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John Dryden is considered one of the most accomplished poets of the Restoration Period. He was also gifted as a dramatist, essayist, satirist and critic, but despite his popularity little is known of him except what is contained in his works. Born on August 9, 1631 at Aldwinkle, Northamptonshire, Dryden grew older writing poems and already had been successful at it. Matthew Arnold said, Here at last we have the true English prose, a prose such as we would all gladly use if only we knew how (446). His father was a country gentleman. Drydenattended Westminister School as a young adult in London.
It is here he published the elegy Upon the Death of Lord Hastings in 1649. He graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge where he received his B. A. degree in 1654. This year also marks the death of his father.
Five years later he published his first significant poem Heroic Stanzas, about the death of Oliver Cromwell. The next year he bowed down to the return of King Charles II and made a complete turn-around. Health converted from Puritan, then Anglican, and finally settled on Roman Catholicism. Dryden began his career as a playwright, producing blank verse tragedies and comedies. He was named Laureate in 1668, but because of royal treasury funds running short he received only half of his reward for his membership.
Allow Love (1677) was arguable said to be his best play. He also wrote Absalom and Achitophel, which is a political poem published in 1681. Some would say Absalom and Achitophel is where he showed his full power of writing style, brothers would say that The Medall was just as good. He displays his full power Absalom and Achitophel, a political poem published in 1681. This poem was followed later by the equally impressive The Medall also on politics (Arnold 446).
After the revolution of 1688, which brought William and Mary to the throne of England, Dryden lost his Laureateship and was replaced by Thomas Shadwell, whom Dryden had satirized in Mac Flecknoe. John Dryden was also known for his Odes, which in simple terms is nothing more than a rhymed lyric poem. One of John Dryden's most famous Odes is Song for Cecilia's Day. John Dryden started out writing many odes, but when heirs started he wasnt very experimental with his writing as he later became. Dryden patterned his odes loosely on classical models. Later writers varied theory in many ways (Arnold 453).
It is said that there is a relationship between A Song for Cecilia's Day and John Dryden's domestic situation with his wife, Lady Elizabeth. His listening brethren stood around, And, wondering, on their faces fell To worship that celestial sound (Dryden 455). These lines give just a small hint about what mohave been going on between him and his wife. Overall he was generally known very well for his poems and odes, but always there will be those who dont agree. As for the Odes, these have been often enough and highly enough praised for a caveat of dispraise to be entered against them here.
They have at best, in my experience of them, a glinting and labored, ungainly, heteroclite, and flashy in hall-hearted and mechanical fashion (Morgan 67). Mac Flecknoe is said to possibly be Dryden's greatest works. Mac Flecknow is Dryden's masterpiece in the genre (Morgan 67). The first edition of Mac Flecknoe appeared in 1682. The idea for Mac Flecknoe was suggested by the death of the Irish priest and poet Richard Flecknoe. Apparently Drydenimagined Flecknoe, the monarch of the Realms of Non-sense, immediately before, appointed Shadwell as his worthy successor.
One thing that is important about Mac Flecknoe is it was made to hold the interest of many people better than other poems of the time. The piece of Dryden's which is most fun, which is the most sustained, display of surprise after surprise of wit from line to line, is Mac Flecknoe' (Elliot 10). It is believed among many literary researchers that Mac Flecknoe was meant to be a fun poem. It is still to this day one of his most popular works.
All for Love retells the story of the infamous Antony and Cleopatra. His play recounts how Antony is forced by family and friends to make a decision between staying with his wife Octavia or leaving to be with his mistress, Cleopatra. Antony must decide if he should stay with his deep love for Cleopatra be honorable and fulfill his duty with Octavia. All for Love is said to be Drydens most admired work as well as most financially successful play. All for Love was a rewritten account of Shakespheres Antony and Cleopatra but arch simpler version. We are forced to admit, however, that this is too simple, and that we owe the solitary outstanding play of All for Love rather to a fortunate group of circumstances than wholly to trends mounting up through the earlier dramas (Morgan 61).
Dryden produced many different kinds of works, including tragedies. Some admire his Don Sebastian, but the heart of his dramatic work and it is work that profoundly affected subsequent English tragic writing is in the heroic sequence climaxed by All for Love (Kaufmann 87). This was overall through his most successful play. Dryden All for Love or The World Well Lost is generally acknowledged as his play, and without much question it is the best tragedy of image (Prior 95) Little was known about Dryden unfortunately, except what is in his works.
Drydenwrote from the beginning to the end of the Restoration Period. In fact, many literary scholars consider the end of the Restoration Period to have occurred with Drydens death. John Dryden had a very successful career in many areas of literature, and was very well known among even the average literary reader. Even critics who tried to come with something wrong with his writing didnt base it only hard facts.
Most of the attacks on Dryden are painfully dull reading. The majority of them contain nothing, but the same stock charges against him (Osborn 31). It is generally well-known among literary scholars that John Dryden wasnt just a part of the Restoration Period, he is the Restoration Period. 1. Arnold, Matthew.
John Dryden The British Tradition. Ed. Ellen Bowler et al. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc. , 1996: 446 2 Dryden, John A Song for St. Cecilia's Day.
Rpt in The British Tradition. Ed. Ellen Bowler Et al. Ner Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc. , 1996: 453 3... Elliot, T. S.
John Dryden. Selected Essays of T. S. Elliot. New York: Harcourt, Brace &# 038; World, 1960. Rpt in Dryden.
Bernard Schilling. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, Inc. , 1963. 8 - 16. 4. Guide for Interpretation, A Song for Cecilia's Day The British Tradition Ed. Ellen Bowler et al. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc. , 1996: 452. 5. Kaufmann, R.
J. On the Poetics of Terminal Tragedy: Dryden's All for Love The Introduction to John Dryden's All for Love. San Francisco: Chandler Publishing Company. 1962 Rpt in Dryden. Bernard Schilling. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, Inc. , 1963. 86 - 94. 6. Morgan, Edwin Dryden's Drudging.
The Cambridge Journal VI, No. 7. 1953. 414 - 429 Rpt in Dryden. Bernard Schilling. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, Inc. , 1963. 55 - 70. 7. Osborn, James M. The Medal of John Bayes John Dryden: Some Biographical Facts and Problems. New York: Columbia University Press, 1940.
Rpt in Dryden. Bernard Schilling Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, Inc. , 1963. 31 - 42. 8. Prior, Moody E. Tragedy and the Heroic Play. The Language of Tragedy.
New York: Columbia Univeristy Press. Rpt in Dryden. Bernard Schilling. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, Inc. , 1963. 31 - 42.
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