Poetry
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9.Drama: tragedy and comedy
9a.The ends and kinds of tragedy and comedy
See also: The Sublime 1c · Beauty 3d · Virtue and Vice 11c · Emotion 12b
Aristophanes, The FrogsVol. 8
- p. 439Xanthias and Dionysus joke about the stale burden-bearer jokes that comic poets like Phrynichus put in every play.read · scan
Plutarch, PericlesVol. 12
- p. 37–38Comic poets Cratinus, Teleclides and Eupolis mock Pericles's misshapen head in verse.read · scan
- p. 50Comic poet Cratinus ridicules Pericles's slow wall and the Odeum.read · scan
- p. 70–71Hermippus's verses satirize Pericles as a man of words.read · scan
Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations of Marcus AureliusVol. 2
- p. 286Tragedy was introduced to remind men that events happen according to nature, so one should not be troubled by real life.read · scan
- p. 286Traces tragedy, old comedy and middle and new comedy, judging their moral use and the decline of new comedy into mimicry.read · scan
Sir Thomas More, UtopiaVol. 36
- p. 164The stage analogy of Plautus's comedy interrupted by Seneca's tragedy illustrates fitting one's part to the occasion.read · scan
Michel de Montaigne, Of BookesVol. 32
- p. 91Terence's style, not plot, holds readers; modern comic writers pile up borrowed plots from Terence and Plautus because they distrust their own ability.read · scan
Miguel de Cervantes, The History of Don Quixote of the Mancha, Part IVol. 14
- p. 316–317Verses from a play are quoted to support the argument.read · scan
- p. 479Comedy should be a mirror of life, pattern of manners and image of truth, but current plays violate time, place and probability.read · scan
- p. 479Good, well-ordered comedy delights and instructs, making auditors wiser, hostile to vice and enamoured of virtue, better than bad plays.read · scan
Sir Philip Sidney, The Defense of PoesyVol. 27
- p. 25–26Defends the pastoral, elegiac, iambic and satiric kinds for their moral uses: pity, exposing villainy and laughing men out of folly.read · scan
- p. 26–27Defends comedy as imitating common errors and tragedy as exposing the tyrant's wounds and the world's uncertainty.read · scan
- p. 44Dramatist should begin at the principal point of action, as Euripides does; mongrel tragi-comedy mixing kings and clowns fails admiration and delight.read · scan
- p. 45–46Comedy should give delightful teaching, the end of poesy, not mere laughter; mocking sinful or miserable things is wrong.read · scan
William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of DenmarkVol. 46
- p. 135–136Polonius's absurd catalogue of dramatic genres and the players' merits; Hamlet mocks with ballad fragments.read · scan
- p. 138–143The play's the thing to catch the King's conscience; Hamlet seeks grounds more relative.read · scan
Ben Jonson, The AlchemistVol. 47
- p. 542Prologue states the comic writer's aim: to expose follies and cure vices with sweet correctives, drawing on London's humours for the stage.read · scan
John Milton, Samson AgonistesVol. 4
- p. 412Milton defends tragedy as gravest, moralest and most profitable poem, citing ancient authorities and warning against mixing comic matter with tragic gravity.read · scan
- p. 414Argument summarizing the plot and characters of the tragedy.read · scan
Voltaire, Letters on the EnglishVol. 34
- p. 136Discusses English comedy, Wycherley's imitation of Molière's misanthrope, plot construction and decorum, and public taste.read · scan
- p. 136–138Recounts Wycherley's comic plot of betrayal and disguise, where virtue is rewarded and vice punished as drama requires.read · scan
- p. 138Assesses Wycherley's comedy as school of wit not morals, and compares Vanbrugh's humor and heavy architecture.read · scan
- p. 138–139Praises Congreve as the height of English comedy for regularity and delicate characters; compares Vanbrugh and Wycherley, Molière.read · scan
- p. 139–140Contrasts comedy, which depends on a nation's manners and cannot be translated, with tragedy, whose exalted passions and sacred fables travel across nations.read · scan
Henry Fielding, Preface to Joseph AndrewsVol. 39
- p. 179Ridicule must not attack villainy or calamity; Aristotle and Bellegarde failed to define the Ridiculous, which is comedy's proper object.read · scan
