the main Plot: just as they say the Orb of the fixed
Stars, and those of the Planets, though they have motions of their own, are whirled about by the motion of
the primum mobile [prime mover—ed.], in which they are contained: that similitude expresses much of
the English Stage: for if contrary motions may be found in Nature to agree; if a Planet can go East and
West at the same time; one way by virtue of his own motion, the other by the force of the first mover; it
will not be difficult to imagine how the under Plot, which is only different, not contrary to the great
design, may naturally be conducted along with it.
“Eugenius has already shown us, from the confession of the French Poets, that the Unity of Action is
sufficiently preserved if all the imperfect actions of the Play are conducing to the main design: but when
those petty intrigues of a Play are so ill ordered that they have no coherence with the other, I must grant
Lisideius has reason to tax that want of due connection; for Coordination in a Play is as dangerous and
unnatural as in a State. In the mean time he must acknowledge our variety, if well ordered, will afford a
greater pleasure to the audience.
“As for his other argument, that by pursuing one single Theme they gain an advantage to express and
work up the passions, I wish any example he could bring from them would make it good: for I confess
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their verses are to me the coldest I have ever read: Neither indeed is it possible for them, in the way they
take, so to express passion, as that the effects of it should appear in the concemment of an Audience: their
Speeches being so many declamations, which tire us with length; so that instead of persuading us to
grieve for their imaginary Heroes, we are concerned for our own trouble, as we are in the tedious visits of
bad company; we are in pain till they are gone. When the French Stage came to be reformed by Cardinal
Richelieu, those long Harangues were introduced, to comply with the gravity of a Churchman. Look upon
the Cinna and the Pompey, they are not so properly to be called Plays, as long discourses of reason of
State: and Polieucte in matters in Religion is as solemn as the long stops upon our Organs. Since that time
it is grown into a custom, and their Actors speak by the Hour-glass, as our Parsons do; nay, they account
it the grace of their parts: and think themselves disparaged by the Poet, if they may not twice or thrice in a
Play entertain the Audience with a Speech of an hundred or two hundred lines. I deny not but this may
suit well enough with the French; for as we, who are a more sullen people, come to be diverted at our
Plays; they who are of an airy and gay temper come thither to make themselves more serious: And this I
conceive to be one reason why Comedy is more pleasing to us, and Tragedies to them. But to speak
generally, it cannot be denied that short Speeches and Replies are more apt to more the passions, and
beget concernment in us than the other: for it is unnatural for any one in a gust of passion to speak long
together, or for another in the same condition, to suffer him, without interruption. Grief and Passion are
like floods raised in little Brooks by a sudden rain; they are quickly up, and if the concernment be poured
unexpectedly in upon us, it overflows us: But a long sober shower gives them leisure to run out as they
came in, without troubling the ordinary current. As for Comedy, Repartee is one of its chiefest graces; the
greatest pleasure of the Audience is a chase of wit kept up on both sides, and swiftly managed. And this
our forefathers, if not we, have had in Fletcher’s Plays, to a much higher degree of perfection than the
French Poets can arrive at.
“There is another part of Lisideius’s Discourse, in which he has rather excused our neighbors than
commended them; that is, for aiming only to make one person considerable in their Plays. ’Tis very true
what he has urged, that one character in all Plays, even without the Poet’s care, will have advantage of all
the others; and that the design of the whole Drama will chiefly depend on it. But this hinders not that
there may be more shining characters in the Play many persons of a second magnitude, nay, some so very
near, so almost equal to the first, that greatness may be opposed to greatness, and all the persons be made
considerable, not only by their quality, but their action. ’Tis evident that the more the persons are, the
greater will be the variety, of the Plot. If then the parts are managed so regularly that the beauty of the
whole be kept entire, and that the variety become not a perplexed and confused mass of accidents, you
will find it infinitely pleasing to be led in a labyrinth of design, where you see some of your way before
you, yet discern not the end till you arrive at it. And that all this is practicable, I can produce for examples
many of our English Plays: as The Maid’s Tragedy, The Alchemist, The Silent Woman; I was going to
have named The Fox, but that the unity of design seems not exactly observed in it; for there appears two
actions in the Play; the first naturally ending with the fourth Act; the second forced from it in the fifth:
which yet is the less to be condemned in him, because the disguise of Volpone, though it suited not with
his character as a crafty or covetous person, agreed well enough with that of a voluptuary: and by it the
Poet gained the end he aimed at, the punishment of Vice, and the reward of Virtue, which that disguise
produced. So that to judge equally of it, it was an excellent fifth Act, but not so naturally proceeding from
the former.
