Read John Dryden's "Essay of Dramatic Poesie" at the following link:
http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/drampoet.html
Answer the prompt in your journals. However, because you enjoy sharing your opinion of the literature we read, post your emotional responses here . . .
According to the satirical point of view conveyed in this poem and in Dryden's "Essay of Dramatic Poesy," what makes poetry bad? What are the key characteristics of bad literary art?
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32 comments:
Was it just me or were we all just slightly (no actually, VERY) confused by this poem?
I like the title though :)
In response to Christina's comment...
Yes! I was confused too.
I want to cry because I am very frustrated and confused with this poem, and I've read it like 5 times, and I still don't get it. =(
So as you can see I am not very fond of this poem, BUT I think I am right in saying that Dryden is making fun of Shadwell and finds Shadwell's poetry very dull. And... that's all I can say. =P
oh and it's jessica s. who wrote above, just to be clear. =)
I'd like to respond to everyone's comment and say the same thing. CONFUSING!? I never knew poetry was going to be the one that breaks my heart.
i totally agree with everyone! i was SO CONFUSED as well =\
I think the author is just angry because Shadwell (?) is a sucky writer. Or maybe not angry, but certainly mocking and quite mean about it. I mean, Shadwell's apparently the heir to "the realms of Nonsense," "mature in dullness," and "stands confirmed in full stupidity" (303). I guess he thought his writing sucks? And is not comparable to Ben Jonson?
Who knows! At least I tried. Don't cry you guys, we can do it! (this is called fake optimism)
the flaws of poetry can be portrayed in the "dullness" and blandness that Dryden speaks of in the Mac Flecknoe poem.
As he critizes Shadwell's persona and sense of pride through depicting him as a "hero" or his king of boring art (poetry) that evokes bad taste even though in the poem Shadwell is said to be a better poet than his father.
his technique of using the format of an epic poem allows for the satirization to come out bluntly or overly exaggerated.
sorry the comment above is from apollonia! : )
I was about to dub this poem as pretentious but then realized most writers (or poets at least) from this time used such annoyingly convoluted language. I, too, was confused, but could understand enough to gather that Dryden is blatantly attacking Shadwell. The mock-respect that Dryden gives Shadwell by referring to him as "Sh____" is funny.
And I agree with Apple that by putting this in the format of an epic poem, Dryden makes the satire even more obvious.
In response to all the initial confusion, let me clarify a bit . . . the poem is a satirical jab at one of Dryden's contemporaries who considered himself a better artist than Dryden. Dryden got pissed off and wrote this poem as a way to get back.
There is a lot of allusion to British history of the period (footnotes should help) but for now overlook that . . . you should be able to recognize how derisive the tone of the poem sounds. Essentially, it is a monologue that done tongue-in-cheek.
Olive, Ali and Apollonia are pretty much on track :)
I didn't know what was going on half the time in this poem because the language was so damn complicated!
Ok so this poem totally confused me last night even though I read it like 4 times =-)
...However, after reading the posts from Ali, Apple, Olive, and Ms Lagrimas I am beginning to get the meaning of it. Hopefully after one more reading, I will be good to go!
blah.. im still lost. why can't the author make everything easy to understand..>_<
Ah ha! I knew they got into some kind of tiff. Okay, I'm going to answer the prompt now:
According to Dryden, poetry is made bad when it is written by people like Shadwell - meaning there can be a poor attempt at wit ("Let Virtuosos in five years be writ; yet not one thought accuse thy toil of wit" Pg. 307). There's nothing worse than trying to be clever and failing at it.
Poetry is yucky also when the language is dull and weary, excessively profuse and lacking content. "And torture one poor word ten thousand ways." (308) We know a lot of writers like that, where they keep writing and writing and saying the same thing over again. Poetry becomes repetitive and loses its effectiveness when it is abused like such.
But you know what else I hate? I hate it when the poet tries to make everything rhyme and concentrates too much on the last words that the lines sound forced and not flowy.
Although I grasped the mocking tone of the poem, I didn't understand how all of the different things that Dryden talked about coherently connected. All of the randomness made me confused.