- p. 180Ben Jonson best understood the Ridiculous and chiefly used hypocritical affectation in comedy.read · scan
Samuel Johnson, Life of Addison, 1672-1719Vol. 27
- p. 165–166Addison's tragedy Cato completed reluctantly; Dennis charges him with contradicting poetical justice, since the virtuous hero falls before a tyrant.read · scan
- p. 169Addison's comic powers, the authorship and cold reception of The Drummer, and the wit of his satirical papers.read · scan
- p. 184–185Cato judged a poem in dialogue rather than a drama: just sentiments, elegant language, but little natural affection.read · scan
- p. 185–186Tragedy by true genius needs no cabal; poor poets substitute craft for art.read · scan
- p. 186–187Debate whether tragedy must distribute reward and punishment or may show the world as it is.read · scan
- p. 187Criticizes the play's unnatural portrayal of feeling.read · scan
Samuel Johnson, Preface to ShakespeareVol. 39
- p. 212–213Defends Shakespeare's mixing of comedy and tragedy against critics; tragedy and comedy arose as ancient modes of imitation.read · scan
- p. 213–214Defends mingled tragicomic drama: end of poetry is to instruct by pleasing; critics' rules yield to appeal to nature.read · scan
Oliver Goldsmith, She Stoops to ConquerVol. 18
- p. 203Prologue laments the dying of comedy, displaced by sentimental drama, and defends laughter over moralizing plays.read · scan
Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for ScandalVol. 18
- p. 196–197Epilogue refers to the bard, his plays and epilogues, and the moral drawn from the play.read · scan
Robert Burns, Poems and SongsVol. 6
- p. 476–478Prologue mocks a gloomy poet who wants solemn tears, and the speaker chooses laughter.read · scan
Percy Bysshe Shelley, The CenciVol. 18
- p. 275–276Shelley explains choosing the Cenci story for tragedy because of its popular sympathy, like Lear and Oedipus drawn from tradition.read · scan
- p. 276The dramatist must soften actual horror with ideal poetry; the highest aim of drama is teaching the heart self-knowledge through sympathy, not moral dogma.read · scan
- p. 277Shelley tries to portray the characters as they were rather than impose his own views of right and wrong.read · scan
Percy Bysshe Shelley, A Defence of PoetryVol. 27
- p. 339Athenian drama united language, music, dance and religion, and King Lear is judged the most perfect dramatic art.read · scan
- p. 339–340Drama at its best expresses poetry and is a mirror of human nature; its decline coincides with corruption of manners.read · scan
- p. 342Poetry and social good are linked; decline of the drama marks social corruption, and erotic Hellenistic poets lacked the inner thoughts of Homer and Sophocles.read · scan
Thomas Babington Macaulay, MachiavelliVol. 27
- p. 382Judges Machiavelli a minor poet but his comedies, especially Mandragola, excellent; comedy is corrupted by wit.read · scan
- p. 383The drama's real object is exhibiting human character; style must fit place, time and person, as in Shakespeare, unlike Congreve and Sheridan's uniform wit.read · scan
- p. 384–386Judges Machiavelli's verses in the Mandragola and his Clizia, imitated from Plautus, adapted skillfully to modern society.read · scan
- p. 386–387Critiques Machiavelli's minor comedies, doubtful attributions and the novel Belphegor, which influenced Jonson's play.read · scan
Victor Hugo, Preface to CromwellVol. 39
- p. 344–345Christian modern poetry will mingle the grotesque and sublime, body and soul, as nature does, rather than the ancients' single type of beauty.read · scan
- p. 346The grotesque and its form, comedy, mark the difference between modern romantic and ancient classical literature.read · scan
- p. 346–347Comedy and the grotesque exist in Homer and Greek tragedy, but the epic stifles them and keeps them timid and veiled.read · scan
- p. 347–348Hugo argues the grotesque shapes modern poetry and drama, from Dante and Milton's hells to Macbeth's witches and Faust's Mephistopheles.read · scan
- p. 348–349Dante's horrors and Milton's paradise show that poetic power and charm depend on picturing hell's ghastly forms.read · scan
- p. 349–350Traces the grotesque's spread through modern poetry and romance, as the germ of comedy.read · scan
- p. 355–356Christian poetry represents the human beast and the soul; separating them gives abstractions, while drama represents man.read · scan
