John Dryden publishes "Alexander's Feast"
circa. 1697
A little over a hundred years before the Romantic Period even started, a man named John Dryden published a book called Alexander's Feast. A few decades after the Romantic Period started, On the Supernatural in Poetry was published. In Radcliffe's work she essentially had a conversation with herself wherein she argued that the imagination used by an author had a large amount of influence over the settings of the book. She used Dryden as an example of what an author without imagination in his work is. This idea holds water, as Dryden was known for writing his ideas out as concisely as possible. He translated other works in a similar manner (Corse). However she also used Dryden as an example of an author that had the capacity to infuse his work with details that brought life to his book. She only cited Alexander's Garden as the work he put his imagination into. His one attempt at fleshing out his work with unnecessary details succeeding enough for Radcliffe to use it as a shining example on how important those details are in bringing life to a story.
