John Dryden

 JOHN DRYDEN

             John Dryden was an English poet, literary, critic, translators, and playwright who was appointed England’s first poet  Laureate in 1668. He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration England to Such a point that period came to be known in literary circles as the age of Dryden.

               Dryden was born in 19 August 1631 the village of Aldwinkle, Northamptonshier. His family were prosperous people, who brought him up in the strict Puritan faith ,and sent him first to the famous Westminster school and then to Cambridge. He only well-known work of this period, the “Heroic Stanzas,” was written on the death of Cromwell.

                                                                             In 1650 Dryden went up to Trinity College, Cambridge. Here he would have experienced a return to the religious and political ethos of his childhood: the Master of Trinity was a Puritan preacher by the name of Thomas Hill who had been a rector in Dryden's home village. Though there is little specific information on Dryden's undergraduate years, he would most certainly have followed the standard curriculum of classics, rhetoric, and mathematics. In 1654 he obtained his BA, graduating top of the list for Trinity that year. In June of the same year Dryden's father died, leaving him some land which generated a little income, but not enough to live on.

                         Returning to London during the Protectorate, Dryden obtained work with Oliver Cromwell's Secretary of State, John Thurloe. This appointment may have been the result of influence exercised on his behalf by his cousin the Lord Chamberlain, Sir Gilbert Pickering. At Cromwell's funeral on 23 November 1658 Dryden processed with the Puritan poets John Milton and Andrew Marvell. Shortly thereafter he published his first important poem, Heroic Stanzas (1659), a eulogy on Cromwell's death which is cautious and prudent in its emotional display. In 1660 Dryden celebrated the Restoration of the monarchy and the return of Charles II with Astraea Redux, an authentic royalist panegyric. In this work the Interregnum is illustrated as a time of chaos, and Charles is seen as the restorer of peace and order.

                        He wife Lady Elizabeth Howard and his to children Charles, john, and Erasmus henry . Dryden died 12 may 1700,London,United kingdom.

                Dryden’s  work 

Dryden written many poem. Dryden famous poem is “The Hind and the Panther,”

  

A milk- white Hind, immortal and unchanged,

Fed on the lawns and in the forest ranged;

Without unspotted, innocent within,

She feared no danger, for she knew no sin.

 

         This poem published by Jacob Tonson in 1687. A Poem, in Three Parts (1687) is an allegory in heroic couplets by Dryden. This poem is longest of Dryden poem’s 2600 line in the poem. Translations excepted. This poem is a symbolize  for Roman Church; Anglicans, as a panther. the religious conflicts that the took place in England during the reign of king James ll. The poem defense  the catholic faith and of Catholicism in 1685.

               In this poem a three parts. In first part of the poem Dryden introduces the various religious factions of the time. Dryden include in the poem religious independent,represent,Quakers,atheists,boar represent Baptists, fox represented unitarians and wolf Presbyterians. Dryden includes  moving and beautifully express his own religious faith in the first.

        In the second part is vigorous the hind and panther in poem difference  Catholicism and Anglicanism. Anglicanism and Catholicism argued in verse . The great power.  The  verse issue in discussed a second part by Dryden. Main discussion a Church authority, biblical oral tradition, the catholic in fallibility in 1673 test act. The second part important state position and general purpose of the poem. 

                       Last and third part related political future of Catholics in England. The panther tells an animals fable with swallows and martins the swallows, and mild weather into delaying migration until are destroyed by the coming winter. Dryden warning to felloe Catholics that they depend king James’s pro-catholic policies. Anglicans church dangers themselves closely with supporters of the anti-Catholic  test act. End of poem with passages, suggest ,divine nature and the glorious future of the Catholic church.

       Dryden Translation 

 Dryden many admirers, he also had his share of critics, Mark van Doren among. Virgil’s Aeneid translating.

