...regulatory and formulaic Corneille and other French writers: To begin then with Shakespeare. He was the man who, of all modern and perhaps ancient poets, had...him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily. . . . Those who accuse him to have wanted learning give him the greater commendation. He was naturally...

...What Dryden, in his Essay on Dramatic Poesy, said concerning Shakespeare applies equally to Handel: "All the images of nature were still present to him,...them, not laboriously but luckily: when he describes anything, you more than see it, you feel it too." Yet while Handel describes a landscape or a bucolic...

...Shakespearean archetype. We are in some sense back with Dryden's claim that Shakespeare: 'was the man who of all Modern, and perhaps Ancient Poets, had...comprehensive soul. All the Images of Nature were present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily'." I will now turn to another species...

...and with little Latin, Shakespeare is claimed by Dryden not to have written with anything in mind: "Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greater commendation: he was naturally learn'd; he needed not the spectacles of Books to read Nature; he look'd inwards, and found her there."16...

...and its powers inspires almost all his praise. Like Dryden, whose tribute to Shakespeare as "the man, who, of all modern and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul" is saved for the end of the "Preface," he especially values how much that mind could take in.64 Others...

...name of the disegno interno, the inward drawing, or idea. 36 ) Shakespeare, says Dryden, was "the man who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had...him, and he drew them, not laboriously, but luckily " 37 The distinction between luck and labor, made by Dryden in favor of luck and Shakespeare, exploited...

...his works are the comments on it."i6 Dryden, in a phrase equally familiar, calls Shakespeare "the man who of all modern, and perhaps ancient, poets had the largest and most comprehensive soul."i7 The suggestion in all of these cases is of a kind of transcendent ventriloqmsm. It is as though...

...things; Shakespeare shows, or even becomes, things. Dryden's Neander had declared Shakespeare 'the man who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul':41 so comprehensive, indeed, that Pope could declare that 'every single character in Shakespear...

...here is Dryden in a famous passage in An Essay of Dramatic Poesie. Shakespeare, he writes, was the man who of all Modern, and perhaps Ancient Poets, had the largest and the most comprehensive soul ... If I would compare him Qonson] with Shakespeare, I must acknowledge...

...heavenly music seemed to make. III. ON A POET From Dryden. To begin then with Shakespeare. He was the man who of all modern and perhaps ancient poets had the...comprehensive soul. All the images of nature were present to him, and he drew them not laboriously but luckily. When he describes anything, you more...