Talk:John Dennis (dramatist)

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Theatre Mid‑importance

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Literature

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Untitled

This article stinks. This is what you get for reprinting the 1911 Britanica. Since 1911, scholars have realized a lot more about Dennis's importance. The man nearly invented literary criticism in English, at least in the sense of a reviewer. His remarks are clever, intelligent, and, although of course limited by his time and place, usually perceptive. Yes, he has been subsumed in the figure of the Dunce, and Pope's battle with him (which Pope started) in Essay on Criticism onward has made it difficult to see Dennis for his own merits, but he has plenty of merits. Even more unbelievably, this article doesn't even have Dennis's most famous statement, upon the failure of his play, when he said, of the next performance (Macbeth) in 1709, "See! This is how they use me! They dash my play, but they will steal my thunder!" (He had invented a technique for creating the sound effect of thunder that, in fact, became the standard. It was stolen without payment or attribution.) He is the source of the phrase "steal your thunder." Before you ask why I don't fix it, I am living between nowhere and noplace and have access to nothing but web sources. Anyone with access to a DNB could make this article shine. Geogre 23:50, 26 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]