To the peculiar spirit of the heroic drama--to its strength as well
as to its weakness--no metrical form could have been more closely
adapted than the heroic couplet. It was neither flexible nor delicate;
but in the hands of Dryden, even more than in those of Davenant, it
became an incomparably vigorous and effective weapon of declamation.
As the most unmistakable and the most glaring mark of the new method
it was naturally placed in the forefront of the battle waged by Dryden
in defence of the heroic drama. It seems, indeed, to have struck him
as the strongest advantage possessed by the Restoration drama over the
Elizabethan, and as that which alone was wanting to place the
Elizabethan drama far ahead both of the Greek and of the French.
The claims of rhyme to Dryden's regard would seem to have been twofold.
On the one hand, he thought that it served to "bound and circumscribe"
the luxuriance of the poet's fancy. [Footnote: Dedication to _The Rival
Ladies_: _English Garner_, iii. 492.] On the other hand, it went to
"heighten" the purely dramatic element and to "move that admiration
which is the delight of serious plays" and to which "a bare imitation"
will not suffice.
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