But, I did read some funny things that I think should be shared here:
a) "About thy boat the little fishes throng, As at the morning toast that floats along." (281)
The footnote says a "comic metaphor for sewage." I don't know if you guys got a kick out of the fact that Dryden talked about poop floating through the sewage like that, but I did.
b) "Near these a Nursery erects its head..." (282)
The footnote explains that the Nursery is a "training school for young actors," but goes on to explain that the Nursery is a really a whorehouse for the prostitutes mentioned in the following lines. I think the funny part is that Dryden is talking about prostitutes and he chooses phrases like "erects its head." Coincidence? I think not.
OK so after reading it with my sister I THINK I understand this poem a lot better and actually laughed...a lot. Especially the ending....
"Sinking he left his drugget robe behind, borne upwards by a subterranean wind. The mantle fell to the young prophet's part, with double portion of his father's art." (lines 214-217)
Basically,Flecknoe was carried to heaven by his fart and his mantle fell upon Mac Flecknoe who became the heir of bad writing. hahahaha. The mental image I saw was just... too funny. thank God for the footnotes or else i would have never understood what that meant.
Best ending ever. =P
Ok.... well I'm going to try to answer the prompt. Well, other than being confusing, this poem also shows that poetry should never be dull and Shadwell's poetry according to Dryden is just plain dull (Pg 285, " which makes they writings lean on one side still...")
I think Dryden sees bad poetry is unoriginal, lacks depth, and needs wit (a lot of wit). I think he really likes wit =]
I was confused too!!!
It made my head hurt a bit, but I tried so to understand. The title is cool :]
I agree with the initial universal confusion with this poem. I know that I am not much of a "poetry comprehender", but this one just crossed the line. It was difficult to really get the meaning of the poem because there were so many footnotes! However, I was able to catch some of the "satire," so hopefully that counts for something.
;]
"post your emotional responses here"
my first emotional response to "Essay of Dramatic Poesie" was...
"o my, o so long!" that's right, i admit, my eyes do get tired; but
i'm trucking through, just truckin'
=)
thanks Ms. Lagrimas and Ali and Olive and Applonia. Your responses helped. this poem was still hard to fully comprehend but at least it's a little more clear!
oops. i meant Apollonia. my bad!
"[Y]ou pursue your point too far" is a quote from the "Essay" which is also the point taken up by "torture [of] one poor word ten thousand times" in "Mac Fleckno." What make poetry bad is when the point is overdone. The thing I don't like about poetry is I can only take a certain amount of flowery words, then I'm all about get to the point already! Any who, I'm backed by "Mac Fleckno," "to lard with wit thy hungry Epsom prose. And when false flowers of rhetoric thou wouldst cull" and of course, it then rhymes with "dull".
I agree with Olive about the rhyming thing. All throughout the poem I was thinking about what Mrs. Barnheiser said about rhyming and how it restricts the poet and distracts the reader. I was distracted =)
I don't really understand the poem that well; I'm going to read it for a second time, slowly. It goes from talking about kings, heirs and then to verse.
Tackle it, I shall.
For all of Dryden’s criticisms of the inferior quality of Shadwell’s poetry, I did feel that by making every other word rhyme Dryden compromised somewhat his own poetry. I agree with Annemarie and Olive that the rhyme scheme was extremely distracting, not to mention strained. And the fact that I had to reference footnotes every three words was just annoying, but I guess the allusions would have been understood at the time they were written and appreciated for their humor. I did think the double entendres in the poem were witty though, and funny once they were explained in the footnotes.
In response to Amanda, yes, I noticed the line about the Nursery erecting its head as well. Although, that might have less to do with my observational skills than with Jessica and Jojo’s success in corrupting me to the dark side ;)
^ Jackie
john dryden's mock-heroic satire criticizes not only shadwell's poetry, but all those who admire shadwell, as well as other dull poets. dryden proves that he is a better writer in this cleverly written satire.dryden attacks bad literature to make it clear what needs to occur if literature is to be valued.
1st emotional response:
we have a blog? i was absent today...i didn't even know about this blog until a while ago.
2nd emotional response:
OMG! DO WE HAVE TO READ ALL THAT??!! This "essay" is the length of a novel in my opinion. please tell me this is a joke.
and gelly can vouch for me. she totally witnessed my reaction upon following that link. =)
It was quite confusing but I started laughing right away when it said the king was looking for someone who was as stupid as him to succeed him. And usually I hate when writers in these older generations don't spell out a whole name, but i kept laughing when i would read sh____. it was like sh__ he's dumb .. or idk but something very comical.
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