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John Dryden [1631-1700] ENG
Ranked #285 in the top 380 poets
Votes 80%: 92 up, 23 down

Poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright.

What Dryden achieved in his poetry was neither the emotional excitement of the early nineteenth-century romantics nor the intellectual complexities of the metaphysicals. His subject matter was often factual, and he aimed at expressing his thoughts in the most precise and concentrated manner. Although he uses formal structures such as heroic couplets, he tried to recreate the natural rhythm of speech, and he knew that different subjects need different kinds of verse. In his preface to Religio Laici he says that "the expressions of a poem designed purely for instruction ought to be plain and natural, yet majestic... The florid, elevated and figurative way is for the passions; for (these) are begotten in the soul by showing the objects out of their true proportion.... A man is to be cheated into passion, but to be reasoned into truth."

John Dryden (August 9, 1631 – May 12, 1700) was an influential English poet, literary critic, and playwright who dominated the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known as the Age of Dryden. John was the son of Erasmus Dryden (or Driden) and Mary Pickering, daughter of the Rev. Henry Pickering.Erasmus Dryden was the son of Sir Erasmus Dryden, and was a justice of the peace under Cromwell. On both sides Dryden`s family were of the Parliamentary party. He received his early education as a king`s scholar at Westminster and while there his first published work appeared. This was an elegy contributed in 1649 to the "Lachrymæ Musarum", a collection of tributes in memory of Henry, Lord Hastings. 

He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, 18 May, 1650, being elected to a scholarship on 2 October. He graduated as Bachelor of Arts, January, 1653-4, and after inheriting from his father a small estate worth £60 annually, he returned to Cambridge, living there until 1655. The "Heroic Stanzas" on the death of Oliver Cromwell, his first important work (1658), are smooth and vigorous, and while laudatory, are not meanly so. There is no attack on royalty and no mention of Cromwell`s religion. Dryden always was in favour of authority and of peace from civil strife, and consequently when disorders broke out upon Cromwell`s death, he, with the rest of the nation, welcomed the return of Charles II. He celebrated the king`s return with his poem of "Astræa Redux" (1660), in which he already showed his mastery of the rhymed couplet. Then followed his poems on the "Coronation" (1661); "To Lord Clarendon" (1662); "To Dr. Charleton" (1663); "To the Duchess of York" (1665); and "Annus Mirabilis" (1667). His great prose "Essay on Dramatick Poesie" appeared in 1668. Meantime, in 1662, Dryden had been elected to the Royal Society, and on 1 December, 1663, he was married to Lady Elizabeth Howard, eldest daughter of the Earl of Berkshire. 

In 1662 he began his dramatic career with "The Wild Gallant", a comedy of humours, influenced by Spanish sources. In 1663 appeared "The Rival Ladies", a tragi-comedy, also from a Spanish model. To this Dryden prefixed the first of the famous prefaces in which he laid down his principles of dramatic criticism. "The Indian Emperor", a heroic play, his first original drama, appeared in 1665. In 1667 he produced "The Maiden Queen", a comedy in which some blank verse us seen alongside of the rhymed couplet and prose; "Sir Martin Marall", a prose comedy based on "L`Etourdi" of Molière; and an adaptation of "The Tempest" with Davenant. "The Mock Astrologer" (1668) was an imitation of "Le feint astrologue" of Thomas Corneille, influenced by Molière`s "Dépit amoureux". About this time Dryden entered into an agreement with the King`s Theatre Company. According to this he was to produce three plays a year, for which he was to receive one and one-quarter shares out of a total of twelve and three-quarters. In the winter of 1668-9, "Tyrannic Love, or the Royal Martyr", a rhymed heroic tragedy, was played, and in 1670 his greatest heroic tragedy, the first and second parts of "Almanzor and Almahide, or the Conquest of Granada". 

Dryden was given the degree of M. A. by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1668; in 1670 he was made poet laureate and royal historiographer, which brought him an annual income of £200. In 1671 he was satirized in "The Rehearsal", a play written by Buckingham, Butler, and others. "Marriage à la Mode", a comedy in prose and rhyme,was played in 1672, as well as "The Assignation, or Love in a Nunnery", a prose comedy, interspersed with a little blank verse. "Amboyna" (1673) was a prose tragedy on the subject of the Dutch outrages, and "The State of Innocence" (1674) was an unsuccessful attempt to treat the theme of Paradise Lost. 

