Oedipus (Dryden play) a Tragedy" was regarded as the climax of Dryden's dramatic work. Charles Gildon, however, who revised many of Gerard Langbaine's articles in the manual on English Drama "An Account of the English Dramatick Poets", harshly criticised "Oedipus, a Tragedy", saying: The most understanding Judges wish they [i.e. Dryden/Lee] had followed Sophocles yet closer, it had then been the best of our Modern Plays, as ‘tis of the Ancients: but as it is, they have destroyed the Character of Oedipus… It remains uncertain which parts of this play were written by Dryden and by Lee. According to "The London Stage", Dryden
Tragedy imagination which was ‘so encompassing, so receptive to the plurality of diverse orders of experience.’ When compared to the drama of Greek antiquity and French classicism Shakespeare’s forms are ‘richer but hybrid'. Aristotle wrote in his work "Poetics" that tragedy is characterised by seriousness and involves a great person who experiences a reversal of fortune ("Peripeteia"). Aristotle's definition can include a change of fortune from bad to good as in the "Eumenides", but he says that the change from good to bad as in "Oedipus Rex" is preferable because this induces pity and fear within the spectators. Tragedy results in