2. •Neoclassicism was a Western cultural
movement in the decorative and visual arts,
literature, theatre, music, and architecture that
drew inspiration from the art and culture of
classical antiquity.
•The period is called neoclassical because its
writers looked back to the ideals and art forms of
classical times, emphasizing even more than
their Renaissance predecessors the classical
ideals of order and rational control.
3. •Neoclassicism developed with the Enlightenment, a political and
philosophical movement that primarily valued science, reason, and
exploration.
•Also called "The Age of Reason," the Enlightenment was informed
by the skepticism of the noted philosopher René Descartes and the
political philosophy of John Locke as the absolutes of the monarchy.
•religious dogma were fundamentally questioned, and the ideals of
individual liberty, religious tolerance, and constitutional
governments were advanced.
4. •Neoclassical literature was written between 1660 and
1798. This time period is broken down into three parts:
the Restoration period, the Augustan period, and the Age
of Johnson.
•Writers of the Neoclassical period tried to imitate the
style of the Romans and Greeks.
5. Also called the age of Prose and
Reason_
Literature of the age is concerned
with “nature"human nature,
Supremacy of reason.
• Unity in the works of all writes.
• The age is known as classical age.
6. The term “the
Augustan age “ comes
from the self conscious
imitation of the original
Augustan writers,
Virgil, and Horace by
many of the writers of
the
period.
7. •The major writers of the age were Pope and John
Dryden
•in poetry and Jonathan Swift and Joseph Addition in
prose.
• Dryden forms the link between restoration and
Augustan literature.
•The Neoclassical period of literature can be divided
into three distinct stages: the Restoration Period, the
Augustan Period, and the Age of Johnson.
8. This period marks the British
king’srestoration to the throne
after a long period of Puritan
domination in England. Its
symptoms include the
dominance of French
and Classical influences on
poetry and
drama.
9. FAMOUS WRITERS IN THE PERIOD
John Dryden, Samuel Johnson, John
Milton, Sir William Temple, John
Locke, Johnathan Swift, Joseh
Addison, Samuel Johnson, Thomas
Gray
10. The Neoclassical era in literature brought a
sense of decorum and stability to writers. There
were rules to be carefully followed, and there
was a structure of writing to be upheld. People
praised wit and parody, as well.
11. It is the first great age of
literary criticism, where
essays on the virtues (and
weaknesses) of authors and
biographies of major figures
begin to dominate.
13. JOHN DRYDEN (1631 – 1700)
John Dryden is rightly considered as “the father of
English Criticism”. He was the first to teach the English
people to determine the merit of composition upon
principles. With Dryden, a new era of criticism began.
Before, Dryden, there were only occasional utterances
on the critical art. (Eg. Ben Jonson and Philip Sidney)
14. Except An Essay of Dramatic Poesy,
Dryden wrote no formal treatise on
criticism. His critical views are found
mostly in the prefaces to his poetical
works or to those of others.
15. Nature of Poetry:
Dryden upholds Aristotle’s
definition of poetry as a
process of imitation. It
imitates facts past or present,
popular beliefs, superstitions
and things in their ideal form.
16. Function of Poetry:
The final end of poetry, according to Dryden is delight
and transport rather than instruction. To realize it, it
does not merely imitate life, but offers its own of it – ‘a
beautiful resemblance of the whole’.
. The poet is neither a teacher nor a bare imitator – a
photographer – but a creator. He is one who, with life or
nature as his raw material, produces a new thing
altogether, resembling the original in its basis but
different from it in the super structure – a work of art
rather than a copy.
18. Dryden- the critic
• Dr. Johnson in the lives of the English poets
calls Dryden the father of English criticism.
• He says,
“Dryden may be properly considered as the
father of English criticism, as the writer who
first taught us to determine upon principles
the merit of composition”.
19. First English critic to make use of
historical criticism
• He regarded literature as a mirror to society,
reflecting the characteristics of that age. Literature
changes with age and place.
• Best contribution lies in the modification of ancient
doctrines in the light of modernity.
20. • There was a perfect fusion of critic and an artist in
him.
• He appreciates Shakespeare and Jonson in His Essay
of Dramatic Poesy (1669), and studies Chaucer in
his Preface to the Fables. (1700)
21. How and what he wrote//
• Dryden’s principal critic work is his Essay of
Dramatic Poesy, though his critical
observations are also found in the prefaces
to several of his works, especially in the
Preface to the Fables.
22. Critical piece
• The Essay of Dramatic Poesy establishes him
as the first historical critic, first comparative
critic, first descriptive critic, and the
Independent English critic.
• The Essay of Dramatic Poesy is developed in
the form of dialogues amongst four
interlocutors representing four different
literatures or literary ages.