- p. 356–357Drama mixes the burlesque and terrible as in real life, body and mind; poets themselves combine laughter and sadness.read · scan
- p. 357–358The grotesque is a supreme beauty and necessity of drama, as in Shakespeare, preventing monotony and mingling laughter with horror.read · scan
- p. 383Defends romantic drama that blends tragedy and comedy in one long play, contrasting it with the divided classic stage.read · scan
Robert Browning, PoemsVol. 42
- p. 1097–1098Browning explains his speaking through many characters in the fifty poems, and now speaks once in his own person.read · scan
Walter Bagehot, John MiltonVol. 28
- p. 177Milton's Samson Agonistes lacks the comic relief Shakespeare uses in catastrophe; his art is always serious.read · scan
- p. 177–179Quoted catastrophe of Samson Agonistes; Milton's Samson has become a Puritan and his death needs lightening touches.read · scan
9b.The unities and the rules of art
See also: Space 4b · Time 8a · Art 5b · History 1b
Miguel de Cervantes, The History of Don Quixote of the Mancha, Part IVol. 14
- p. 477Canon laments that modern comedies are foolish yet please the vulgar, so writers ignore art and precepts for popularity and money.read · scan
- p. 477–478Argues that tragedies observing the rules of art won universal approval and profit, so fault lies with authors and players, not the public.read · scan
Sir Philip Sidney, The Defense of PoesyVol. 27
- p. 43Criticizes English drama for absurd shifts of place and time; tragedy is bound to poetry's laws, not history's.read · scan
William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of DenmarkVol. 46
- p. 136–137Hamlet praises a play well digested, honest and unaffected, and requests a passionate speech of Pyrrhus and Priam's slaughter.read · scan
John Milton, Samson AgonistesVol. 4
- p. 413Milton explains his craft: Greek-style chorus, verse measures, omission of act and scene, plot as fable's economy, unity of twenty-four hours.read · scan
John Dryden, Dedication of the AeneisVol. 13
- p. 5–6Criticizes Statius's irrelevant episode; traces drama's origin to Homer's epic, and discusses Aristotle's rules, unity of action and time of the stage.read · scan
John Dryden, All for Love; or, The World Well LostVol. 18
- p. 11–13Dryden discusses his tragedy: hero's character, unities, single action without underplot, and error of dividing pity through Octavia.read · scan
- p. 14Dryden defends the natural rivalry of Cleopatra and Octavia against French critics' punctilios in drama.read · scan
- p. 14Criticizes French drama for insipid civility and falsifying Hippolytus's character; English stage has more genius.read · scan
Voltaire, Letters on the EnglishVol. 34
- p. 134–135Judges English tragedy: barbarous and irregular yet flashing with brilliance; praises Addison's Cato as regular, with a spoiled love plot.read · scan
- p. 135Argues English drama's irregular genius, like an untrimmed tree, is spoiled by forced regularity; Addison's Cato ruined by love plot.read · scan
Samuel Johnson, Life of Addison, 1672-1719Vol. 27
- p. 188–189Dennis mocks the improbability of Cato's plot and its unity of place, a single hall for all action.read · scan
- p. 189–190Dennis attacks the improbability of scenes in Cato's hall, where treason, love and philosophy succeed one another implausibly.read · scan
- p. 190–191Dennis satirizes the improbable conspiracy scenes of Cato, with unexplained knowledge and Sempronius escaping discovery.read · scan
- p. 191–192Dennis ridicules Sempronius's disguise as Juba and argues unity of place should be broken when it makes incidents absurd.read · scan
- p. 192–193Dennis mockingly criticizes Addison's Cato, ridiculing Sempronius's speeches and the improbable stage conduct of the tragedy.read · scan
- p. 193–194Dennis continues satirizing Cato's fourth-act plot, finding it absurd that swordplay draws only two women and no guards.read · scan
- p. 194Dennis condemns Marcia's mistaken identification as trickery unworthy of the dignity of tragedy, and mocks Juba's listening.read · scan
- p. 195–196Dennis ridicules Cato's fifth-act staging as improbable; Johnson notes Cato is read though critic neglected, and dismisses Addison's smaller poems.read · scan
Samuel Johnson, Preface to ShakespeareVol. 39
