The Just and the Lively: The Literary Criticism of John Dryden, and: Critical Essays on John Dryden (review)

Michael Werth Gelber. The Just and the Lively: The Literary Criticism of John Dryden (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999). Pp. x + 342. $59.95 cloth.

James A. Winn, ed., Critical Essays on John Dryden (New York: G. K. Hall & Co., 1997). Pp. xi + 258. $49.00 cloth.

This year's tercentenary of Dryden's death has not been celebrated as widely and enthusiastically as his admirers would like, but these two volumes give strong evidence that scholars and critics are still giving his achievements expert attention. Yet, for better or worse, these studies are fundamentally traditional in their assumptions and vocabulary. The lack of evident engagement with more recent theoretical debates suggests that Dryden studies have become something of a backwater. Concurrently, Dryden's own reputation has suffered to the point that one recent anthologist has "demoted him" to the rank of one of Aphra Behn's rivals.

Michael Werth Gelber's reaction to Dryden's declining status is to champion his criticism in sweeping terms. He roundly declares that "the full significance of the criticism has never been recognized" (2), and he defends Dryden against every charge made against him, while complaining that the praise of earlier critics has been made "always in a manner that dulls curiosity" (9). This panegyrical stance can be heartwarming, and it does result in some critical virtues: Gelber productively focuses on the critical contexts of the faults attributed to Dryden, seeking to understand his theoretical and rhetorical decisions rather than to judge them. Thus, while he recognizes the effusive tone in Dryden's early dedications, instead of seconding the indignation expressed by Johnson and other critics, Gelber simply analyzes it as part of the "aristocratic manner" (31) cultivated in Dryden's early writings. This sympathetic method means that Gelber can explain elements of Dryden's criticism that now strike us as strange or distasteful, when other commentators are likely to veer prematurely into moralizing. However, his incessant championing of Dryden can seem excessive. Thus Gelber is too sweeping and rhetorical when he insists that Dryden's critical changes, such as his repudiation of the value of rhyme in drama, "demonstrate no inconsistency in his thought, they demonstrate rather its fundamental coherence and flexibility" (154).

Still, this apparently extravagant sentence represents a central element in Gelber's argument, which is that Dryden's criticism consistently focuses upon certain key issues, such as the relationship of the "just" and the "lively" in literature; these and other pairs of crucial terms are treated as polarities between which Dryden moves in a continuing effort to reconcile the extremes. Thus his changes and inconsistencies result from the "shifting tensions" (14) within the stable framework provided by the opposites that represent the issues.

Using these pairs, Gelber is able to devise a convincing three-part narrative of Dryden's career in criticism. In his earliest work, Dryden establishes these literary pairs while emphasizing the importance of pleasure over instruction: "the lively over the just" (40). In his brief second phase, roughly 1673 to 1679, Dryden, now under the influence of Longinus, "commits himself to classical rules and ideals" (157). In the final part of his life, he returns to his emphasis on the "lively" while remaining committed to classical rules, though they are applied with flexibility. Gelber also relates these stages to Dryden's style, as it evolves from the courtly strains of his early writing to the authoritative tone of his last works. This paradigm does help Gelber explain Dryden's criticism, but his claim that it makes "all his so-called inconsistencies disappear" (15) requires a few grains of salt. At his best Gelber provides a detailed and lively history of Dryden's energetic, various, and learned struggle with some of the central critical issues in the English classical tradition.

Gelber is probably at his best when exploring...