"Aurengzebe" (1676) is a rhymed tragedy in which the run-on lines show a tendency toward blank verse, which becomes triumphant in the next play, "All for Love" (1678). This is Dryden`s masterpiece, a play based on the story of Anthony and Cleopatra which he wrote to satisfy his own standards. It is a play worthy of comparison with Shakespeare`s "Anthony and Cleopatra", surpassing it in unity of time and motive, and in the part of Ventidius adding one of the great characters of the English drama. "Limberham" (1678), a prose comedy, was unsuccessful and was withdrawn after three nights. After the production of "Oedipus", a tragedy in blank verse written in collaboration with Lee in 1679, Dryden seems to have quarrelled with the King`s Company, and his next play, "Troilus and Cressida", (1679), an adaptation in blank verse of Shakespeare`s play, was produced by the Duke`s Company. With the "Spanish Friar" (1681) he closed for a time his dramatic career. He had in the meantime suffered as well as profited by his fame. The Earl of Rochester, suspecting that Dryden had aided Lord Mulgrave in his attack of Rochester in the "Essay on Satire", caused Dryden to be beaten by hired ruffians as he passed through Rose Street, Covent Garden, while returning from Will`s coffee house to his own house in Gerrard Street. It is characteristic of the unfair attitude taken by Dryden`s enemies that this cowardly assault was held by them to reflect upon his character. 

In November, 1681, Dryden began, in the first part of "Absalom and Achitophel", the series of satires in the rhymed couplet which placed him at the head of English satirical poets. "Absalom and Achitophel" was the most important literary expression of the party which prevented the exclusion of the Duke of York from the succession to the throne. It is also one of the greatest of English satires, especially in its portraiture of the characters of the Duke of Monmouth and the Earl of Shaftesbury, both of whom the author has represented allegorically in the title of the poem. Then followed, in March, 1682, "The Medal", an assault upon Shaftesbury. These poems occasioned many attacks on Dryden, and to one of them, the "Medal of John Bayes" by Thomas Shadwell, Dryden replied, in October, 1682, by "MacFlecknoe", a vigorous satire which dismissed Shadwell as the "last great prophet of tautology". In November, 1682, appeared the second part of "Absalom and Achitophel", in which Nahum Tate collaborated. In "Religio Laici" (1682) Dryden presented an argument for the faith of the Church of England, and in 1685, on the death of Charles II, he wrote an ode called "Threnodia Angustalis". In 1684 at Charles` request he had also translated "The History of the League" from the French of Maimbourg. Dryden`s position at the death of Charles was not an enviable one. His income from play-writing had ceased, his pensions were not regularly paid, though they were continued by James II, and in answer to his appeal for some of the arrears, which amounted to £1000 in 1683, he had received £75 and an appointment as collector of customs of the port of London, the emoluments of which office are not known. He was converted to Catholicism in 1686. This step was the natural outcome of his investigation into theology, the first result of which had been "Religio Laici". This poem, while a defence of the Church of England, showed a desire for an infallible guide in religious matters and indicates the direction in which Dryden`s thoughts were turning. The accession of James gave him the additional incentive of belonging to the king`s religion, a powerful motive in Dryden`s case, for he was a devoted adherent to authority in Church and State. Dryden was accused of time-serving by his enemies, but this charge is easily disproved by his perseverance in his conversion during the next reign, when he refused even to dedicate his translation of Virgil to William III, lest he should be suspected of denying his religious or political principles. 

Dryden published in April, 1687, "The Hind and the Panther", in some ways his most important work. It is divided into three parts; the first describes the different sects in England under the allegorical figures of beasts; the second deals with a controversy between the Hind (the Catholic Church) and the Panther (the Church of England); the third continues this dialogue and develops personal and doctrinal satire. In this poem Dryden succeeded in the difficult task of rendering argument in verse interesting. Especially noteworthy are lines 499-555 (second part), in which he describes the foundation and the authority of the Church, and lines 235-50 (third part), in which he defends his own course of action. In 1688 Dryden translated the "Life of St. Francis Zavier" from the French (1682) of Père Dominique Bouhours, S. J., and when an heir to the throne was born he celebrated the event in his poem of "Britannia Rediviva". The Revolution of 1688 deprived him of his laureateship, and other lucrative posts, on account of his refusal to take the oaths of allegiance to the new government, and left him practically dependent upon his own literary exertions. He turned once more to the stage and produced in 1690 "Don Sebastian", a tragi-comedy in blank verse and prose which rivals "All for Love" for the supreme place among his plays, and in the same year "Amphitryon", a comedy, based on Molière, though with several original situations. In 1691 followed "King Arthur", an opera-masque; in 1692 "Cleomenes", in which Dryden in the course of the blank verse relapses into rhyme; in 1694 "Love Triumphant", a tragi-comedy in blank verse and prose, the last of his plays. In 1693 he published another of his great critical essays, "A Discourse concerning the Original and Progress of Satire", and in 1695 "A Parallel of Poetry and Painting", prefixed to his translation of Du Fresnoy`s "Art of Painting". 