- p. 220Defends Shakespeare's histories and unity of action, and questions the neoclassical unities of time and place.read · scan
- p. 221Denies that dramatic fiction is ever mistaken for reality, refuting the argument for the unities of place.read · scan
- p. 222Spectators know the stage is a stage; drama is successive imitation, so changes of place and time create no absurdity.read · scan
- p. 223–224Johnson argues the dramatic unities of time and place are not essential; a play's greatest graces are to copy nature and instruct life.read · scan
- p. 224–225Johnson invites re-examination of dramatic principles and excuses Shakespeare's ignorance of critical rules.read · scan
Victor Hugo, Preface to CromwellVol. 39
- p. 338Hugo justifies a preface examining the foundations of art, offering himself as an apprentice of nature and truth amid literary quarrels between schools and public.read · scan
- p. 358Criticizes French classical drama's unity of place, which forces action offstage into narrative and description, unlike freer Greek drama.read · scan
- p. 359–360Hugo attacks the classical unities of time and place as pedantic rules that mutilate drama and clip the wings of great poets.read · scan
- p. 360Defends changes of scene in drama; only unity of plot is valid, acting as the stage law of perspective.read · scan
- p. 361Corneille's Le Cid was attacked by critics wielding Aristotle's rules; Hugo recounts the quarrel over dramatic rules.read · scan
- p. 362Envious critics cite Aristotle, Plato and others against Corneille's Le Cid; routine persecutes rising genius.read · scan
- p. 362–363Corneille and Racine were stunted by classical rules and critics, yet great poets carry their prison doors with them.read · scan
- p. 363–364Rejects the demand to follow rules and copy models; genius creates, mediocrity merely copies, and Greek drama differs from ours.read · scan
- p. 364–365Critics demand imitation of inimitable models; the poet should follow only nature, truth and inspiration, not treatises.read · scan
- p. 365The poet must not copy Shakespeare or Moliere but draw inspiration from original sources; imitators become dwarfs or parasites.read · scan
- p. 366Great poets succeeded by heeding nature and their own genius; imitators produced mediocrity and treatises on poetry.read · scan
- p. 367Drama must be a concentrating mirror that condenses nature's rays, not an ordinary reflecting mirror.read · scan
- p. 368Drama shows both exterior and interior man, life and conscience, through speech, acts, asides and monologues.read · scan
- p. 368–369The poet should choose the characteristic over the beautiful; local colour must pervade the drama, and verse guards against the commonplace.read · scan
- p. 370–371Hugo mocks pseudo-classical French tragedy and its rhyme-dictionary poets, with conventional refinement and stage nobility, as false art, false style and false poetry.read · scan
- p. 375Better to write treatises based on a poem than poems based on a treatise; he follows inspiration.read · scan
- p. 375–376Systematic romanticists or classicists produce artificial work that has no existence as art.read · scan
- p. 378–379Gaps in history's record give the poet greater liberty and the drama latitude.read · scan
- p. 381–382Hugo contrasts the stormy modern stage with ancient tragedy and defends a romantic drama of many characters, like Shakespeare's, over abstract unified classical tragedy.read · scan
- p. 383–384Denounces the old literary regime and its artificial poetry, and hopes the public will be led toward truth in art.read · scan
- p. 387Quotes Aristotle and Boileau that a poet may break rules of his art if he reaches his end.read · scan
9c.Shakespeare and the dramatists
See also: Nature 8c · Man 1a
John Heminge and Henry Condell, Preface to the First Folio Edition of Shakespeare's PlaysVol. 39
- p. 148Editors introduce Shakespeare's plays, praising him as a happy imitator and gentle expresser of nature whose thoughts flowed without blot.read · scan
Ben Jonson, On ShakespeareVol. 27
- p. 55Jonson criticizes Shakespeare's facility and unblotted lines, judging his fancy and expression excellent but his wit unruled, with faults such as the Caesar line.read · scan
John Dryden, All for Love; or, The World Well LostVol. 18
