Enlightenment Drama & Virtue Poetry

Enlightenment drama and moral poetry explore conduct, judgment, and social relationships through theatrical action and patterned verse. Restoration and eighteenth-century writers inherited classical models while addressing the manners, controversies, and institutions of their own time. Dryden’s dramatic and satirical writing, Pope’s carefully balanced couplets, and Goldsmith’s comedy demonstrate different relations between wit and moral observation. Descriptive poetry also finds subjects in landscape, labour, and the rhythms of the seasons. The resulting works do not share one simple lesson: their particular voices and dramatic situations give force to disagreements about pride, generosity, learning, and good sense.