Thomas Rymer
born 1641, near Northallerton,
Yorkshire, Eng.
died Dec. 14, 1713, London
English literary critic who introduced into
England the principles of French formalist
Neoclassical criticism. As historiographer
royal, he also compiled a collection of treaties
of considerable value to the medievalist.
Rymer left Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge,
without taking a degree and began to study law
at Gray’s Inn, London. Although called to the
bar in 1673, he almost immediately turned his
attention to literary criticism. He translated
René Rapin’s Réflexions sur la poétique
d’Aristote as Reflections on Aristotle’s
treatise of Poesie, in 1674. He required that
dramatic action be probable and reasonable, that
it instruct by moral precept and example (it was
Rymer who coined the expression “poetic
justice”), and that characters behave either as
idealized types or as average representatives of
their class. In 1678 he wrote The Tragedies of
the Last Age, in which he criticized plays by
the Jacobean dramatists Francis Beaumont and
John Fletcher for not adhering to the principles
of classical tragedy. He himself published in
the same year a play in rhyming verse, Edgar;
or, The English Monarch. In 1693 he published A
Short View of Tragedy, in which his
Neoclassicism was at its narrowest (and in which
he criticized Shakespeare’s Othello as “a . . .
Bloody farce, without salt or savour”). In A
Short View, Rymer rejected all modern drama and
advocated a return to the Greek tragedy of
Aeschylus. Rymer’s influence was considerable
during the 18th century, but he was ridiculed in
the 19th century; Thomas Babington Macaulay
called him “the worst critic that ever lived.”
In 1692 Rymer was appointed historiographer
royal, and, when William III’s government
decided to publish for the first time copies of
all past treaties entered into by England, Rymer
was appointed editor of the project. The first
volume, which covered the years 1101–1273, was
published in 1704. The 15th volume, covering
1543–86, appeared in 1713, the year of Rymer’s
death. His successor brought out a further five
volumes. Despite its deficiencies, the work,
whose short title is Foedera (“Treaties”), is a
considerable and valuable achievement.