- p. 19Dryden explains his tragedy: following the ancients, imitating Shakespeare in blank verse, and judging Shakespeare's genius and language.read · scan
Voltaire, Letters on the EnglishVol. 34
- p. 130Criticizes Shakespeare's genius and lack of taste in tragedy; grave-diggers and Otway's buffoonery show irregular English drama.read · scan
- p. 130–132Defends appreciating great poets' beauties over cataloguing faults, and translates Hamlet's soliloquy.read · scan
Samuel Johnson, Preface to ShakespeareVol. 39
- p. 209–210Shakespeare's lasting favor arises from just representations of general nature, not fashions or personal allusions.read · scan
- p. 210–211Johnson praises Shakespeare as the poet of nature whose drama mirrors life, contrasted with other dramatists' unreal characters and language.read · scan
- p. 211Critic contrasts modern dramatists' contrived plots with Shakespeare's lifelike, distinct characters drawn from the living world.read · scan
- p. 212Shakespeare's drama is the mirror of life; other writers' exaggerated heroes and romances mislead readers about human affairs.read · scan
- p. 214–215Assesses Shakespeare's histories, tragedies and comedies; his comedy is natural and effortless, his tragedy laboured skill.read · scan
- p. 216Praises his comic dialogue while admitting some forced sentiments and improbable actions.read · scan
- p. 217Criticizes his loose plots and neglected endings; a writer's duty is to instruct and make the world better.read · scan
- p. 217–218Faults in Shakespeare: gross comic wit, laboured tragedy, tedious narration, cold set speeches and swollen diction.read · scan
- p. 219–220Further faults: unwieldy sentiment, swelling figures, and the quibble that ruins pathos; Johnson also introduces the neglect of the unities.read · scan
- p. 225–226Shakespeare's plots drew on popular novels, chronicles, ballads and translated Plutarch, suited to an audience fond of wonders.read · scan
- p. 226–227Shakespeare's crowded incident holds attention and excites curiosity; he speaks the language of men, unlike Addison's Cato, which shows only artificial manners.read · scan
- p. 227–228Shakespeare's composition is a forest of diversity, a mine of gold amid impurities, compared to the correct writer's garden.read · scan
- p. 228–229Much of Shakespeare's excellence was his own genius; he introduced character and dialogue to the rude English stage.read · scan
- p. 229–230Other writers borrow characters; Shakespeare provided both matter and form, showing life in native colours.read · scan
- p. 230–231Shakespeare, seeing with his own eyes, gave just images of life and nature that ignorant feel and learned find complete; later poets imitate copies.read · scan
- p. 232Shakespeare originated the form, characters, language and blank-verse harmony of English drama and first taught tragedy and comedy to please.read · scan
- p. 233Shakespeare's plays were not wrought to his own ideal of perfection; he satisfied his audience and repeated jests and plots.read · scan
- p. 233–234Shakespeare's obscure, ungrammatical style was further corrupted by transcribers, actors and printers.read · scan
- p. 249Johnson advises reading Shakespeare's plays whole without commentators, and praises the poet's comprehensive soul, though flawed in wit and bombast.read · scan
Oliver Goldsmith, PoemsVol. 41
- p. 505Cumberland's comedy criticized for idealized characters drawn from himself, not as men are.read · scan
William Wordsworth, Essay Supplementary to PrefaceVol. 39
- p. 317–318Shakespeare, a dramatist, adapted to audience taste; his genius was undervalued by contemporaries and later by Pope's editing.read · scan
- p. 318Foreign critics misjudge Shakespeare; the English wrongly call him a wild irregular genius, while his choice and unity of materials show judgement.read · scan
Charles Lamb, On the Tragedies of ShakspereVol. 27
- p. 303–304Shakspere is deeply grounded in nature, beyond most; tragedy's worthy object is a great or heroic nature, not George Barnwell.read · scan
- p. 305–306Shakspere's images of virtue and knowledge came from his own mind, the 'sphere of humanity', not petty observation of everyday characters.read · scan
William Hazlitt, Of Persons One Would Wish to Have SeenVol. 27
