Some Aspect of Wit in the Prose Works of John Dryden
Graduation Date
Spring 1951
Document Type
Master's Thesis
Document Form
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Degree Granting Institution
Catholic University of America
Program Name
Humanities
Abstract
In the great body of prose which represents Dryden’s literary theory and criticism, there is, as would be expected in any seventeenth-century material, an interesting recurrence of the term wit It is used in conjunctions which gradually demand recognition of the significance of this term as a means by which the literary theory of Dryden is provided with pattern. The term had for Dryden denotations sufficiently strong and clear to Justify his associating it with the fundamental problems of theory; it appeared to him sound enough to bear likewise the connotations which the accretions of that theory provided for his inspection and explication. That he did so consider it Is a fact established by bringing together the uses he makes of this term in his prose works; to what ends it served him in the organization and presentation of his theory is natter for judgement. This present work must naturally bear more heavily upon the former aspect than upon the latter, without, however, if it can be avoided, falsifying the conclusions which arc demanded by the material.
The purpose of this work, then, is to gather together the uses node by Dryden in his prose works of the terra wit, and to show from their relationships what conclusions can be established. Further, it seems inevitable that these conclusions must be basically associated with principles of Dryden's literary theory. As a critical torn, wit appears to be settled In the heart of that theory, nor can it be denied that it docs there the service of establishing a unity. It need not be added that this work could in no way be an attempt to trace, much less to analyze, any aspects of that great theory itself, men though the implications of the tern in question become such that nothing less would be satisfactory. In the absence of any general work on Dryden’s theory itself, there has been no alternative, in order to establish any conclusions at all, but to essay some elementary statements for which it appears the test provides the justification. The work itself has, however, only the one purpose of establishing a degree of order in the analysis of Dryden’s use of the term wit.