The Emergence of Dramatic Criticism in England: From Jonson to Pope

Description

Focusing on dramatic criticism, this book explores the self authorizing strategies of writers such as Jonson, Dryden, Aphra Behn, Thomas Rymer, Jeremy Collier and Joseph Addison. Cannan focuses on how they established themselves as critics, and paved the way for the birth of dramatic criticism in seventeenth and early eighteenth-century England. Front Matter....Pages i-xi Introduction: On Writing the History of Early English Criticism....Pages 1-17 The Author as Critic: Prefatory Criticism from Jonson to Dryden....Pages 19-53 The “Laughing Critick”: Thomas Rymer and Burlesque Criticism....Pages 55-82 The Parson Turn’d Critick: Jeremy Collier and his Antagonists....Pages 83-108 “Criticks by Profession”: John Dennis and Charles Gildon....Pages 109-137 The Journalistic Critic from the Gentleman’s Journal to the Spectator....Pages 139-169 Epilogue: Pope and the Discipline of Criticism in the Early Eighteenth Century....Pages 171-181 Back Matter....Pages 183-225