- p. 276–277Company debates which Elizabethan dramatists and poets (Marlowe, Webster, Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher) best deserve to be summoned back and seen.read · scan
Percy Bysshe Shelley, PoemsVol. 41
- p. 848Shelley sends Ariel's song to Miranda, alluding to Shakespeare's Tempest, 'the mighty verses,' and offering music as a token.read · scan
Thomas Babington Macaulay, MachiavelliVol. 27
- p. 384Praises the Mandragola's comic characters, especially the fool Nicias, compared with Molière's and Shakespeare's fools, as proof of Machiavelli's dramatic art.read · scan
Victor Hugo, Preface to CromwellVol. 39
- p. 386–387Defends Shakespeare's faults as inseparable from his greatness, like the oak; Hugo declines to defend his own drama.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, HeroismVol. 5
- p. 121Emerson praises the elder English dramatists, whose heroic dialogue rises naturally into poetry.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, MannersVol. 5
- p. 214Scott's dialogue of the superior classes is criticized as costume; Shakespeare alone is easily great and best-bred.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, English TraitsVol. 5
- p. 369–370Shakespeare's heroines such as Imogen and Desdemona are drawn from English nature.read · scan
- p. 435Shakespeare's unsurprised reception shows the elevated mind of the age; idealism brings poetry and progress.read · scan
John Ruskin, Sesame and LiliesVol. 28
- p. 137–138Shakespeare's plays offer heroines rather than heroes; poets' testimony is called upon regarding woman's dignity.read · scan
- p. 138–139Shakespeare's catastrophes stem from men's folly and are redeemed by women's wisdom, illustrated across many plays.read · scan
- p. 139Shakespeare and Scott are cited as witnesses to women's character: faithful, wise counselors, versus heroes who are weak.read · scan
9d.The stage and the reader
See also: Art 9c · Diversion 8b · Emotion 12b
Marcus Tullius Cicero, On FriendshipVol. 9
- p. 17–18Pacuvius's play, where Pylades claims to be Orestes to die for him, shows audiences' natural approval of loyal friendship.read · scan
Plutarch, ThemistoclesVol. 12
- p. 9Analogy of the poet's true measure to the magistrate's true law; he sponsored a prize-winning play.read · scan
Plutarch, DemosthenesVol. 12
- p. 195Verses of Euripides and Sophocles were recited to show how delivery changes the effect.read · scan
Pliny the Younger, Letters of PlinyVol. 9
- p. 229Dramatic pieces are recited at dinner to season pleasure with study.read · scan
- p. 304–305Tragedy and lyric are composed for stage and chorus, invoked in the debate over recitation.read · scan
William Roper, The Life of Sir Thomas MoreVol. 36
- p. 89As a boy he improvised parts among players, delighting onlookers.read · scan
Michel de Montaigne, Of the Institution and Education of ChildrenVol. 32
- p. 70Montaigne defends acting in tragedies and comedies as honorable recreation for gentlemen and public spectacle.read · scan
Miguel de Cervantes, The History of Don Quixote of the Mancha, Part IVol. 14
- p. 479–481Poets write to suit players because comedies are merchandise; proposes a court examiner to censor plays and books so good ones are written.read · scan
William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of DenmarkVol. 46
- p. 134–135Talk of tragedians displaced by fashionable child actors and the poets' quarrel with players over drama.read · scan
- p. 138Player recites the Pyrrhus and Priam speech; Polonius judges it too long, Hamlet prefers it to jigs.read · scan
- p. 138Player's speech on Hecuba moves Polonius to tears; Hamlet calls players the abstracts and brief chronicles of the time.read · scan
- p. 146–148Hamlet instructs players on delivering lines trippingly, criticizing ranting theatrical style and crowd-pleasing noise.read · scan
- p. 150–151Drama is staged; Hamlet quizzes Polonius about his acting and prepares the play.read · scan
- p. 151–152The play-within-a-play as dramatic device; players cannot keep counsel.read · scan
- p. 152The Mouse-trap play images a murder; Hamlet comments as chorus on the poisoning scene.read · scan
- p. 152–157Hamlet comments on the play, verses and the players' pay; the play stages the murder story of Gonzago.read · scan
William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of King LearVol. 46
