John Dalmas replies to me:

>>Well, according to my professors it was (18th century, not my field), and I
>>can certainly see their point . . .
>
>Dryden an 18th century poet? Come on, Steve. Dryden's dates (1631-1700)
>place him neatly in the 17th century.

Sorry.  In graduate curricula, Restoration and 18th-century are often
joined.

>>It's the Antony and Cleopatra story re-written according to the Aristotlean
>>unities.... I dimly recall a preface by Dryden in which he himself
>>explicitly courts comparison to the Shakespeare play.
>
>Steve, Shakespeare didn't have a copyright on the Antony and Cleopatra
>story.  It is history, and the story was often told in one form or another,
>before Shakespeare and right down to our own time with Samuel Barber's
>1965-66 opera, in which case Shakespeare's play was, in fact, adapted.
>Would you fault Barber for adapting Shakespeare's play for opera as you
>fault Dryden for adapting Milton's "Paradise Lost" for the stage?

Let me try to separate the three points you've raised.  First,
Dryden explicitly set out (ie, he says this in writing, according to
a Restoration/18th-century scholar of my acquaintance, whom I asked
specifically about this point) to "correct" Shakespeare.  Second, yes, it's
history (or what passed for it).  The difference with Shakespeare is that
he was adapting a story.  Dryden was "showing" how Shakespeare should have
adapted the story.  Third, Barber's adaptation and Dryden's adaptation
should be judged on their own merits.  That is, Barber's opera is miles
beyond Dryden's play, just as Shakespeare's A&C is, in my opinion, far
richer than Dryden's "All for Love."

>Furthermore, in Dryden's preface to "All for Love," the playwright writes
>of the oft told tale that he supposed the cause of the story's popularity
>among poets was "the excellency of the moral.  For the chief persons
>represented were famous patterns of unlawful love; and their end
>accordingly was unfortunate." In effect, by using the terms "among poets"
>and "famous patterns." Dryden is acknowledging a body of literature on the
>subject greater than just Shakespeare.

Again, I don't have the documents to dispute this.

>"All for Love," by the way, was immensely popular and established Dryden's
>reputation.  It was hardly a work you could say London theatergoers in the
>1670s found "incredibly dull."

Probably not.  In fact, if I had been a London theatergoer, especially one
unacquainted with Shakespeare's work, I probably would have applauded just
as hard.  But, in the words of David Mamet, "Things Change."

>But I will agree with Steve that without Purcell's music, Dryden's rhymed
>couplets would get little airing today outside academe.
>
>John Dalmas, BA English Literature, UCLA, 1961

Steve Schwartz, BA English, cum laude with honors, Oberlin College, 1968;
MA English, University of Michigan, 1969; Fullbright Fellow, English,
1972-73; Ph.D.  English, University of Michigan, 1974, BS computer science,
University of New Orleans, 1987; proud owner of a Captain Midnight secret
decoder ring, 1955.