The Works of John Dryden

by John Dryden

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Genres: Poetry, Classics, Fiction, Collections

Paperback

First published January 1, 1956

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

John Dryden was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who was made Poet Laureate in 1668. He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden. Walter Scott called him "Glorious John."

Reviews

[Nicky · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not sure if Dryden's rewrite/butchery of Troilus and Cressida is actually included in the various works of John Dryden, but it's as good a place as any to record that I reread his version again. As I've said before, if you're looking for literary genius, just go back to Shakespeare and Chaucer. But Dryden's version is interesting. A line-by-line comparison would be interesting, to see where he changed and softened the lines of Shakespeare, and where he felt more was needed. It's kind of a more emotionally satisfying story, in a way -- but on the other hand, we didn't need another Romeo and Juliet.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 4 out of 5]

At the end of his life. Dryden described himself as one "who had done his best to improve the language and especially the poetry," of his country. To a substantial extent he was justified in saying this, for even putting aside his actually great activities in English prose, he had elucidated and tidied English verse, brushing away much of the picturesque yet puzzling tangle of ornamental undergrowth, and giving it point and certainty.

Dryden's literary life falls into three distinct periods The first, ending with 1681, is mainly the period of drama. But his real genius lay in other directions. The second period lasting from 1681 to the Revolution, saw the publication of all his best works. The third, from 1689 to his death, was the period of assorted production --- fables, translations, elegies, and writing to order for the book sellers.

Of his dramas, among the most important are his heroic plays of which the best are ‘The Indian Emperor’ and ‘The Conquest of Granada’. These are sensational tragedies in heroic couplets, full of rant, the scenes always laid abroad, the characters all kings and queens, great generals and fabulously lovely ladies.

However, they served to develop and perfect his powers of versification. In non- dramatic poetry, ‘Annus Mirabilis’ celebrates, in the heroic quatrain, the year of the Fire of London. ‘Religio Laici’ is a reasoned confession of faith. ‘The Hind and the Panther’ is a controversial defence of his newly-adopted Roman Catholicism. ‘Alexander's Feast’ is a magnificent ode written for St. Cecilia's Day. The Fables are mainly paraphrases and modernisations of Boccaccio and Chaucer. The ‘Translation of Virgil’ is a more faithful and spirited piece of work than Pope's ‘Homer’. Of these only the ‘Religio Laici’ and ‘Hind and the Panther’ may claim to be masterpieces.

But three pieces I have not named above, ‘Absalom Achitophel’, ‘The Medal’, and ‘MacFlecknoe’, and produced within the space of 12 months, are indisputably the masterpieces of English satire.

All said and done, Dryden was the paramount literary figure of the Restoration. "Every age has a kind of universal genius”, wrote Dryden, and these words are truer of him than of any other. Dryden stands between two very different ages -- the age of Milton and the age of Pope, and he served as a transition from one to the other. The change from the romantic to the classical manner was already in evidence before Dryden, but in his work this trend is abundantly established. He is thus a herald of the 18th century neo-classical poetry.

There are many more enthused writers than Dryden, but there appears no English writer who succeeded so well in so many diverse branches of writing.