- p. 247–252Dramatic scene of disguise and soliloquy; Edgar chooses the Bedlam beggar's role as refuge.read · scan
William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of MacbethVol. 46
- p. 388–389The image of the poor player strutting his hour on the stage likens life to drama.read · scan
William Shakespeare, The TempestVol. 46
- p. 461–463The epilogue casts Prospero as author: his charms o'erthrown, he lacks art to enchant and asks the audience's applause to release him.read · scan
Ben Jonson, PoemsVol. 40
- p. 299–301The child actor played old men so truly that the Fates mistook him for one.read · scan
Ben Jonson, The AlchemistVol. 47
- p. 662–664Face's epilogue appeals to the audience as jury, claiming dramatic propriety and asking acquittal.read · scan
Blaise Pascal, ThoughtsVol. 48
- p. 13Condemns the theatre as representing passions so naturally that it excites them, especially love, even when chaste.read · scan
- p. 13–14Theatrical representation impresses and persuades audiences of love's innocence.read · scan
John Dryden, Preface to Fables, Ancient and ModernVol. 39
- p. 173Dryden answers Collier's attack on the stage, comparing ancient and modern comedy and defending fellow poets against charges of obscenity.read · scan
- p. 174–175Dryden defends contemporary playwrights against Collier, noting older plays like Fletcher's contain more bawdry than modern ones.read · scan
John Dryden, PoemsVol. 40
- p. 386–387Laments the debasement of poetry into obscene uses on the stage; Killigrew's verse stayed unsoiled, rich by nature and vigor.read · scan
Jonathan Swift, A Letter of Advice to a Young PoetVol. 27
- p. 119Ironically praises the playhouse as school of wisdom, swearing and irreligion, and as supporter of poetry and even the pulpit.read · scan
Voltaire, Letters on the EnglishVol. 34
- p. 152–153Prynne's attack on comedies and Sophocles' tragedy; the theatre defended as legitimate literature.read · scan
- p. 154Racine, Corneille and Moliere's immortal works stand beside Le Brun's libel against the stage.read · scan
Samuel Johnson, Life of Addison, 1672-1719Vol. 27
- p. 166–167Cato's stage success, the packed audience and the author's anxiety during the performance.read · scan
Oliver Goldsmith, PoemsVol. 41
- p. 505Satirical epitaph verse; poets owe their fame to actors' skill.read · scan
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Tragedy of Faust, Part IVol. 19
- p. 11–12Manager, Poet and Merryman debate whether drama should serve the popular taste or aim at enduring work that posterity will cherish.read · scan
- p. 12–13Manager urges the poet to give the public spectacle and variety rather than a finished whole; the poet finds it degrades the artist.read · scan
Robert Burns, Poems and SongsVol. 6
- p. 259–260Thanks to a fellow poet in Scottish verse; prologue for a benefit night.read · scan
- p. 260–262Prologue praising Scotland's stage; Douglas fits wild Shakespeare into plan; song of the moor-hen follows.read · scan
- p. 371–372Prologue for a theatre: good sense and taste are native at home.read · scan
- p. 447–449The epigram says the actress acts naturally, needing no artifice.read · scan
Charles Lamb, On the Tragedies of ShakspereVol. 27
- p. 299Lamb distinguishes the dramatic poet's power of originating conceptions from the player's mere ability to recite them.read · scan
- p. 299–301Seeing Shakspere acted confuses character with performer and materialises a fine vision, unlike reading, where the poet is credited.read · scan
- p. 301Shakspere's plays are less suited to the stage; much lies beyond acting, and rote declamation withers famous passages like Hamlet's soliloquy.read · scan
- p. 302In best drama, speech is a medium revealing the inner workings of mind; stage representation reduces it to elocution.read · scan
- p. 303Hamlet's meditations are silent inner reflections put in words for the reader; an actor addressing an audience betrays them.read · scan
- p. 303Lamb argues Hamlet's poetry and intellect are lost on stage; a Banks or Lillo version would produce much the same effect.read · scan
- p. 306Hamlet's ambiguous features must be explained by his whole character, which actors distort.read · scan
- p. 306Criticizes actors' playing of Hamlet's feigned madness as practised, unlike real distraction; dramatic characterization judged.read · scan