“But to leave this, and pass to the latter part of Lisideius’s discourse, which concerns relations, I must
acknowledge with him, that the French have reason when they hide that part of the action which would
occasion too much tumult upon the Stage, and choose rather to have it made known by the narration to the
Audience. Farther I think it very convenient, for the reasons he has given, that all incredible actions were
removed; but, whither custom has so insinuated it self into our Country-men, or nature has so formed
them to fierceness, I know not, but they will scarcely suffer combats and other objects of horror to be
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taken from them. And indeed, the indecency of tumults is all which can be objected against fighting: For
why may not our imagination as well suffer itself to be deluded with the probability of it, as with any
other thing in the Play? For my part, I can with as great ease persuade my self that the blows which are
struck are given in good earnest, as I can, that they who strike them are Kings or Princes, or those persons
which they represent. For objects of incredibility I would be satisfied from Lisideius, whether we have
any so removed from all appearance of truth as are those of Corneille’s Andromede? A Play which has
been frequented the most of any he has writ? If the Perseus, or the Son of an Heathen God, the Pegasus
and the Monster were not capable to choke a strong belief, let him blame any representation of ours
hereafter. Those indeed were objects of delight; yet the reason is the same as to the probability: for he
makes it not a Ballette or Masque, but a Play, which is to resemble truth. But for death, that it ought not to
be represented, I have besides the Arguments alleged by Lisideius, the authority of Ben Jonson, who has
forborne it in his Tragedies; for both the death of Sejanus and Catiline are related: though in the latter I
cannot but observe one irregularity of that great Poet: he has removed the Scene in the same Act, from
Rome to Catiline’s Army, and from thence again to Rome; and besides has allowed a very inconsiderable
time, after Catiline’s Speech, for the striking of the battle, and the return of Petreius, who is to relate the
event of it to the Senate: which I should not animadvert upon him, who was otherwise a painful observer
of to prepon, or the decorum of the Stage, if he had not used extreme severity in his judgment upon the
incomparable Shakespeare for the same fault. To conclude on this subject of Relations, if we are to be
blamed for showing too much of the action, the French are as faulty for discovering too little of it: a mean
betwixt both should be observed by every judicious Writer, so as the audience may neither be left
unsatisfied by not seeing what is beautiful, or shocked by beholding what is either incredible or undecent.
“I hope I have already proved in this discourse, that though we are not altogether so punctual as the
French, in observing the laws of Comedy; yet our errors are so few, and little, and those things wherein
we excel them so considerable, that we ought of right to be preferred before them. But what will Lisideius
say if they themselves acknowledge they are too strictly tied up by those laws, for breaking which he has
blamed the English? I will allege Corneille’s words, as I find them in the end of his Discourse of the three
Unities; ‘Il est facile aux spéculatifs d’estre sévès, &c.’ “’Tis easy for speculative persons to judge
severely; but if they would produce to public view ten or twelve pieces of this nature, they would perhaps
give more latitude to the Rules than I have done, when by experience they had known how much we are
bound up and constrained by them, and how many beauties of the Stage they banished from it.’ To
illustrate a little what he has said, by their servile observations of the unities of time and place, and
integrity of Scenes, they have brought upon themselves that dearth of Plot, and narrowness of
Imagination, which may be observed in all their Plays. How many beautiful accidents might naturally
happen in two or three days, which cannot arrive with any probability in the compass of hours? There is
time to be allowed also for maturity of design, which amongst great and prudent persons, such as are
often represented in Tragedy cannot, with any likelihood of truth, be brought to pass at so short a
warning. Farther, by tying themselves strictly to the unity of place, and unbroken Scenes they are forced
many times to omit some beauties which cannot be shown where the Act began; but might, if the Scene
were interrupted, and the Stage cleared for the persons to enter in another place; and therefore the French
Poets are often forced upon absurdities: for if the Act begins in a chamber all the persons in the Play must
have some business or other to come thither, or else they are not to be shown that Act, and sometimes
their characters are very unfitting to appear there; As, suppose it were the King’s Bed-chamber, yet the
meanest man in the Tragedy must come and dispatch his business rather than in the Lobby or Court-yard
(which is fitter for him) for fear the Stage should be cleared, and the Scenes broken. Many times they fall
by it into a greater inconvenience; for they keep their Scenes unbroken, and yet change the place as in one
of their newest Plays, where the Act begins in the Street. There a Gentleman is to meet his Friend; he sees
him with his man, coming out from his Fathers house; they talk together, and the first goes out: the
second, who is a Lover, has made an appointment with his Mistress; she appears at the window and then
we are to imagine the Scene lies under it. This Gentleman is called away, and leaves his servant with his
Mistress: presently her Father is heard from within; the young Lady is afraid the Servingman should be
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discovered, and thrusts him in through a door which is supposed to be her Closet. After this, the Father
enters to the Daughter, and now the Scene is in a House: for he is seeking from one room to another for
this poor Philipin, or French Diego, who is heard from within, drolling [jesting—ed.] and breaking many
a miserable conceit upon his sad condition. In this ridiculous manner the Play goes on, the Stage being
never empty all the while: so that the Street, the Window, the two Houses, and the Closet, are made to
walk about, and the Persons to stand still. Now what I beseech you is more easy than to write a regular
French Play, or more difficult than to write an irregular English one, like those of Fletcher, or of
Shakespeare.
