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3. Poetic Works
Dryden was a poet of intellect, not of emotion. His
controversial and satirical poems were on a higher plane. His satire was
cutting and revengeful, rather than witty. The best known and a masterpiece
of this kind is “Absalom and Achitophel” (1687), which drew the story from
the Old Testament and bitterly ridiculed and attacked the Whigs, and to
revenge himself upon his enemies. This poem contains 1031 lines in three
parts. The first part deals with the background; the middle part describes
Achitophel’s character, his political conspiracy and how he persuades
Absalom to rebel against the king, Absalom’s father; the last part is about
the king’s critical situation and how the king defeats the rebellion with
the support of just people. Dryden bitterly satirized Achitophel to
Lord Shaftesbury
The following excerpt is just the satirical description
of Achitophel:
Of these the false Achitophel was first;
A name to all succeeding ages cursed:
For close designs, and crooked counsels fit;
Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit;
Restless, unfixed in principles and place;
In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace:
A fiery soul, which, working out its way,
Fretted the pygmy body to decay,
And o’er-informed the tenement of clay.
Religion also occupies an important position in
Dryden’s poetry, such as “Religio Laici” (1682) and “The Hind and the
Panther” (1687). In the poem “The Hind and the Panther”, Dryden defends the
Roman Catholic Church against the Anglican Church. He praised the Roman
Catholic Church as the elegant and pure hind while condemned the Anglican
Church and other churches as the cruel and brutal panther. Dryden eulogized
the hind like this:
A milk-white Hind, immortal and unchang'd,
Fed on the lawns, and in the forest rang'd;
Without unspotted, innocent within,
She fear'd no danger, for she knew no sin.
Dryden also wrote some odes, of which the notable ones
are “Heroick Stanzas”(1659) to praise Cromwell, “Annus Mirabilis”(1667) to
eulogize Charles II and “Alexander’s Feast” (1697) in praise of music.
4. His Prose and Criticism
Dryden was often called the first British dramatic
theorist and critic. His dramatic criticism became more systematic and
comprehensive. His ideas were expressed mainly in the prologues and
postscripts for his own dramas. His most famous dramatic critical works is
Of Dramatic Poesie, an Essay (1668).
It takes the form of a dialogue between four friends,
including Ncander who represents Dryden himself. The four discuss the
comparative merits of the old and new English drama and those of English and
French drama, two problems which were obviously the center of interest in
the critical circles at the time, as well as the form of dramatic poetry and
the achievements of Shakespeare.
The first speaker is Crites, who maintained that English
drama should model on classical writers and classical works, because present
dramatists could never surpass their ancestors. The second speaker, Eugenius
is against this view, insisting that present writers could create some
greater works, rather than only imitating those classical works.
The third speaker is Lisideius, who favored enthusiastically
French dramas and suggested that English drama model on and imitate its
neighbor’s. He favored the “three unities ” of the time, place and action as
set down by the French dramatists and critics as the neo-classical rules of
drama.
The fourth speaker is Neander. The name seems to be the combination of “neo”
and “andros” in Greek, meaning “newman”. He is the representative of Dryden.
Similarly, he also favored the neo-classical rules of drama, yet he showed
his preference for English drama to French drama, with particular eulogies
for Shakespeare, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Ben Johnson.
The following part is the comment on Shakespeare.
“To begin,
then, with Shakespeare. He was the man who of all modern, and perhaps
ancient poets had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the images of
Nature were still present to hem, and he drew them, not laboriously, but
luckily; when he describes and thing, you more than see it, you feel it too.
Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greater
commendation: he was naturally learn’d; he needed not the spectacles of
books to read Nature’; he looked inwards, and found her there. I cannot say
he is every where alike; were he so, I should do him injury to compare him
with the greatest of mankind. He is many times flat, insipid; his comic wit
degenerating into clenches, his serious swelling into bombast. But he is
always great, when some great occasion is presented to him; no man can say
he ever had a fit subject for his wit, and did not then raise himself as
high above the rest of poets.”
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