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