 | John Dryden - Literary Criticism - 2023 - 586 pages
...dull, and conversation low. . . . Wit's now arriv'd to a more high degree; Our native language more refin'd and free. Our Ladies and our men now speak more wit In conversation, than those poets writ. Dryden was eventually attacked for this concept of the primitive manners of the "last age" in The Friendly... | |
 | Eugene M. Waith - Drama - 1988 - 324 pages
...present and former wit are familiar: Wit's now arriv'd to a more high degree; Our native language more refin'd and free. Our ladies and our men now speak more wit In conversation than those poets writ. (11. 23-26) The polish of Terence's style is similarly ascribed by some to his familiarity with Scipio... | |
 | Michael Werth Gelber - Literary Criticism - 2002 - 358 pages
...the Poet, but the Age is prais'd. Wit's now arriv'd to a more high degree; Our native Language more refin'd and free. Our Ladies and our men now speak more wit In conversation, than those Poets writ. 2 When he published the play, he included the epilogue and, despite the public outcry, defiantly kept... | |
 | Paul Hammond - Drama - 2002 - 484 pages
...poet, but the age is praised. Wit's now arrived to a more high degree, Our native language more refined and free. Our ladies and our men now speak more wit...fears). Or else his writing is not worse than theirs. 30 Yet, though you judge (as sure the critics will) That some before him writ with greater skill, In... | |
 | Marcie Frank - Literary Criticism - 2002 - 194 pages
...current poet: the poet's inability to exceed his own age leaves him with apparently two alternatives. Then, one of these is, consequently, true; That what...fears) Or else his writing is not worse than theirs. (27-30) Either he can imitate the witty lords and ladies of the court who are his models, or he can... | |
 | Marcie Frank - Literary Criticism - 2002 - 194 pages
...current poet: the poet's inability to exceed his own age leaves him with apparently two alternatives. Then, one of these is, consequently, true; That what...fears) Or else his writing is not worse than theirs. (27-30) Either he can imitate the witty lords and ladies of the court who are his models, or he can... | |
 | John Dryden - English literature - 2003 - 1024 pages
...poet but the age is praised. Wit's now arrived to a more high degree; Our native language more refined and free. Our ladies and our men now speak more wit...fears), Or else his writing is not worse than theirs. 30 Yet, though you judge (as sure the critics will), That some before him writ with greater skill,... | |
 | Joseph Arrowsmith, Juan A. Prieto Pablos - Reformation - 2003 - 206 pages
...language as one of the main reasons: Wit's now ariv'd to a more high degree; Our native Language more refin'd and free. Our Ladies and our men now speak more wit In conversation, than those poets writ. (11: 20 1 ; 23-26) As the poet himself conceded, this was a bold claim. He therefore set out to substantiate... | |
 | John T. Lynch - Literary Criticism - 2003 - 244 pages
...Nearly all moderns have a leg up on the Renaissance: Dryden writes of the authors of the last age, "Our Ladies and our men now speak more wit / In conversation than those Poets writ." He writes elsewhere that Elizabethan authors, "had they liv'd now, had doubtless written more correctly... | |
 | William Andrews Clark Memorial Library Staff, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, Los Angeles. Center for 17th- & 18th- Century Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, Center for 17th- & 18th- Century Studies Staff - Literary Criticism - 2004 - 370 pages
...conformed his genius to the age. He grounds his boast on a general advance of civilization or manners: 'Our Ladies and our men now speak more wit / In conversation, than those Poets writ' - those poets being 'Shakespeare, Fletcher, and Jonson' (11:201, 204). This view of contemporary mores... | |
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Tis not the' poet, but the age is prais'd. Wit's now arriv'd to a more high degree; Our native language more refin'd and free. Our ladies and our men now speak more wit In conversation, than those poets writ. 
