John Dryden

English poet and playwright

• Born: August 19, 1631
• Birthplace: Aldwinkle, Northamptonshire, England
• Died: May 12, 1700
• Place of death: London, England

Poet, playwright, satirist, translator, and critic, Dryden was the central literary figure of the English Restoration period.

Early Life

John Dryden’s mother was Mary Pickering, the niece of the substantial landholder Sir John Pickering. His father was Erasmus Darwin, who, although the youngest son of his family, had been given a considerable parcel of land in Northamptonshire. Although members of the Church of England, both the Drydens and the Pickerings were Puritans.

The oldest of fourteen children, John may have begun his education in a village school or at home, continuing at Westminster School and at Trinity College, Cambridge. He wrote poems even as a schoolboy, and although they are not impressive, their existence does indicate that the creative impulse was present at an early age. His university record was not distinguished, yet his presence at Cambridge during a time when it was the center of philosophical and religious speculation, led by the Cambridge Platonists, obviously stimulated Dryden’s own questionings, which were to lead him to Roman Catholicism.

After the death of his father in 1654, Dryden left Cambridge to take up his responsibilities as the new head of the family. It is unclear whether he held a minor post in Oliver Cromwell’s government; he may simply have been preoccupied with family matters. At any rate, he must have been practicing his craft, as he produced his first mature published poem, Heroic Stanzas (1659), shortly after Cromwell’s death, dedicating the work “to the Glorious Memory of Cromwell.” Every line evidences Dryden’s mastery of his craft. The subject matter, too, is significant, as it was to become a preoccupation of Dryden in his later heroic tragedies and poems: the necessity for a man of stature, who, transcending the mob, can lead his society from chaos to order. With this poem, Dryden’s literary career began.

Life’s Work

When he began his career as a poet, Dryden was in a very different situation from that of many of his contemporaries. A portrait shows him as a handsome, well-dressed aristocrat, secure in his social position, yet with warm eyes and a generous mouth, which predict his later kindness to those less fortunate. Dryden had a comfortable income. He also had contacts that would propel him into the highest circles of English society. For example, the friendship of Sir Robert Howard, the son of the earl of Berkshire and a tested Royalist, proved helpful now that Charles II had returned from France as king.

Dryden’s next poem, Astraea Redux (1660), promised a new golden age in England, under the reign of Charles II. Other poems followed, including “To His Sacred Majesty,” on the coronation (1661); “To My Lord Chancellor” (1662), a tribute to Edward Hyde, first earl of Clarendon, a loyal supporter of both Charles I and Charles II who now had received his reward; and “To My Honor’d Friend Dr. Charleton” (1663), published along with the scientist Walter Charleton’s book on Stonehenge. It was Charleton who recommended Dryden for inclusion in the newly chartered Royal Society. Thus, despite his Puritan background, Dryden became a member of the inner circle of Restoration society, known to the court as a loyal supporter of Charles II.

Dryden’s association with the Howards was important both in his personal life and in his literary career. In 1663, he married Sir Robert’s sister, Lady Elizabeth, and by 1669, they had three sons. Meanwhile, he was also involved in Sir Robert’s theatrical ventures. When the English theaters were reopened after their suppression by the Puritans, it was Sir Robert Howard who joined with Thomas Killigrew to construct a new building for the Theatre Royal company. For that company, Dryden wrote his first play, a comedy titled The Wild Gallant (pr. 1663, pb. 1669). Although the play was not successful, it did start Dryden on his career as a dramatist. The playwright would go on to create comedies, tragedies, tragicomedies, and operas.

After the production of a rhymed tragicomedy and a collaboration with Howard, The Indian Queen (pr. 1664, pb. 1665), a highly successful and lavishly staged play about Montezuma, Dryden wrote The Indian Emperor: Or, The Conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards (pr. 1665, pb. 1667), which also dealt with the Aztecs. In it appeared Nell Gwyn , who was to become a famous actress and the favorite mistress of Charles II. At this point, bubonic plague hit London, sending the Drydens fleeing to the country. After the Great Fire burned much of London in 1666, Dryden wrote one of his finest poems, Annus Mirabilis (1667), which celebrated the incontestable courage of Charles and his leadership of the country in times of crisis.

