The Dramas of Lord Byron: A Critical Study (Classic Reprint) - Softcover

Samuel Claggett Chew

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1330371844 ISBN 13: 9781330371848

Publisher: Forgotten Books, 2020

Synopsis

Excerpt from The Dramas of Lord Byron: A Critical Study

Since thou canst join the tame translating crew, And banish Avon's bard for Kotzebue.

He also criticises the German taste for lawless passion which drives the feeling soul to frenzy, and sensibility with sickly mien which heaves the deep sigh and calls the starting tear. More drastic was the attack by John Styles, whose Essay on the Character and Influence of the Stage on Morals and Happiness (second edition, 1807) carries on the tradition of Tertullian and Grosseteste, Prynne and Collier. He writes (p. The recent introduction of the German drama may be considered a phoe nomenon in the world of dissipation. The writings of Con greve and Dryden are absolutely pure, when compared with the vile disgusting offspring of the profligate Kotzebue.

In 1798 appeared The Rovers, by Frere and Canning, the anti-jacobin's famous parody of the German plays. It had much to do with the swift decline of the vogue towards the end of the century. The fashion of tragedy began to change. Horrors continued to be popular, says Brandl (p. But less in the way of robbers, ghosts, and tyrants, external mis eries, crass romances, and empty tirades, than in inward commotions of the soul. There are attempts at psychological analysis. This tendency is seen in Wordsworth's Borderers (1795 Lamb's John Woodvil Scott's Sensuality and Revenge and Coleridge's Osorio. The new psychological drama is, however, best represented by the series of Plays on the Passions by Joanna Baillie.

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Excerpt from The Dramas of Lord Byron: A Critical Study Most people of culture have read Manfred and Cain; Byron's other plays are now almost unknown to that portion of the "general public" that reads poetry at all. Yet these plays deserve careful perusal, all but Werner, which is about as complete a failure as anything in literature. They are not absorbingly entertaining, but they are provocative of thought. Knowledge of them is essential, moreover, to the appreciation of B3Ton's entire achievement. There have been many monographs on the individual plays, but the whole group has never been studied with any degree of adequacy.1 Such a study is here essayed. It is introduced by a brief account of the chief characteristics of the drama of the romantic period, in order that Byron's plays -- too often regarded as a group of isolated phenomena - - may be related to the general historj' of dramatic literature. I planned to print as an appendix to this study a full Thought-Index to Byron's complete works - poems, letters, journals, and scattered prose writings; but it outgrew the space provided for it and shall be published separately. To record indebtedness is here a pleasure: to Professor J. W. Bright for constant encouragement and criticism; to Professor W. E. Leonard, of the University of Wisconsin, who has read my book in manuscript, for several valuable suggestions; to Air. John Murray for permission to use the copyright material in the Coleridge-Prothero Byron]a to Mr. Paul Elmer More and Mr. Richard Edgcumbe for courteous replies to queries; to Mr. George Shipley and Mr. Thomas DcG. Ruth for most welcome aid with the proofs; and to my earliest and best guide in poetry as in all tilings -- my father. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the

Edition details

• Publisher: Forgotten Books
• Publication date: 2020
• ISBN 10: 1330371844
• ISBN 13: 9781330371848
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 201