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John Dryden's Use of Classical Rhetoric
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
In The Senecan Amble (London, 1951), George Williamson, attempting to account for the innovations in prose style in seventeenth-century England, uses the term “anti-Ciceronianism” to describe the movement toward the new simplicity. Yet more than thirty years ago, Morris Croll, in one of his essays on this subject, made it clear that the term “anti-Ciceronianism” is “open to several objections,” one of which is that “it may be taken as describing a hostility to Cicero himself, in the opinion of the new leaders, instead of to his sixteenth-century ‘apes,‘ whereas in fact the supreme rhetorical excellence of Cicero was constantly affirmed by them, as it was by the ancient anti-Ciceronians whom they imitated.” Certainly Cicero and Quintilian were read and studied in the seventeenth century. Their influence continued to be a strong one during the very period in which the new critical movement was directed against those of their followers who, during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, had debased the study of oratory to a mere concern with the tricks of declamation.
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References
1 “Attic Prose in the Seventeenth Century,” SP, xviii (1921), 80.
2 In The Senecan Amble, Williamson quotes Dryden's objections to certain Senecan traits (pp. 225, 331) and admits that there are oratorical qualities in Dryden's style, but he attempts to illustrate Dryden's “progress in conversational prose” (pp. 342-344).
3 Richard F. Jones, “Science and English Prose in the Third Quarter of the Seventeenth Century,” PMLA, xlv (1930), 977-1009.
4 Harold Fisch, “The Puritans and the Reform of Prose-Style,” ELH, xix (1952), 229-248.
5 See George Sherburn, “The Restoration and Eighteenth Century,” in A. C. Baugh et al., A Literary History of England (New York, 1948), pp. 711-722; Mark Van Doren, John Dryden, A Study of His Poetry (New York, 1946), p. 47; and T. S. Eliot, John Dryden, the Poet, the Dramatist, the Critic (New York, 1932), p. 17.
6 “Sic erunt magna non nimia, sublimia non abrupta, fortia non temeraria, severa non tristia, gravia non tarda, laeta non luxuriosa, iucunda non dissoluta, grandia non tumida. Similis in ceteris ratio est ac tutissima fere per medium via, quia utriusque ultimum vitium est” (Inst. Or. xii.x.80).
7 Dryden's early training at the Westminster School under Dr. Richard Busby was significant in shaping his view of the man of letters. For evidence of the rhetorical training given in English schools of the 17th century, see G. F. Russel Barker, Memoir of Richard Busby D.D. (1606-1695) (London, 1895), pp. 77-82; and Charles Hoole, A New Discovery of the Old Art of Teaching School, ed. E. T. Campagnac (London, 1913), p. 200.
8 W. P. Ker, ed. Essays of John Dryden (Oxford, 1926), i, 124. Hereafter cited as Essays.
9 De Or. i.xxxiv.157; ii.xvii.71; ii.xx.84; ii.lxxviii.317; Or. xiii.42; lxviii.228; Inst. Or. ii.x.8; ii.xii.2; x.i.33; xii.vii.3.
10 In his dedication to The Rival Ladies (1664), Dryden tells the Earl of Orrery, “Your rhetoric has gained my cause” (Essays, i, 9). In A Discourse Concerning the Original and Progress of Satire (1693), Dryden says, “In the mean time, as a counsellor bred up in the knowledge of the municipal and statute laws may honestly inform a just prince how far his prerogative extends, so may I be allowed to tell your Lordship, who, by an undisputed title, are the king of poets, what an extent of power you have, and how lawfully you may exercise it, over the petulant scribblers of this age” (ii, 22-23). Again, in the same essay, he says: “and though all who are my readers will set up to be my judges, I enter my caveat against them, that they ought not so much as to be of my jury; or, if they should be admitted, 'tis but reason that they should first hear what I have to urge in defence of my opinion” (ii, 82). See also i, 24, 248; ii, 6, 72, 187-188, 223, 225-226, 239, 251, 273; Walter Scott, ed. The Works of John Dryden (London, 1808), iii, 351; ix, 209-210, hereafter cited as Works.
11 See De Or. i.xxxi.142-145; Inst. Or. iii.iii.
12 For a discussion of the decline of the tradition of ancient rhetoric during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, see C. S. Baldwin, Medieval Rhetoric and Poetic (New York, 1929), and Donald Lemen Clark, Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance (New York, 1922).
13 De Or. iii.xxv.96, 98, 100, lii.200; Ins. Or. vi.v.5; vii.i.40; x.i.116, vi.5; xi.i.85.
14 Essays, i, 167. References to Cicero and Quintilian are to be found throughout Dryden's criticism. For further references to Cicero, see Essays, i, 4, 30, 42, 188 (here Dryden does not mention Cicero, but he uses Cicero's phrase oratio soluta as Cicero does [De Or. iii.xlviii.184] to mean “prose”), 256; ii, 25, 58, 62, 65, 66, 118, 119; Works ii, 149; v, 187, 188; vii, 117-118, 284, 290; xi, 123; and to Quintilian, see Essays, i, 35, 42, 164, 202; ii, 53, 58, 62, 64-65; Works, iii, 223; vi, 238; vii, 117-118.
15 For another point of view, see Percy Houston, “The Inconsistency of John Dryden,” Sewanee Rev., xxii (1914), 469-482. Houston points out certain minor inconsistencies in Dryden's criticism: his attack on Shakespeare in A Defence of the Epilogue and his defense of him in the preface to Aureng-Zebe, or Dryden's emphasis on delight as the chief end of poetry in A Defence of the Essay and his admission, in the preface to Tyrannic Love, that “pleasure is not the only end of poetry,” but that “precepts and examples of piety must not be omitted.” These inconsistencies are well known, but they do not prove that Dryden's critical standards were constantly changing. His standards remained consistent in spite of temporary changes in his taste.
16 See A. F. B. Clark, Boileau and the French Classical Critics in England (1660-1830) (Paris, 1925), and Frank L. Huntley, “Dryden's Discovery of Boileau,” MP, xlv (1947), 112-117.
17 Studies in Seventeenth-Century Poetic (Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1950), pp. 128-130.
18 In the Orator (xi.37-38) Cicero speaks slightingly of the epideictic address and says that he will not include it among the various kinds of speeches he will discuss. It is among those speeches “quae absunt a forensi contentione,” decorative and elegant addresses which do not deal with problems of public or national interest. Cicero regards the epideictic speech merely as an exercise, a means of learning to be an orator. In such a speech, he says, the ornamentation is obvious and there is no attempt to hide the artistry which creates the intended effects. Antitheses are frequent, and consecutive clauses are made to end in the same way and with similar sounds. These devices are used less frequently and less obviously in actual practice. 19 Wallerstein, pp. 132-133.
20 For example, see the- Prologue to the University of Oxford, spoken by Mr. Hart at the acting of “The Silent Woman.” Though Dryden begins by addressing his audience as “Athenian judges,” he goes on to speak of “Praetorian bands,” and says that “Right is in this Senates hands” (Works, x, 379-380). He begins the Epilogue to All For Love with the lines: “Poets, like disputants, when reasons fail / Have one sure refuge left, and that's to rail” (v, 411). In the Prologue to Don Sebastian Dryden humorously compares his audience with a legislative body. The speaker asks the audience to be kind to the author:
Be not too hard on him with statutes neither;
Be kind; and do not set your teeth together,
To stretch the laws, as cobblers do their leather. (vii, 304-305)
21 John Dryden (Cambridge, Eng., 1950), p. 63.
22 “John Dryden,” Lives of the Poets, ed. Arthur Waugh (London, 1896), ii, 239.