John Dryden

John Dryden (1631-1700)

1. Poet, Playwight, Critic Dryden born in Northamptonshire in 1631
2. Studied in King’s College, then Trinity College, Cambridge and graduated in 1654
3. Married the daughter of the Earl of Berkshire, Lady Elizabeth Howard.
4. Dryden’s poetry pleased charles II so much that he made him Poet Laureate in 1688. And two years later royal historiographer.
5. After the Revolution of 1688, Dryden lost his laureateship with the accession of William III because of his refusal to take an oath of allegiance. Dryden became out of favour with the court, and lived by the income of writing only.
6. Works:
   1. Upon the Death of Lord Hastings
      1. His first verse, elegy
      2. Contributed it for Lachrymae Musarum (1649)
   2. Heroic Stanzas
      1. Written on the death of Cromwell.
   3. Astraea Redux
      1. After restoration he wote a royalist panegyric in heroic couplet celebrating the return of Charles II
   4. To His Sacred Majesty A Panegyric
      1. Wrote for King’s Coronation.
   5. The Indian Emperor (tragedy 1665)
   6. Annus Mirabillis (Poem 1667)
   7. The Enchanted Island (comedy 1667)
      1. An adaptation with William D’Avenant of Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
   8. Secret Love, or Dramatick Poesie (1668)
      1. An Essay of Dramatic poesy
   9. An Evening’s Love (comedy 1668)
   10. Tyrannick Love (tragedy 1669)
   11. The Conquest of Granada (1670)
   12. Marraige a la mode (1672)
   13. Aurenga-Zebe (1675)
   14. All for love (1678)
   15. Oedipus (heroic drama, 1679, an adaptation with Nathaniel Lee of Sophocles’ Oedipus)
   16. The medal (1682)
   17. To The Memory of Mr oldham (Elegy written in 1684 on the death of the poet John Oldham).
   18. Threnodia Augustalis (1685)
       1. 517 lines poem
       2. Written to commemorate the death of Charles II
       3. Title: A reference to threnody, a poem of mourning
       4. Subtitle: A Funeral Pindarique Poem Sacred to the Memory of King Charles II
   19. A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day (1687)
   20. Amphitryon (1690)
   21. Love Triumphant (1694)
   22. The Works of Virgil (1697)
   23. Alexander’s Feast(1697) or Power of Music, An Ode in Honor of St Cecilia’s day.
       1. Second of Dryden’s Odes honoring Saint Cecilia, the Patron Saint of Music. The other being ‘A Song for saint Cecilia’s Day.’
       2. Describes the feast given by Alexander the Great at Persepolis after the Victory of Greeks over the Persian King Darius.
   24. Fables, Ancient and Modern (1700)
   25. Critical works:
       1. Absalom and Achitophel (1681)
       2. Mac Flecknoe (1682)
   26. Religio Laici (1682)
       1. Argues the case of Anglicanism.
       2. A verse essay that expresses Dryden’s tentatives and candid examination of major religious issues of his days and expresses his adherence to Church of England. Published as a premise to The Hind and the Panther.
   27. The Hind and the Panther (1687)
       1. Allegorical poem in heroic couplets written after dryden’s conversion to Catholicism in 1685.
       2. Adopts the framework of a beast fable, with Roman Catholics represented as Hinds, Anglicans as Panthers, Quakers as Hares, Presbyterians as Wolves, Independents as Bears, Anabaptists as Boar and Free thinkers as Apes.
   28. Translations:
       1. Virgil’s Aeneid
       2. Homer’s Iliad
       3. Ovid’s Epistles and Metamorphosis
   29. Absalom and Achitophel
       1. Published in 1681
       2. A political satire in heroic couplets. the political background of the poem revolves around the:
          1. Popish plot (1678, an alleged plot by Catholics to Kill the king and make England catholic Again),
          2. The Execution crisis (to keep Charles’ catholic brother James, from inheriting the throne after Charles’ death.)
          3. the Monmouth rebellion (1685: an attempt to put the king’s illegitimate son James, Duke of Monmouth on the throne.)
       3. David stands for King Charles II, Absalom for James, Duke of Monmouth.
       4. The poem bears resembalance with Paradise Lost. Achitophel is structured as Satan. David as God, Absolom becomes Adam.
       5. The second part of Absolom and achitophel is composed by Nahum Tate, playwright and poet laureate of Britain.
   30. Mac Flecknoe
       1. Dryden’s Mac Flecknoe; or, A Satyr upon the True-Blew-Protestan Poet, TS is a mock heroic poem published in 1682.
       2. The poem is an attack on Thomas Shadwell, a well-known playwright and an indifferent poet.
       3. There were several reasons for enmity between Shadwell and dryden. Both had different political affiliations. Dryden was a Tory and Shadwell was a Whig, both had different religious affiliations: Shadwell satirised Catholics and Anglican Priests in a play entitled: The Lancashire-Witches, and Tegue o Divelly the Irish Priest and ofended Dryden at a time when he considered to covert to catholicism. Both also had different literary ideas and preferences. When Dryden prefered shakespeare, Shadwell ideolised Johnson. Dryden prefered comedy of Wits when Shadwell comedy of humors.
       4. Dryden criticised Shaftesbury in his satirical poem The Medal, which provoked Dryden’s opponent Thomas Shedwell to write The Medal of John Bayes as the answer of the satire. Followed by the Publication of mac flecknoe in answer.
       5. In this poem, dryden portrays Shadwell as ‘mac’, the dullest son of flecknoe.