Dryden

Allied with Milton eventually but am now hopelessly struggling with Dryden. His Conquest of Granada is impossible, but again, I should read it as it was one of the crucial heroic plays that were so frequently parodied later on. It has a vaguely Achilles-like main character and starred Nell Gwyn and I hate it; that is about all I have to say about it. However, Dryden also provides an introduction on the subject of heroic plays which I've tried to read. He writes of the classical authors:

They made their heroes men of honour; but so, as not to divest them quite of human passions and frailties: they content themselves to shew you, what men of great spirits would certainly do when they were provoked, not what they were obliged to do by the strict rules of moral virtue.

Is he agreeing with Aristotle, that heroes should be flawed but still inherently right? I think he is, although perhaps not as emphatically. Lord, he's exasperating.