Essay of Dramatick Poesie

Essay of Dramatick Poesie is a work of dramaturgy by John Dryden published in 1668. It was probably written during the plague year of 1666. Dryden takes up the subject that Philip Sidney had set forth in his Defence of Poesie (1580) and attempts to justify drama as a legitimate artform.

The treatise is a dialogue between four speakers: Eugenius, Crites, Lisideius, and Neander. The four speakers represented the Earl of Dorset, Sir. Robert Howard, Sir Charles Sedley, and Dryden himself. On the day that the English and Dutch fleets begin to fight in the mouth of the Thames, the four friends get on a boat to watch the battle. As the battle subsides, the four men speak of French and English drama. In particular, they are concerned with the French neo-classical obsession with obeying the unities prescribed by Aristotle. They also discuss the usefulness and admissibility of rhyme in drama. The general argument is that the unities should be obeyed where possible but discarded where necessary. The speakers contrast Ben Jonson, who wrote "regular" plays that obeyed all the Classical rules, with William Shakespeare, who openly flaunts each of the unities and who was middle class and had not had a complete classical education. Dryden decides on the side of Shakespeare.