44 Milton D. Baumgartner 



lation.^" Bouterwek regarded Dryden the founder of the theory 

 of the English drama " durch seinen vortrefflichen Versuch iiber 

 die dramatische Dichtkunst."^^ Besides making a detailed anal- 

 ysis of the Essay he also prints in foot-notes the passages from 

 the Essay containing the characterization of Shakspere, and that 

 dealing with the decorum of the French stage. He considers the 

 criticism of Dry den in the Essay and elsewhere both sane and 

 impartial. 



CHAPTER HI. The Drama 



Although the dramas of Dryden constitute the larger part of his 

 literary efforts, they are inferior to his critical, satirical, and lyr- 

 ical works. His twenty-six plays consisting of ten tragedies, ten 

 comedies, three tragi-comedies and three operas, cover a period of 

 twenty-five years of his career, beginning with The Wild Gallant 

 published in 1669 and concluding with Loz^e Triumphant, pub- 

 lished in 1694. Many of them were heroic plays based on the 

 French romances of Madame Scudery and others. For a time 

 they were exceedingly popular with the theater-going public of the 

 Restoration Period, but were short lived on account of their bom- 

 bast. His comedies as well as his serious plays abound in heroic 

 speeches, and more frequently portray types than individual char- 

 acters, but for all that they contain many beautiful passages. 



I. The Four Plays Translated in Germany 



Four plays of Dryden were translated in Germany : The Span- 

 ish Friar (1681), The State of Innocence (1674), Oedipus (1679), 

 and All for Love (1678) ; but their influence on the German stage 

 is not marked, and the translations were not made by the first 

 poets of Germany. Unfortunately Lessing's plan to translate and 

 discuss the plays of Dryden in the Theatralischen Bihliothek^ did 



*<> Theorie der Pocsie, p. 404. 

 31 Loco citato, VIII, p. 54 ff., 1810. 



1 Loco citato, chapter XII, p. 360 in Lessings Werke, D. N. L., vol. 62 

 (1755). 



