A few words from John Dryden
| "All of them were thus far of Eugenius his opinion, that
the sweetness of English Verse was never understood or practis'd by our
Fathers; even Crites himself did not much oppose it: and every one was
willing to acknowledge how much our Poesie is improv'd, by the happiness
of some Writers yet living; who first taught us to mould our thoughts into
easie and significant words; to retrench the superfluities of expression,
and to make our Rime so properly a part of the Verse, that it should never
mis-lead the sence, but it self be led and govern'd by it. Eugenius was
going to continue this Discourse, when Lisideius told him it was necessary,
before they proceeded further, to take a standing measure of their Controversie;
for how was it possible to be decided who writ the best Plays, before we
know what a Play should be? but, this once agreed on by both Parties, each
might have recourse to it, either to prove his own advantages, or discover
the failings of his Adversary.
"He had no sooner said this, but all desir'd the favour of him to give the definition of a Play; and they were the more importunate, because neither Aristotle, nor Horace, nor any other, who writ of that Subject, had ever done it. "Lisideius, after some modest denials, at last confess'd he had a rude Notion of it; indeed rather a Description then a Definition: but which serv'd to guide him in his private thoughts, when he was to make a judgment of what others writ: that he conceiv'd a Play ought to be, A just and lively Image of Humane Nature, representing its Passions and Humours, and the Changes of Fortune to which it is subject; for the Delight and Instruction of Mankind." -- An Essay of Dramatic Poesie (1668) |
Going on from here
Reading and contextualizing a play
Everyone will have a play to read between now and January 10. By then you should have read the script, written a substantial descriptive reflection (think of what you're doing as telling the rest of us what we, as people who want to know about Restoration and Eighteenth Century Drama and Theatre, need to know about that play, in case we don't ever read it), and consulted at least three authoritative resources. The anthologies are an obvious source, as are the literary histories; there are also online resources to provide some social, historical and literary context for it. But don't cite wikipedia or the Web sites designed as cribs for students or notes from other courses: find authorities to cite (you might well find them via those less authoritative sources). My suggestion would be to do this in the time you might have budgeted for preparing for and taking a midterm for English 3236, and thus have it out of the way for the holidays -- but of course you'll also have a substantial chunk of time after the new year.
Those wikis
I've been intending to come back to editing the wikis, collaboratively, so that they are accurate, edited, and welcoming to a general audience, but I haven't found time for us to do that. That's something we'll be coming back to while we read each others' reports on plays and make decisions about another set to focus on. We'll also be revisiting those plays when we have established more context to place them in.
Midterm mark
The Registrar wants me to give midterm marks. My view is that it's just as though I were asked to give a June mark to a crop -- say, tomatoes -- that was going to be harvested in late August. So here's what I propose. On the assumption that it means nothing -- doesn't count for half of the year's mark, or any proportion of it at all -- email me and tell me what mark you'd like me to submit for you for midterm.
If I don't hear otherwise by next Monday, I'll submit the minimum generated by participation (I'll post those, as I did when we did the practice run of a learning reflection last month), or, if there's no minimum, a C.
My responses to the pre-midterm learning reflections
This has taken me much longer than I wanted, or than I think reasonable. I apologize. You'll get an email before the weekend.
Feedback
I've created a form for providing feedback to me on the way the course is going for you, and how we might adjust things to make it more useful. It will be linked from the course Moodle page later this afternoon. It's anonymous and voluntary: there are seven questions on it that I hope will help you help me think about the structure of the course. I'll leave it up for a week; the way it works is that responses on it come anonymously to me as emails. I'll post all the text I receive on the Web site (along with my responses and comments, where necessary). Please take the time to respond to it; it'll help all of us.
And a last word
It's a holiday. Enjoy it. Come back rested and raring to go.