by Samuel Johnson

short biographies + critiques

52 poets

ordered chronologically by date of death

The Life of Pope - longest and best

Left out Chaucer, Shakespeare

Critique of Dryden

  • heroic stanzas

  • Wide Gallant

  • Absalom and Achitophel

  • Religio Laici

  • The Medal

  • Dryden as a Dramatist

  • as a Poet

  • Dryden as a Critic Of Dramatic Poesy “Dryden may be properly considered as the father of English Criticism”

  • Dryden as a Satirist

Called Dryden’s work pedantic ostentation said he enriched English language

refined Eng, metre, more music than Virgil

Critique of Pope

precocious child → translated Ovid’s Metamorpheses

mock heroics pastorals

No eye for details can’t sing lacks musical quality