Neoclassical Age Part 1 Flashcards
What is the 2 general characteristics of Neoclassical Age Part 1 ?
1 ) Italian influence replaced by
French
2) Greater emphasis on Graeco-Roman rules of classical
composition
What are the 6 main points that I need to remember in Neoclassical Age Part 1 ?
1) General characteristics
2) Historical background
3) The rise of Neoclassicism
4) Features of Neoclassicism
5) John Dryden
6) Joseph Addison
Explain briefly historical background of Neoclassical Age. (part 1 ans) 1-5
1) England had just undergone a civil war
2) Charles I overthrown by Oliver Cromwell, who made England into a republic (The Commonwealth of England, 1649)
3) Cromwell was a strict Puritan
4) Historically, a Puritan is a term for an associate of Protestant religious groups advocating a purer form of worship and doctrine, to rid the Church of England from its more Catholic aspects; the term now refers to a very conservative person who abides strictly by a religious (specifically Protestant) code
5) Cromwell, or rather his parliament, banned all public activities that were thought to contravene moral code, like theatre
Explain briefly historical background of Neoclassical Age. (part 2 ans) 6-12
6) In 1644 the Globe Theatre was torn down
7) In 1648 all playhouses were torn down
8) All players (actors) were whipped, and anyone
who attended a play was fined
9) Christmas and Easter were not celebrated,
because their origins are pagan (Roman)
10) After Cromwell’s death, Charles II restored the
monarchy, and reopened playhouses
11) Contrast the puritanical movement, which
sought to rid the Church of England of all
Catholic influences, with the need to ‘keep in
check’ the excesses of the Italian-influenced
Renaissance
12) During Charles II’s reign (Restoration England),
there was relative peace in England, and there
was also a relative stagnation in literary activity
What happened in The rise of Neoclassicism ? (4 points)
1) The Italian influence was so strong during the
Renaissance because of they way they flouted
the rules of classical composition; the French
had shown that greatness can be achieved by
adhering to those rules (Jean Racine)
2) A response to Baroque (Metaphysical) art
3) the Baroque was sanctioned by the Catholic
church, and aimed at grandeur and excess
breaking through the limits of classical
composition
4) the Metaphysical poets in England (John
Donne, John Milton) explored religious themes
that did not necessarily agree with the Church
of England
What are the 7 features of Neoclassicism ?
1) ‘Follow nature’, where nature means external
reality (Verisimilitude, Mimesis)
2) Respect for Classical rules (Aristotle, Horace)
3) ‘Correctness’ and ‘good sense’; emotions,
originality and furore poeticus (poetic frenzy,
inspiration) to be kept in checked by rules
(Decorum)
4) Universality emphasised over the particular
5) Poetry must instruct and delight (utile et dulce)
6) Poetic language must be elevated and distinct
from prose and everyday language
7) To an extent, there was an emphasis on rhyme
over blank verse (Shakespeare)
Who are the 3 writers of Neoclassicism Age ?
1) John Dryden
2) Joseph Addison
3) Alexander Pope
What are the 4 main things to remember about John Dryden ?
1) About him
2) His works
3) Thoughts on poetry & drama
4) After Dryden
Can you tell 4 things about John Dryden ?
1) Regarded as the father of English
criticism
2) Strictly practical/comparative criticism
3) Very much a neoclassicist, but glorified
English drama over the French
4) His criticism contained in Essay on
Dramatic Poesy, and numerous prefaces
and epilogues to his works
John Dryden’s works ? (part 1 ans) 1-8
1) Essay on Satire (preface to Satires of Juvenal)
2) The aim of satire is a correction of manners
3) Raised the status of satire as a genre to epic
proportions
4) Essay on Heroic Tragedy (preface to Dryden’s The Conquest of Granada)
5) Defines heroic play as ‘an imitation…of a heroic
poem’
6) Love and valour are important themes, more so
than Aristotelian pity and fear
7) Essay on the Fables (preface to
translations of Homer, Ovid,
Giovanni Boccaccio and Geoffrey
Chaucer
8) Raises the standing of Geoffrey
Chaucer by comparing him to Ovid
John Dryden’s works ? (part 2 ans) 9-17
9) French plays better adhere to classical rules,
but the result is a cramped style; English
plays may violate these rules, but they contain
more humour and variety
10) Tragicomedy is not absurd, it is natural, and
allows each element to play off one another;
even certain French dramatists mingle tragedy
and comedy
11) Although English plays have concurrent
actions, the Unity of action is not destroyed
12) Plays should suit the temperament of its people
13) Long speeches are suited to the French; brevity
and wit are suited to the English
14) English plays are more masculine
15) Believes that the contemporary English
dramatists have surpassed those of other
countries, and even the ancients
16) Word choice is more paramount to determine the naturalness of language, not so much its
placement
17) The Elizabethans have taken the art of blank
verse to its height; the Restoration poets cannot
match them, so they must resort to rhyme to suit
the era
John Dryden’s thoughts on poetry and drama ?
1) Also in the Essay on the Fables, Dryden
defines drama as a ‘just and lively image of
human nature, representing its passions and
humours, and the changes of fortune to which
it is subject, for the delight and instruction of
mankind’
2) Just and lively image of human nature:
3) Just, a fair representation; lively: an
imaginative representation of humanity
4) Representing its passions and humours, and
the changes of fortune to which it is subject
5) Universality and variety
6) For the delight and instruction of mankind:
7) In one instance, Dryden says the chief aim
of poetry is to instruct; but he also says ‘a
bare imitation will not serve’
8) There is an emphasis on delight
9) Delight can be taken to mean the delight
attained from the appreciation of beauty;
and what is beautiful is often noble;
therefore beauty instructs man to
appreciate nobility and morality
What happened after Dryden ?
1) Criticism in the 18th century does not alter
much from the Restoration period
2) Only becomes more neoclassical
3) Cultural nationalism (preference of English
over French)
4) To the extent that everything from France
was considered bad by some critics
5) Historicism
6) Different ages call for different standards of
interpretation
7) Descriptive criticism
8) No longer legislative
Who is Joseph Addison ?
1) The founder of The Spectator
magazine
2) Mostly Aristotelian in his criticism
(denounced tragicomedy as a genre)
but:
3) Did not limit his criticism to a
particular set of rules or a genre, but
formulated a kind of reader-response
criticism intended for all of society
4) Incorporating Longinus (interpreting
Milton as ‘sublime’)
Themes addressed in the Essay on the Fables ?
1) Ancient vs modern poets = moderns
2) french vs english = english
3) elizabethan vs restoration dramatists = restoration
4) are plays more perfect when they conform to ancient (classical) rules ? = to an extent
5) rhyme vs blank verse = rhyme