With his remarkable power of adaptation Dryden now gave his attention to another literary form, that of translation. He had before this, in 1680, made some translations of Ovid; and in the "Miscellanies" of 1684 and 1685, and of 1693 and 1694 there are specimens of Ovid, Horace, Homer, Theocritus and Lucretius, which, together with his more complete translations of Virgil and Juvenal, make a total of about 30,000 lines. In July, 1697, the "Pastorals", the "Georgics", and the "Æneid" of Virgil were published, and the edition was sold off in about six months. Meanwhile, in 1692, Dryden had composed an elegy on Eleonora, Countess of Abingdon, for which he received 500 guineas. About this time, also, he wrote his famous address to Congreve on the failure of the "Double Dealer". In 1699, at the close of his life, he published his "Fables". This volume contained five paraphrases of Chaucer, three of Boccaccio, besides the first book of the "Iliad", and "Alexander`s Feast", perhaps his greatest lyrical poem, written in 1697 for a musical society in London which celebrated St. Cecilia`s day. Dryden had also written the ode for the celebration in 1687 by the same society. Dryden did not long survive the publication of his last book. He died of inflammation caused by gout, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Blank verse, Classicism, Enlightenment, Laureate, Satire

YearsCountryPoetInteraction
1647-1680
ENG
John Wilmot
→ conflicted John Dryden
1771-1832
SCO
Walter Scott
→ praised John Dryden
1788-1824
ENG
George Gordon Byron
→ praised John Dryden
1888-1965
USA/ENG
Thomas Stearns Eliot
→ praised John Dryden
1907-1973
ENG/USA
W H Auden
→ praised John Dryden
-800--700
GRC
Homer
← translated by John Dryden
-70--19
ROM
Virgil
← translated by John Dryden
-65--8
ROM
Horace
← adapted by John Dryden
-43--17
ROM
Ovid
← translated by John Dryden
1340-1400
ENG
Geoffrey Chaucer
← praised by John Dryden
1640-1689
ENG
Aphra Behn
← friend of John Dryden
1688-1744
ENG
Alexander Pope
← influenced by John Dryden
1784-1859
ENG
James Henry Leigh Hunt
← influenced by John Dryden
1795-1821
ENG
John Keats
← influenced by John Dryden
1809-1894
USA
Oliver Wendell Holmes
← influenced by John Dryden
1917-1977
USA
Robert Lowell
← influenced by John Dryden


