Introduction to English literature, including a number of classic works. With notes

by F.V.N. Painter

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1894 ...credit on his character. It was the "Astraea Redux," written "on the happy restoration and return of his sacred Majesty, Charles II." After his eulogy of Cromwell two years before, we are hardly prepared for such lines as "For his long absence Church and State did groan; Madness the pulpit, faction seized the Experienced age in deep despair was lost, To see the rebel thrive, the loyal cross'd." In 1663 he began to write for the stage. Instead of seeking to elevate public morals, or to attain perfection in art, it is to the lasting discredit of Dryden that he pandered to the vicious taste of the time. His first play, "The Wild Gallant," was not successful; and Pepys, in his " Diary," pronounced it "so poor a thing as ever I saw in my life." Without following him through the vicissitudes of his dramatic career, it is enough to say that he wrote in all twenty-eight comedies and tragedies, and at length established his position as the first dramatist of his time. For a long time he followed French models, but at last came to recognize and professedly to imitate the "divine Shakespeare." In his comedies, as he tells us, he copied " the gallantries of the court." When in later years Jeremy Collier severely attacked the immoralities of the stage, Dryden, unlike several of his fellow dramatists who attempted a reply, pleaded guilty, and retracted all thoughts and expressions that could be fairly charged with " obscenity, profaneness, or immorality." In his tragedies he imitated the heroic style of Corneille. They contain much splendid declamation, which too often degenerates into bombast. But frequently he reaches the height of genuine poetry. Only a poet could...

200 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2012

About the author

Franklin Verzelius Newton Painter
1852-1931