- p. 307–308Contrasts Shakspere's genius, shown in his sonnets, with the acting profession, which levels all plays and distinctions.read · scan
- p. 308–309Garrick's interpolated stage versions and stage Richard III distort Shakspere; reading reveals the poetry and intellect of the part.read · scan
- p. 309Shakspere's criminals engage us through inner mind and sublime poetry when read; acting makes deeds everything and destroys the delight.read · scan
- p. 310Lear cannot be acted; his greatness is intellectual, and Tate's adaptation with love-scenes degrades the play.read · scan
- p. 310–311Tate's happy ending falsifies Lear; the play is unsuited to the stage, as is Othello, where reading the mind differs from seeing bodies.read · scan
- p. 315–316Reading Shakspere's plays is preferred to seeing them; comedies too are incompatible with stage representation.read · scan
John Henry Newman, The Idea of a UniversityVol. 28
- p. 56To understand a tragic poet one must see drama acted in the theatre.read · scan
Victor Hugo, Preface to CromwellVol. 39
- p. 379–380Hugo chose verse and abandoned the unities, writing a drama for reading, since the censors and academy forbid true drama.read · scan
9e.The contest of Aeschylus and Euripides
See also: Education 7c
Aristophanes, The FrogsVol. 8
- p. 439Dionysus longs for dead Euripides, surveys the poor state of living tragedians, and demands a true creative genius daring novel conceits.read · scan
- p. 460–461Aeacus explains a contest between Aeschylus and Euripides for the tragic chair in Hades, since the best in each craft sits by Pluto.read · scan
- p. 461–463Tragedy will be weighed and measured word by word in a contest between Aeschylus and Euripides, with Dionysus as judge; the chorus anticipates the clash of styles.read · scan
- p. 464Euripides and Aeschylus trade insults about each other's tragic styles and prepare to test their plays, with Dionysus as judge; Aeschylus notes his poetry outlived him.read · scan
- p. 465The chorus invokes the Muses to witness the contest of two rival poets, one clear and witty, the other grand and forceful.read · scan
- p. 466Euripides criticizes Aeschylus' tragedies: veiled silent mourners, long choral odes, and grandiose obscure words; Aeschylus defends his signs and imagery.read · scan
- p. 466–469Euripides claims he slimmed down bloated tragedy with plain speech, scenes of common life, prologues and canons of verse, against Aeschylus' grand style.read · scan
- p. 469–470Aeschylus and Euripides dispute what makes a noble poet; Euripides claims wit and counsel, Aeschylus that poets shape citizens' character.read · scan
- p. 470–472Aeschylus lists the benefits great bards gave (Orpheus, Musaeus, Hesiod, Homer) and defends heroic drama over Euripides' love-sick heroines.read · scan
- p. 472–473Poets are teachers of men and must speak honest, pure things; grand thoughts demand grand diction, not Euripides' ragged kings.read · scan
- p. 474–475Euripides begins critiquing the prologues of Aeschylus' plays, opening the contest of poetic craft before an audience versed in literature.read · scan
- p. 475Line-by-line criticism of Aeschylus' Oresteia prologue as a test of poetic craft.read · scan
- p. 476Euripides' prologues are mocked as formulaic: each can be finished with 'lost his bottle of oil'; Aeschylus also dissects the Oedipus opening.read · scan
- p. 476–479Aeschylus' refrain 'lost his bottle of oil' mocks Euripides' prologues; Euripides then parodies Aeschylus' lyrics as monotonous.read · scan
- p. 479–480Euripides parodies Aeschylus' lyric choruses with nonsense refrains; Aeschylus counters by mocking Euripides' sources and his wanton Muse.read · scan
- p. 480Aeschylus parodies Euripides' monodies with a comic domestic lament over a stolen cock, then proposes weighing verses on scales to test poetry.read · scan
- p. 482Verses are weighed on scales; Aeschylus' weighty words like Death outweigh Euripides' light Persuasion.read · scan
- p. 482Dionysus chooses Aeschylus as victor in the poetic contest, defending the choice by the audience's taste.read · scan
- p. 482–487Aeschylus, the victorious tragic poet, is sent back to earth and given Sophocles as successor; Euripides' quibbling, Socratic tragic art is condemned as foolish.read · scan
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