An Essay of Dramatic Poesy ; A Defense of an Essay of Dramatic Poesy ; Preface to the Fables

A piece of literary criticism by Dryden written during the Plague of 1666 and first published in 1668. The essay is a discourse between 4 speakers including Dryden himself. They discuss the necessity of abiding by the 3 dramatic unities prescribed by Aristotle if necessary, but also trying new techniques. They also discuss traditions of classicism and the neo-classicism.Excerpt:If your quarrel (said Eugenius) to those who now write, be grounded onely upon your reverence to Antiquity, there is no man more ready to adore those great Greeks and Romans than I am: but on the other side, I cannot think so contemptibly of the Age I live in, or so dishonourably of my own Countrey, as not to judge we equal the Ancients in most kinds of Poesie.