WorkLangRating
Mac Flecknoe: A Satire upon the True-blue Protestant Poet T
eng
5
You charm`d me not with that fair face
eng
2
Dreams
eng
1
Song (Sylvia The Fair, In The Bloom Of Fifteen)
eng
1
To Mr. Granville, On His Excellent Tragedy, Called Heroic Love
eng
1
A Prologue
eng
0
A Song for St. Cecilia`s Day, 1687
eng
0
A Song To A Fair Young Lady Going Out Of Town In The Spring
eng
0
A Song. High State And Honours To Others Impart
eng
0
A Song. Fair, Sweet And Young, Receive A Prize
eng
0
A Song. Go Tell Amynta, Gentle Swain
eng
0
Absalom and Achitophel
eng
0
Ah, how sweet it is to love!
eng
0
Alexander`s Feast; Or, The Power Of Music
eng
0
An Epilogue
eng
0
An Ode, On the Death of Mr. Henry Purcell
eng
0
Annus Mirabilis, The Year Of Wonders, 1666
eng
0
ASTRÆA REDUX. A Poem, on the Happy Restoration and Return of His Sacred Majesty, Charles the Second
eng
0
Britannia Rediviva: A Poem on the Birth of the Prince
eng
0
By a dismal cypress lying: A Song from the Italian
eng
0
Calm was the even, and clear was the sky
eng
0
Can life be a blessing
eng
0
Cymon And Iphigenia. From Boccace
eng
0
Eleonora : A Panegyrical
eng
0
Epilogue on the Same Occasion (Princess of Cleves)
eng
0
Epilogue to Henry II.
eng
0
Epilogue to The Husband His Own Cuckold
eng
0
Epitaph On a Nephew, In Catworth Church, Huntingdonshire
eng
0
Epitaph on Mrs. Margaret Paston, of Barningham, in Norfolk
eng
0
Epitaph on Sir Palmes Fairborne`s Tomb in Westminster Abbey
eng
0
Epitaph on the Lady Whitmore
eng
0
Epitaph on the Monument of a Fair Maiden Lady, Who Died at Bath, and is There Interred
eng
0
Epitaph on the Monument of the Marquis of Winchester
eng
0
Fair Iris I Love And Hourly I Die
eng
0
Farewell Ungrateful Traitor
eng
0
Farewell, Fair Armida. A Song
eng
0
Fragment of a Character of Jacob Tonson, His Publisher
eng
0
Happy the man
eng
0
Heroic Stanzas
eng
0
Hidden Flame
eng
0
Hymn For St. John`s Eve, 29th June
eng
0
Impromptu Lines Addressed To His Cousin, Mrs. Creed, In A Conversation After Dinner On The Origin Of
eng
0
Life a Cheat
eng
0
Lines In A Letter To His Lady Cousin, Honor Driden, Who Had Given Him A Silver Inkstand, With A Set
eng
0
Lines Printed Under The Engraved Portrait Of Milton, In Tonson`s Folio Edition Of The Paradise Lost,
eng
0
Mankind
eng
0
O Souls, In Whom No Heavenly Fire
eng
0
On the Death of a Very Young Gentleman
eng
0
On the Death of Amyntas. A Pastoral Elegy
eng
0
Palamon And Arcite; Or The Knight`s Tale. From Chaucer. In Three Books. Book II.
eng
0
Palamon And Arcite; Or, The Knight`s Tale. From Chaucer. In Three Books. Book I.
eng
0
Palamon And Arcite; Or, The Knight`s Tale. From Chaucer. In Three Books. Book III.
eng
0
Prologue For The Women, When They Acted at the Old Theatre, Lincoln`s-Inn-Fields
eng
0
Prologue Spoken at the Opening of The New House, March 26, 1674
eng
0
Prologue Spoken the First Day of the King`s House Acting After the Fire
eng
0
Prologue to Albumazar
eng
0
Prologue to Caesar Borgia
eng
0
Prologue to His Royal Highness, Upon His First Appearance at the Duke`s Theatre After His Return fro
eng
0
Prologue To Sophonisba; Spoken at Oxford, 1680
eng
0
Prologue to the Princess of Cleves
eng
0
Prologue to the Prophetess, by Beaumont and Fletcher. Revived by Dryden. Spoken by Mr. Betterton
eng
0
Prologue to the True Widow
eng
0
Prologue To The University Of Oxford, 1674.
eng
0
Religio Laici
eng
0
Roundelay
eng
0
Satire On The Dutch
eng
0
Sigismond And Guiscardo. From Boccace
eng
0
Song From Amphitryon
eng
0
Song From An Evening`s Love
eng
0
Song From Marriage-A-La-Mode
eng
0
Song Of A Scholar And His Mistress, Who, Being Crossed By Their Friends, Fell Mad For One Another; A
eng
0
Song to a Fair Young Lady
eng
0
Suum Cuique
eng
0
Tarquin And Tullia
eng
0
Te Deum
eng
0
The Beautiful Lady Of The May
eng
0
The Character Of A Good Parson. Imitated From Chaucer, And Enlarged
eng
0
The Cock And The Fox: Or, The Tale Of The Nun`s Priest
eng
0
The Fair Stranger. A Song
eng
0
The Flower And The Leaf, Or the Lady In The Arbour. A Vision
eng
0
The Hind And The Panther, A Poem In Three Parts : Part I.
eng
0
The Hind And The Panther, A Poem In Three Parts : Part II.
eng
0
The Hind And The Panther, A Poem In Three Parts : Part III.
eng
0
The Medal
eng
0
The Secular Masque
eng
0
The Tears Of Amynta, For The Death Of Damon. A Song
eng
0
The Wife Of Bath Her Tale
eng
0
Theodore And Honoria. From Boccace
eng
0
Threnodia Augustalis: A Funeral Pindaric Poem, Sacred To The Happy Memory Of King Charles II.
eng
0
To My Dear Friend Mr. Congreve On His Commedy Call`d The Double Dealer
eng
0
To my Friend Mr. Motteux, on His Tragedy Called Beauty in Distress, Published in 1698
eng
0
To My Honoured Friend Dr. Charleton, On His Learned and Useful Works, But More Particularly His Trea
eng
0
To my Honoured Kinsman John Driden, of Chesterton, in the County of Huntingdon, Esq.
eng
0
To Sir Godfrey Kneller, Principal Painter to His Majesty
eng
0
To the Lord Chancellor Hyde. Presented on New-Year`s Day, 1662
eng
0
To The Memory Of Mr Oldham
eng
0
To The Pious Memory Of The Accomplished Young Lady Mrs. Anne Killigrew, Excellent in the Two Sister
eng
0
Troilus And Cressida
eng
0
Upon the Death of Lord Hastings
eng
0
Upon the Death of the Viscount of Dundee
eng
0
Upon Young Mr. Rogers, of Gloucestershire
eng
0
Veni, Creator Spiritus
eng
0
Verses to Her Royal Highness the Duchess, on the Memorable Victory Gained by the Duke Against the Ho
eng
0
Your hay it is mow`d, and your corn is reap`d
eng
0

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