“I ADMIRE HIM (Jonson), BUT I LOVE SHAKESPEARE." Dramatic comment on Dramatic Poesy

You have read Dryden's "Essay on Dramatic Poesy," so I thought it was time to link Mr. Dryden's thoughts on Ben Jonson and Will Shakespeare to your own opinion on what makes a great writer.

“I admire him (Jonson), but I love Shakespeare.”
That is how Mr. Dryden ends this excerpt from his “Essay on Dramatic Poesy.” I, of course, am ecstatic that he gives Shakespeare his props. Ben Jonson is indeed one of the giants in English literature, but Shakespeare was the writer I read that convinced me that we are all connected, that a man writing 400 years ago could still understand exactly what a 15-year-old girl was feeling and explain it so that the words jumped off the page and into my heart. I have a feeling that some of you may not feel the same rapture when you read "Sonnet 130" that I did, though, so I would like you to think for a moment of a writer you do appreciate. Why do you love him/her? What criteria would you use to judge your favorite writer against Shakespeare—and have your choice win? Tell us all who would fill in this blank: I admire Shakespeare, but I love ____________________.” Then explain why. Post your point of view by 20 February 2011 here.

British Literature: What I'm Reading Now...

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm rereading this, and I am still boggled by the genius of it. I know most of my students will not appreciate the unfamiliar language and stilted style, though the concept is enough to keep anyone awake at night. To imagine the appearance of a photo (or painting) of oneself distorted by evil is true horror. First, I must admit to my sins, then list them and then assign a physical manifestation of each of them. Then I must paste them together  and the cumulative effect on my face will be screamingly disgusting. It makes one see the advantages to plastic surgery.

 The perpetrator of atrocities in the SAW movies has nothing on the nightmares a person can create for him or herself. Enjoy! P.S. Who is the subject of the photo?

UPDATE: from a review of another book, The Road, which I read directly after I finished Dorian Gray:
"I was in a weird frame of mind, having just finished The Picture of Dorian Gray. I had been thinking of the contemporary reactions to Dorian Gray during the century that had also produced Frankenstein. Their mouths must have dropped open to hear Wilde announce in the preface “the only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless.”

So—Wilde says, 'read at your own risk. This is something new, and I don’t care who knows it.' The audacity, the genius of it still thrills me.

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