“If they content themselves as Corneille did, with some flat design, which, like an ill Riddle, is found out
ere it be half proposed; such Plots we can make every way regular as easily as they: but when e’er they
endeavor to rise up to any quick turns and counterturns of Plot, as some of them have attempted, since
Corneille’s Plays have been less in vogue, you see they write as irregularly as we, though they cover it
more speciously, Hence the reason is perspicuous, why no French Plays, when translated, have, or ever
can succeed upon the English Stage. For, if you consider the Plots, our own are fuller of variety, if the
writing ours are more quick and fuller of spirit: and therefore ’tis a strange mistake in those who decry the
way of writing Plays in Verse, as if the English therein imitated the French. We have borrowed nothing
from them; our Plots are weaved in English Looms: we endeavor therein to follow the variety and
greatness of characters which are derived to us from Shakespeare and Fletcher: the copiousness and well-
knitting of the intrigues we have from Jonson, and for the Verse if self we have English Presidents of
elder date than any of Corneille’s Plays: (not to name our old Comedies before Shakespeare, which were
all writ in verse of six feet, or Alexandrines, such as the French now use) I can show in Shakespeare,
many Scenes of rhyme together, and the like in Ben Jonson’s Tragedies:
In Catiline and Sejanus sometimes thirty or forty lines; I mean besides the Chorus, or the Monologues,
which by the way, showed Ben no enemy to this way of writing, especially is you look upon his Sad
Shepherd which goes sometimes upon rhyme, sometimes upon blank Verse, like an Horse who eases
himself upon Trot and Amble. You find him likewise commending Fletcher’s Pastoral of The Faithful
Shepherdess; which is for the most part Rhyme, though not refined to that purity to which it hath since
been brought: And these examples are enough to clear us from a servile imitation of the French.
“But to return from whence I have digressed, I dare boldly affirm these two things of the English Drama:
First, That we have many Plays of ours as regular as any of theirs; and which, besides, have more variety
of Plot and Characters: And secondly, that in most of the irregular Plays of Shakespeare or Fletcher (for
Ben Jonson’s are for the most part regular) there is a more masculine fancy and greater spirit in all the
writing, than there is in any of the French. I could produce even in Shakespeare’s and Fletcher’s Works,
some Plays which are almost exactly formed; as The Merry Wives of Windsor, and The Scornful Lady: but
because (generally speaking) Shakespeare, who writ first, did not perfectly observe the Laws of Comedy,
and Fletcher, who came nearer to perfection, yet through carelessness made many faults; I will take the
pattern of a perfect Play from Ben Jonson, who was a careful and learned observer of the Dramatic Laws,
and from all his Comedies I shall select The Silent Woman; of which I will make a short Examen,
according to those Rules which the French observe.”
As Neander was beginning to examine The Silent Woman, Eugenius, looking earnestly upon him; “I
beseech you Neander,” said he, “gratify the company and me in particular so far, as before you speak of
the Play, to give us a Character of the Author; and tell us frankly your opinion, whether you do not think
all Writers, both French and English, ought to give place to him?”
“I fear,” replied Neander, “That in obeying your commands I shall draw a little envy upon my self.
Besides, in performing them, it will be first necessary to speak somewhat of Shakespeare and Fletcher, his
Rivals in Poesy; and one of them, in my opinion, at least his equal, perhaps his superior.
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“To begin then with Shakespeare; 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 any thing, 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 say he is every where 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 [puns—ed.]; 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 then raise himself as high above the rest of
the Poets.
Quantum lenta solent, inter viburna cupressi.
[As cypresses commonly do among bending shrubs—ed.]
The consideration of this made Mr. Hales of Eaton say, That there was no subject of which any Poet ever
writ, but he would produce it much better treated of in Shakespeare; and however others are now
generally preferred before him yet the Age wherein he lived, which had contemporaries with him,
Fletcher and Jonson never equaled them to him in their esteem: And in the last King’s Court, when Ben’s
reputation was at highest, Sir John Suckling, and with him the greater part of the Courtiers, set our
Shakespeare far above him.
