John Dryden is the father of English literary criticism. In "The Just and the Lively", Michael Werth Gelber provides a study of that criticism since Dryden's death almost 300 ago. Through a detailed reading of each of his essays, the book explains and illustrates the unity and the development of Dryden's thought. It demonstrates that, even as he based his first principles on his own poems and plays, Dryden tried to resolve what, since the early 16th century, had been a key problem in western literature: how to reconcile the demand of classical unity with the bewildering variety of Renaissance drama and romance. The figure who emerges from these pages is a man deeply responsive to the social, political, and intellectual currents of his age. An important influence on critics as diverse as Samuel Johnson and T.S. Eliot, Dryden retains the power to enlighten and delight the reader of today.
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About the Author
Michael Werth Gelber teaches in the Department of English at St John's University, New York.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sympathetic Dryden,
By Damian Desmond (Coral Springs, Florida United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Just and the Lively: The Literary Criticism of John Dryden (Hardcover)
Highly engaging and emminently readable; almost a mini-resource for the non-scholar; and a true page-turner for the Drydenophile. I originally found this book at Amazon.com by performing a subject search, and lately it has received review attention in the scholarly journals. Thanks Amazon for the first notice! Mr Gelber has brought all phases of Mr Dryden's personal and literary biography vividly to life. Although both the scholarship and detail are immediate and wide-ranging, I was most pleased by Mr Gelber's justifiably genuine and unreservedly sympathetic view of his subject. Mr Dryden's reputation has been too much subject to petty carping and unjustifiable criticsm among scholars, whose views of this great man are sometimes both vicious and pernicious. Certainly the Father of Modern Literary Criticism deserves enduring and universal respect and esteem. He has received suitably respectful and sympathetic treatment from Mr Gelber; and I enjoyed having a favorite of mine so well praised. Thank you Mr Gelber; and I wish your book was lengthier; the last page made me wish for more!
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