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Selected Dramas of John Dryden with the Rehearsal by George Villiers Duke of Buckingham by George R

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Selected Dramas of John Dryden with the Rehearsal by George Villiers Duke of Buckingham by George R Selected Dramas of John Dryden with the Rehearsal by George Villiers Duke of Buckingham by George R. Noyes Review by: A. W. Verrall The Modern Language Review, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Apr., 1912), pp. 255-257 Published by: Modern Humanities Research Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3713043 . Accessed: 25/06/2014 02:33 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Modern Humanities Research Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Modern Language Review. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 91.229.229.205 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 02:33:44 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions .Reviews 255 Selected Dramas of John Dryden with the Rehearsal by George Villiers Duke of Buckingham. Edited with Introduction and Notes by GEORGER. NOYES. Chicago and New York: Scott, Foresman & Co. 1910. 8vo. lvi + 504 pp. This volume, the product of much labour, will be most acceptable to the student and is not to be repelled even by the general reader who has any curiosity in the history of literature. The four plays which Professor Noyes selects to represent Dryden's dramatic work are the Conquest of Granada (both parts), Marriage a la Mode, All for Love, and the Spanish Friar. It does not appear that the selection could be better. Besides a carefully formed text of the four plays and of the Rehearsal, the inclusion of which is of considerable additional interest to the book, the volume contains notes, printed separately at the end, on all five plays, and also, by way of introduction to the whole, an elaborate essay of near fifty pages on Dryden as dramatist, followed by a careful chronological list of the dramatic works. Professor Noyes cannot be accused of exaggerating the attractions of his subject. He appraises most modestly the general interest for modern readers of the Restoration Literature and states temperately and frankly the solid objections to which Dryden as a dramatic artist is open. On the former point indeed, the interest of Dryden at large and of the period which he ruled, we would fain hope that the editor goes beyond the necessary limit of depression. With the rarest exceptions no past age, if we may speak candidly, commands or will command for such poetry either a numerous or a very studious public. But the little labour and the little use of a slight exercise of imagination necessary to the full enjoyment and comprehension of Absalom and Achitophel will surely not be grudged in this country, though in America competing interests, if we do not misunderstand the editor, threaten to stifle even this. Of Professor Noyes' present volume the notes perhaps are the most valuable part; but they do not afford material for such discussion as is possible here. In all that concerns the formation of the text the work seems to be admirably thorough. The notes on language are interesting and useful, so far as they go; of explanation most readers, I think, will want rather more than they will find. The introductory essay with its footnotes offers a full account of the subject and a valuable collection of references. It abounds of course in points open to discussion. For the most part I find no ground of objection. One may perhaps be surprised, considering the proportions of the whole work, by the space allotted (pp. xxxv ff.) to the unfortunate controversy with Settle about The Empress of Morocco and Dryden's part in the miserable railing of the anonymous Notes and Observations of 1674. Professor Noyes warns us indeed himself that 'as this work was a joint production, we cannot be sure that Dryden wrote any particular part of it' but he adds that 'as he undoubtedly read and This content downloaded from 91.229.229.205 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 02:33:44 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 256 Reviews approved the whole, the question is of little moment; we may regard the opinions in general of the pamphlet as Dryden's own,' and he immediately proceeds to quote some scurrilous and clumsy passages with confident attribution to our poet. Unless the editor relies upon some evidence which I do not apprehend, this seems to go rather far, especially as the tone and style of the citations offer, as Professor Noyes points out, most striking contrast to Dryden's treatment of similar topics in his acknowledged work. The specimen of Dryden's verbal criticism, cited for the purpose of this comparison, is from the preface of The State of Innocence-the defence of the metaphor in Seraphand Cherubcareless of their charge... Unguardedleave the passes of the sky And all dissolv'din Hallelujahslie. Dryden's critic is crude enough and Dryden's rebuke very dignified, but if Professor Noyes means to imply that it is adequate, we may hesitate to follow him. Certainly Dryden's quotation from Virgil 'Invadunt urbem somno vinoque sepultam' is no justification, nor do I for a moment believe that Dryden, as he says, took from it his own expression. It is one of the off-hand metaphors with which his critical works abound. In style and suggestiveness these cannot be over- praised, but in regard to their substance and principles the late flow of opinion in their favour seems to have gone quite far enough. The opinions which Dryden expresses are as often as not taken up for the convenience of the moment, but doubtless he shows through all his wanderings a saving common-sense and an instinctive appreciation of various merit. Upon the very interesting topic of Dryden's habit in matters of controversy Professor Noyes makes a new suggestion (p. xxxiii). Speaking of Dryden's patient treatment of The Rehearsal he says: In the critical essays published with The Conquestof Granada in 1672 Dryden certainly makes no allusion to the attack on him. He even seems determined...to show generosity by returning good for evil. ' Fletchers Don John is our [modern dramatists'] only bugbear; and yet I may affirnl...that he now speaks better, and that his character is maintained with much more vigour in the fourth and fifth acts than it was by Fletcher in the three former.' This is a direct compliment to Buckingham's alteration of Fletcher's The Chances. The editor's criticism of the selected plays is candid and reasonable; he points out clearly the crude opposition of sentiment and tone which separates the serious and the comic parts even of such heroic plays as Marriaqe a la Mode and The Spanish Friar which in the mere mechanical adjustment of the two plots show some ingenuity. And indeed it would be difficult to surpass the disconcerting candour with which Dryden himself speaks on the subject when he chooses to exert himself in the defence of his theatrical practice. His various remarks set side by side offer a fine specimen of his scruples as a critic. This is no place for airing a private opinion, not to say a private heresy; otherwise I would say a word about the interest both intrinsic This content downloaded from 91.229.229.205 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 02:33:44 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Reviews 257 and biographical of two pieces which on grounds very just, so far as they go, are neglected-the so-called 'heroic' play Tyrannic Love, upon the martyrdom of St Catharine of Alexandria, and The State of Inno- cence, Dryden's adaptation of Paradise Lost to the stage. Tyrannic Love, notwithstanding its gross offences, is not altogether such wild phantasy-I cannot consent to a milder term-as The Conquest of Granada. To class Maximin as a character with Almansor, though Dryden does it when it suits him, is not quite fair. But this must be for another time. It would be absurd to suggest that the present editor should or could include either piece in his selection. Nor will proportion let me say here all that is suggested by Professor Noyes' remarks upon Dryden and the unities. They are true and clear, but in my opinion they do not lay stress enough-nor does any account of the matter that I know-upon the root of the amazing absurdities and falsehoods with which in the end the Renaissance critics try to harmonize their theories on the subject. Dryden is no better than another and forces a candid reader to ask in many places how a reasonable man came by such monstrosities. In one word it was mainly I think because they took 'imitation,' as used by Aristotle, to signify the production of an illusory resemblance between the scene and the supposed reality, and then struggled vainly to find a reconciliation between the practical deductions which would have followed from such a theory and those that might be drawn more or less justly from the real position of the Greek critic. However, this and many another topic of interest, which the editor of this book suggests, we must let pass. It remains only once more to commend it for what it contains and achieves to the student and the reader.
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