“Beaumont and Fletcher of whom I am next to speak, had with the advantage of Shakespeare’s wit, which
was their precedent, great natural gifts, improved by study. Beaumont especially being so accurate a judge
of Plays, that Ben Jonson while he lived, submitted all his Writings to his Censure, and he thought, used
his judgement in correcting, if not contriving all his Plots. What value he had for him, appears by the
Verses he writ to him; and therefore need speak no farther of it. The first Play which brought Fletcher and
him in esteem was their Philaster: for before that, they had written two or three year unsuccessfully; as
the like is reported of Ben Jonson, before he writ Every Man in his Humor. Their Plots were generally
more regular than Shakespeare’s especially those which were made before Beaumont’s death; and they
understood and imitated the conversation of Gentlemen much better; whose wild debaucheries, and
quickness of wit in repartees, no Poet can ever paint as they have done. This Humor of which Ben Jonson
derived from particular persons, they made it not their business to describe: they represented all the
passions very lively, but above all, Love. I am apt to believe the English Language in them arrived to its
highest perfection; what words have since been taken in, are rather superfluous than necessary. Their
Plays are now the most pleasant and frequent entertainments of the Stage; two of theirs being acted
through the year for one of Shakespeare’s or Jonson’s: the reason is, because there is a certain gayety in
their Comedies, and Pathos in their more serious Plays, which suits generally with all men’s humors.
Shakespeare’s language is likewise a little obsolete, and Ben Jonson’s wit comes short of theirs.
“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. One cannot say he wanted wit, but rather
that he was frugal of it. In his works you find little to retrench or alter. Wit and Language, and Humor
also in some measure we had before him; but something of Art was wanting to the Drama till he came. He
managed his strength to more advantage than any who preceded him. You seldom find him making Love
in any of his Scenes, or endeavoring to move the Passions; his genius was too sullen and saturnine to do it
gracefully, especially when he knew he came after those who had performed both to such an height.
Humor was his proper Sphere, and in that he delighted most to represent Mechanic [laboring, vulgar—
ed.] people. He was deeply conversant in the Ancients, both Greek and Latin, and he borrowed boldly
from them: there is scarce a Poet or Historian among the Roman Authors of those times whom he has not
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translated in Sejanus and 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. If there was any fault in his Language, ’twas that he weaved it too closely and
laboriously in his serious Plays; perhaps too, he did a little too much Romanize our Tongue, leaving the
words 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. If I would compare him with
Shakespeare, I must acknowledge him the more correct Poet, but Shakespeare the greater wit.
Shakespeare was the Homer, or Father of our Dramatick Poets; Jonson was the Virgil, the pattern of
elaborate writing; I admire him, but I love Shakespeare. To conclude of him, as he has given us the most
correct Plays, so in the precepts which he has laid down in his Discoveries, we have as many and
profitable Rules for perfecting the Stage as any wherewith the French can furnish us.
THE DEFENCE OF POESY
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
But since the authors of most of our sciences were the Romans, and before them the Greeks, let us, a
little, stand upon their authorities; but even so far, as to see what names they have given unto this now
scorned skill. Among the Romans a poet was called “vates,” which is as much as a diviner, foreseer, or
prophet, as by his conjoined words “vaticinium,” and “vaticinari,” is manifest; so heavenly a title did that
excellent people bestow upon this heart-ravishing knowledge! And so far were they carried into the
admiration thereof, that they thought in the changeable hitting upon any such verses, great foretokens of
their following fortunes were placed. Whereupon grew the word of sortes Virgilianæ; when, by sudden
opening Virgil’s book, they lighted upon some verse, as it is reported by many, whereof the histories of
the Emperors’ lives are full. As of Albinus, the governor of our island, who, in his childhood, met with
this verse—
Arma amens capio, nec sat rationis in armis
and in his age performed it. Although it were a very vain and godless superstition; as also it was, to think
spirits were commanded by such verses; whereupon this word charms, derived of “carmina,” cometh, so
yet serveth it to show the great reverence those wits were held in; and altogether not without ground,
since both the oracles of Delphi and the Sibyl’s prophecies were wholly delivered in verses; for that same
exquisite observing of number and measure in the words, and that high-flying liberty of conceit proper to
the poet, did seem to have some divine force in it.
And may not I presume a little farther to show the reasonableness of this word “vates,” and say, that the
holy David’s Psalms are a divine poem? If I do, I shall not do it without the testimony of great learned
men, both ancient and modern. But even the name of Psalms will speak for me, which, being interpreted,
is nothing but Songs; then, that is fully written in metre, as all learned Hebricians agree, although the
rules be not yet fully found. Lastly, and principally, his handling his prophecy, which is merely poetical.
For what else is the awaking his musical instruments; the often and free changing of persons; his notable
prosopopoeias, when he maketh you, as it were, see God coming in His majesty; his telling of the beasts’
joyfulness, and hills leaping; but a heavenly poesy, wherein, almost, he sheweth himself a passionate
lover of that unspeakable and everlasting beauty, to be seen by the eyes of the mind, only cleared by
faith? But truly, now, having named him, I fear I seem to profane that holy name, applying it to poetry,
which is, among us, thrown down to so ridiculous an estimation. But they that, with quiet judgments, will