For example, take lines 789–795 of Book 2 when Aeneas sees and receives a message from the ghost of his wife, Creusa.

iamque vale et nati serva communis amorem.'

haec ubi dicta dedit, lacrimantem et multa volentem

dicere deseruit, tenuisque recessit in auras.

ter conatus ibi collo dare bracchia circum;

ter frustra comprensa manus effugit imago,

par levibus ventis volucrique simillima somno.

sic demum socios consumpta nocte reviso.

Dryden translates it like this:

I trust our common issue to your care.'

She said, and gliding passed unseen in air.

I strove to speak: but horror tied my tongue;

And thrice about her neck my arms I flung,

And, thrice deceived, on vain embraces hung.

Light as an empty dream at break of day,

Or as a blast of wind, she rushed away.

Thus having passed the night in fruitless pain,

I to my longing friends return again

Dramatic works

Dates given are (acted/published) and unless otherwise noted are taken from Scott's edition.

The Wild Gallant, a Comedy (1663/1669)

The Rival Ladies, a Tragi-Comedy (1663/1664)

The Indian Queen, a Tragedy (1664/1665)

The Indian Emperor, or the Conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards (1665/)

Secret Love, or the Maiden Queen (1667/)

Sir Martin Mar-all, or the Feigned Innocence, a Comedy (1667/1668)

The Tempest, or the Enchanted Island, a Comedy (1667/1670), an adaptation with William D'Avenant of Shakespeare's The Tempest

An Evening's Love, or the Mock Astrology, a Comedy (1668/1668)

Tyrannick Love, or the Royal Martyr, a Tragedy (1668 or 1669/1670)

Almanzor and Almahide, or the Conquest of Granada by the Spaniards, a Tragedy, Part I & Part II (1669 or 1670/1672)

Marriage-a-la-Mode, a Comedy (1673/1673)

The Assignation, or Love in a Nunnery, a Comedy (1672/1673)

Amboyna; or the Cruelties of the Dutch to the English Merchants, a Tragedy (1673/1673)

The Mistaken Husband (comedy) (1674/1675)[46]

The State of Innocence, and Fall of Man, an Opera (/1674)

Aureng-Zebe, a Tragedy (1676/1676)

All for Love, or the World Well Lost, a Tragedy (1678/1678)

Limberham, or the Kind Keeper, a Comedy (/1678)

Oedipus, a Tragedy (1678 or 1679/1679), an adaptation with Nathaniel Lee of Sophocles' Oedipus

Troilus and Cressida, or Truth found too late, a Tragedy (/1679)

The Spanish Friar, or the Double Discovery (1681 or 1682/)

The Duke of Guise, a Tragedy (1682/1683) with Nathaniel Lee

Albion and Albanius, an Opera (1685/1685)

Don Sebastian, a Tragedy (1690/1690)

Amphitryon, or the Two Sosias, a Comedy (1690/1690)

King Arthur, or the British Worthy, a Dramatic Opera (1691/1691)

Cleomenes, the Spartan Hero, a Tragedy (1692/1692)

Love Triumphant, or Nature will prevail, a Tragedy (1693 or 1694/1693 or 1694)

The Secular Masque (1700/1700)

Other works

The infant Prince of Wales whose birth Dryden celebrated in Britannia Rediviva

Astraea Redux, 1660

Annus Mirabilis (poem), 1667

An Essay of Dramatick Poesie, 1668

Absalom and Achitophel, 1681

Mac Flecknoe, 1682

The Medal, 1682

Religio Laici, 1682

To the Memory of Mr. Oldham, 1684

Threnodia Augustalis, 1685

The Hind and the Panther, 1687

A Song for St. Cecilia's Day, 1687

Britannia Rediviva, 1688, written to mark the birth of James, Prince of Wales.

Epigram on Milton, 1688

Creator Spirit, by whose aid, 1690. Translation of Rabanus Maurus' Veni Creator Spiritus[47]

The Works of Virgil, 1697

Alexander's Feast, 1697

Fables, Ancient and Modern, 1700

Palamon and Arcite

The Art of Satire

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