23. • He intended to lay down the theory of drama and to
judge how far the Greek, Latin an French dramatists
who were held to be superior could withstand his
test.
• He tests if these dramas were truly superior to
English dramatists or mistakenly taken so.
24. Type of criticism was...?
• In this way he (Dryden) develops historical,
comparative, and descriptive forms of
criticism, and finally gives his own
independent views through the replies of
Neander.
25. Situation in the Treatise
• On the day that the English fleet encounters the
Dutch at sea near the mouth of the Thames, the
four friends take a barge downriver towards the
noise from the battle. Rightly concluding, as the
noise subsides, that the English have triumphed,
they order the bargeman to row them back upriver
as they begin a dialogue on the advances made by
modern civilization. They agree to measure progress
by comparing ancient arts with modern, focusing
specifically on the art of drama (or "dramatic
poesy").
26. The Four INTERLOCUTORS!!!
• The four interlocutors are:
• 1. CRITES speakers for the ancient dramatists
• 2. LISIDEIUS speaks for the French.
• 3. EUGENIUS speaks for the English literature of
the ‘last age.’
• 4. NEANDER speaks for England and liberty.
27. Crites-
• Spokesman for the ancients
• Establish superiority of ancient dramatists on
moderns based on
• Founders of dramatic genre
• Highly esteemed position in Greece
• Natural and real in nature
• Modern dramas follo the rules of the ancients
• Three dramatic unities
• Language, style,literary devices and figures of speech
• Moderns are imitators of ancients
28. Eugenius-
• Defends moderns
• Improved the rules and practices of the ancients
• Ancients had defects
• Plots and characters of comedy of ancients were stock
• Dramatic unities not observed by ancients
• Excess of speech than action
• Lacks poetic justice.
• If ancients had lived in the time of th e moderns they
woyld have supported them too
29. Lisideius-
• Represents the French dramatists
• French drama superior to modern and ancient
drama
• Superior to ancients and moderns in observing the
three dramatic unities
• They wrote either tragedies/ comedies and not
absolute tragi-comedies
• Derived plots from incidents popular with the masses
• Narrative skill is superb
• Plot development-more logical and natural
• Uses beautiful rhymes and not BLANK VERSE!
30. Neander-
• Defends England and Liberty
• Superiority of English Dramatists over French
• English drama-natural, French Drama- artificial
• Defends the practice of writing tragi-comedies
• Had a variety of tastes and themes
• Large number of different characters are introduced
• Violence on stage and its representation on stage
• If English dramatists show too much violence on stage,
the French show too little of it
• French dramatists too bound with the rules, while
English dramatists enjoy freedom
31. Neander/Dryden’s appreciation
• Appreciates Shakespeare as the best dramatist
• Hails Ben Jonson as the “most learned and
judicious dramatist.”
• Beaumont and Fletcher’s plots were more
regular than than of Shakespeare’s.
• He also takes up the controversy of blank verse.
He supports rhyming verse. He says that blank
verse is not poetry but poetic prose which had
to bes used only in serious plays.
32. Dryden’s views!
• He respects the ancient Greek and Roman
principles but he refuses to adhere to them
slavishly, especially in respect of
• Tragi-comedy and observance of the three
Dramatic Unities. Thus Dryden began a
great regular era of criticism, and showed
the way to his countrymen how to be great
as creative authors as well as critical
evaluators and what makes great literature.
Thus he is indeed the “Father of English
Criticism.”
33. Criticism
• According to Dryden, a critic has to understand that
a writer writes to his own age and people of which
he himself is a product. He advocates a close study
of the ancient models not to imitate them blindly as
a thorough going neo-classicist would do but to
recapture their magic to treat them as a torch to
enlighten our own passage. It is the spirit of the
classics that matters more than their rules.
34. • Dryden mentions the appropriate rules laid
down by Aristotle. But it is not the
observance of rules that makes a work great
but its capacity to delight and transport. It is
not the business of criticism to detect petty
faults but to discover those great beauties
that make it immortal.
35. Reinstating Dryden’s views...
• In general, English literary criticism before
Dryden was ill-organized and heavily leaning
on ancient Greek and Roman, and more recent
Italian and French, criticism.
• It had no identity or even life of its own.
Moreover, an overwhelming proportion of it
was criticism of the legislative, and little of it
that of the descriptive, kind.
• Dryden evolved and articulated an impressive
body of critical principles for practical literary
appreciation and offered good examples of
descriptive criticism himself.
36. Concluding
• It was said of Augustus that he found Rome
brick and left it marble.
• With still more justice we could say that
Dryden found English literary criticism
"brick" and left it "marble."
