Hello and welcome to the Discourse. John Dryden was the most influential literary figure of the Restoration age of English literature. John Dryden was born on 19th August 1631 and he died on 12th May 1700. He was an English Poet, literary critic, satirist, translator, and playwright. John Dryden was known for his use of a sharp edge of praise in his satires to attack his victims. He was appointed as England’s first Poet Laureate in 1688. Sir Walter Scott called him Glorious Dryden as he was the most significant and influential writer of the Restoration Age and that is why this period of English literature is also known as the Age of Dryden.
Dryden established Heroic Couplets as the standard form of English poetry. He wrote successful satires, religious pieces, fables, epigrams, compliments, prologues, and plays in Heroic Couplets.
Influences and Criticism
Alexander Pope was highly influenced by John Dryden and praised his imitation of Horace’s Epistle II by saying “Dryden taught to join / The varying pause, the full resounding line, / The long majestic march, and energy divine." Wystan Hugh Auden said that Dryden was “the Master of middle style.” Samuel Jonson was another admirer of John Dryden who praised Dryden and said, "the veneration with which his name is pronounced by every cultivator of English literature, is paid to him as he refined the language, improved the sentiments, and tuned the numbers of English poetry." Jonson further praised Dryden and said that he found English as a brick and left it to marble. However, Johnson also criticized Dryden for lack of sensibility in his writings and said, "He is, therefore, with all his variety of excellence, not often pathetic; and had so little sensibility of the power of effusions purely natural, that he did not esteem them in others. Simplicity gave him no pleasure."
William Wordsworth strongly criticized Dryden’s work and said Dryden's descriptions of natural objects in his translations from Virgil were much inferior to the originals. Yet, Wordsworth admired many of Dryden’s works and presented his famous ode “Intimations of Immorality” which is stylistically similar to Dryden’s ‘Alexander’s Feast.’ John Keats was another admirer of John Dryden who imitated Dryden’s ‘Fables’ in his poem Lamia. Mathew Arnold ignored John Dryden and Alexander Pope’s influence and suggested that both are “classics of our prose,” with lesser importance in the modern approach. George Sanistbury was an ardent admirer of John Dryden and T. S. Eliot was highly influenced by John Dryden and praised him for writing "the ancestor of nearly all that is best in the poetry of the eighteenth century," and that "we cannot fully enjoy or rightly estimate a hundred years of English poetry unless we fully enjoy Dryden".
John Dryden was an admirer of the Latin language and he often used Latin grammar in the English language and thus proposed that English sentences should not end in prepositions because Latin sentences cannot end in prepositions.
In 1644, John Dryden joined the Westminster School as a King’s Scholar. He wrote his first elegy in Westminster titled About the Death of Lord Hastings. John Dryden joined Oliver Cromwell’s government as an Assistant Secretary of State in 1650, He was close to puritan poets like John Milton and Andrew Marvell and processed with them at the funeral of Oliver Cromwell on 23rd November 1658. in 1659, he published his first major work titled ‘Heroic Stanzas’ which was a eulogy on Cromwell’s death. It was a cautious and prudent work in its emotional display as Dryden was aware of the upcoming political change. In 1660, Dryden published another major work titled Astraea Redux as a celebration of the return of Charles II to the throne. Astraea Redux is an authentic royalist panegyric work in which Dryden expressed interregnum as a period of chaos that is reduced or removed by the Restoration of the King as he restores peace and harmony. In this work, Charles II is presented as the restorer of peace and order. Dryden was criticized for siding with Royalists while initially, he was part of the Oliver government. But Samuel Jonson protected Dryden by saying that if he changed, he changed with the nation. Dryden successfully transferred his allegiance to King Charles II and wrote two more panegyrics titled To His Sacred Majesty: A Panegyric on his Coronation (1662) that he wrote as a celebration of the coronation of Charles II, and To My Lord Chancellor (1662).
The Puritan ban on English theaters was lifted in 1660. Dryden wrote his first play titled The Wild Gallant which was performed by the King’s Company on February 5, 1663. The play was published in 1667 and at the same time, Dryden published his historical poem Annus Mirabilis.
The literal meaning of Annus Mirabilis is ‘Year of Miracles.’ The poem commemorates the events of years 1665-1666 in London. Despite the title of the poem, the year was full of hardships for England. The poem described the English defeat of the Dutch naval fleet and the Great Fire of London in 1666. The title was perhaps meant to suggest that the events of the year could have been worse.
The first event mentioned in the poem of the miraculous year was the Battle of Lowestoft in which the Dutch Naval fleet defeated English ships. The second event was the Fourth Day Batlle of June 1666 which was not a clear defeat of the English forces. The tables were turned on July 25 1666 when English Navy thoroughly defeated the Dutch navy in St. James Day Battle. All these events constitute the first part of the poem Annus Mirabilis and suggest that despite the earlier setbacks, England miraculously emerged victorious under the leadership of King Charles II.
The second part of Annus Mirabilis majorly deals with the Great Fire of London. King Charles II had already announced his plans for improving and widening the streets of London and soon the fire broke. Despite the losses due to the major conflagration, the fire was stopped and London was saved with a promise that King Charles II will rebuild it. The poetic view of Annus Mirabilis is that these disasters were all averted, that God had saved England from destruction, and that God had performed miracles for England.
The poem contains 1216 lines of verse, arranged in 304 quatrains. Each line consists of ten syllables, and each quatrain follows an ABAB rhyme scheme. While Dryden is known for his use of Heroic couplets in his poems, he followed a pattern referred to as a decasyllabic quatrain in Annus Mirabilis. In this decasyllabic style, each quatrain essentially ends with a full stop and thus the poem gives a feel of prose that was noticed by A. W. Ward. Dryden again praised Charles II in this poem and suggested that a good king is required for the making of a great nation. Annus Miraculous became a strong reason behind the announcement of John Dryden as the first Poet Laureate of England.
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