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001			77394
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040			_aUtSlPG
041		7	_aen _2iso639-1
050		4	_aPN
100	1		_aAnonymous
245	1	4	_aThe Druriad
264		1	_aSalt Lake City, UT : _bProject Gutenberg, _c2025
300			_a1 online resource : _bmultiple file formats
336			_atext _btxt _2rdacontent
337			_acomputer _bc _2rdamedia
338			_aonline resource _bcr _2rdacarrier
500			_aRelease date is 2025-12-03
508			_aMairi, Raymond Papworth, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
520			_aThe Druriad by Anonymous is a satirical poem with critical and explanatory notes, written in the late 18th century. It is a work of theatrical criticism centered on the performers of Drury-Lane Theatre. The likely topic is a spirited survey that celebrates outstanding actors while satirizing weak ones, lamenting declining taste, and urging higher standards on the English stage. An opening advertisement claims the theatre shapes public morals and warns that laxity has dimmed acting, setting a mission to praise merit and ridicule mediocrity. The poem, cast as a dialogue between an Author and a Friend, shifts from a playful debate about poetic fashions to a pointed tour of Drury’s company. It exalts Mrs Siddons for tragic mastery, Kemble for commanding Shakespearean roles, Miss Decamp for versatile brilliance, Mrs Pope and Mr King for comic truth, and Charles Kemble as a rising hope, while censuring others for bombast, miscasting, or coarse buffoonery, and rebuking managers for poor distribution of parts. Brief portraits touch many figures—Jordan, Powell, Palmer, Bannister, Suett, Barrymore, Goodall, Wathen, Kelly, and more—balancing flashes of praise with sharper rebuke. The extensive notes amplify the judgments, attack fashionable playwrights and pantomimes, defend serious drama, and call for renewed reverence for Shakespeare. The work closes with a plea for a poet to rekindle Shakespeare’s spirit and restore dignity and taste to the stage. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
534			_pOriginally published: _cLondon: W. J. and J. Richardson, 1798
653			_aVerse satire, English -- Early works to 1800
653			_aTheatre Royal, Drury Lane (London, England) -- Poetry
856	4		_uhttps://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_the-druriad-or-strictur_1798/mode/2up
856	4	0	_uhttps://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77394
999			_c118114 _d118114