Early English Literary Criticism

Paper Summary:

Alexander Pope?s work, ?An Essay on Criticism?, takes the form of a two-part poem. John Dryden?s ?An Essay on Dramatic Posey? takes the form of an extended dialogue between four characters. This paper explains that the ?essays? attempt to formulate critical theories about the proper methodology of poetry and poetic drama, while at the same time, these writers and critics attempt to create artistic works of their own in the process. It examines how, in doing so, both men?s works highlight how the 18th century English poetic and prosaic style of a highly rationalistic, argumentative, and logical artistic approach, often defined as ?Neo-Classical?, could easily be elided with criticism. In other words, art could more easily critiqued in a linear fashion in the Neo-Classical style.

From the Paper:

"Long before the structuralists ever attempted to define what constituted the proper way of conceptualizing the narrative art, long before the deconstructionists ever wrote about the socially constructed nature of gender, long before the New Historicists attempted to reconfigure the relationship between text and historical context, the authors Alexander Pope and John Dryden penned their own theories of literary criticism for a far wider audience in their native England. But although both called their works essays, neither authors? central critical text takes the form of a theoretical or critical essay upon the literary art of poetry, prose, and drama."

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