00031—Discuss the plan of Dryden's essay on dramatic poesy.

                                                                      Dryden developed a very ingenious plan for writing his Essay of Dramatic Poesy.  In 1665 great plague broke out in London.  In order to escape from the infection of the plague, many people left London and moved out to the countryside.  Dryden takes this situation and develops a plan to write a great treatise on the theory and practice of dramatic poesy.  He imagines he and his three friends sail out of London in a boat on the river Thames.  The journey is long and tedious.  Therefore in order to to avoid the boredom of the journey, the four friends decide to hold some useful discourse on the theory and practice of drama in different ages in Greece, Rome, France and England.

 

The four friends by mutual agreement decide to allot one country or one age to each of the four friends.  Thus there are four interlocutors, each taking up the defense of dramatic literature of one country or one age.  This ingenious device helps Dryden in developing historical, comparative, descriptive, and independent method of criticism.  In final conclusion, Dryden holds that ancient principles should be respected but they should not be followed slavishly.

*********************************************