As the decade concluded, Dryden’s fortunes continued to rise. Financially, he was doing so well that he could lend a considerable sum to Charles II. His plays were successful. In 1668, he was created poet laureate of England (there had been others who were informally considered poets laureate by virtue of a royal stipend, but Dryden was the first to hold the official title). Shortly afterward, he was made historiographer royal, with a sizable pension. In 1670, the ten-act The Conquest of Granada by the Spaniards, Part I (pr. 1670, pb. 1672), Dryden’s most famous heroic play, was the talk of London. Meanwhile, Dryden defended his literary practice with critical works that are still among the most lucid ever produced. Of Dramatic Poesie: An Essay (1668) presented various aesthetic viewpoints in dialogue form, arguing about whether ancient or contemporary works, French or English, were superior. “A Defence of An Essay of Dramatic Poesy” (1668) followed later in the year.

Although he and his works were criticized and satirized—for example, in The Rehearsal (pr. 1671, pb. 1672), by George Villiers, second duke of Buckingham—Dryden continued to write successful plays and criticism. All for Love: Or, The World Well Lost (pr. 1677, pb. 1678), perhaps his finest heroic tragedy, deals with Marc Antony’s conflict between love and honor, represented by his Egyptian mistress Cleopatra and his virtuous Roman wife Octavia. The following year’s production was not notable, perhaps because the Theatre Royal, with which Dryden had been so long associated, was in the process of disintegration.

Meanwhile, Dryden found means of retaliating against his enemies. In his satirical poem Mac Flecknoe: Or, A Satyre upon the True-Blew-Protestant Poet, T. S. (wr. 1678, pb. 1682), he attacked Thomas Shadwell and other inferior writers. With Absalom and Achitophel, Part I (1681), Dryden turned to a political subject, satirizing the opponents of Charles II who had plotted to remove Charles from the throne and to replace him with his illegitimate son, the duke of Monmouth. Although the topical references in the poem require some knowledge of Restoration political and religious parties, the character-types are timeless, from the Machiavellian Achitophel to his mindless, egotistical puppet Absalom, from the Bible-quoting fanatics to the ignorant, irrational followers of the elusive Inner Light—indeed, to all the disloyal groups in England.

Dryden’s preoccupation with the need for order prompted his defense of the Anglican Established Church, Religio Laici (1682). In 1685, Charles II died, acknowledging Roman Catholicism on his deathbed, and his Roman Catholic brother James II came to the throne. Late that year, Dryden became a Roman Catholic. He defended his new faith, at the expense of Anglicanism, in The Hind and the Panther (1687). Dryden has often been accused of having changed his religion whenever his rulers changed theirs. Certainly he moved from Puritanism to mainstream Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism at convenient times. It should be pointed out, however, that when James II revealed his stubborn intolerance and was dethroned in favor of the Protestants William III and Mary II, Dryden did not return to Anglicanism. As a result, he lost the posts of poet laureate and historiographer royal, along with considerable income.

In the last eleven years of his life, Dryden depended on the theater and on translation for much of his income. He wrote two tragedies, a comedy, an opera, a tragicomedy, and a masque. He translated works by Juvenal, Persius, Ovid, Tacitus, Geoffrey Chaucer, and Giovanni Boccaccio. In addition, he wrote odes and short poems, as well as publishing a volume of fables. His translation of The Works of Vergil (1697), which is still much admired, was a great financial success. Living in London, Dryden presided at Will’s Coffee House, where writers thronged to pay him homage. From time to time, he returned to Northamptonshire for a round of visits with relatives. His health, however, was declining. Although he continued to work, after 1697 he was seldom well. In the spring of 1700, his condition worsened, and on May 12, Dryden died. On May 13, his funeral procession, including more than one hundred coaches, moved slowly through London to Westminster Abbey, where he was buried next to Chaucer, whom he had always loved.

Significance

The Restoration was the Age of Dryden. He towered above his contemporaries, more than Alexander Pope in the first part of the following century or Samuel Johnson in the last. Furthermore, Dryden was the major influence on the neoclassicists of the eighteenth century, and after the heroic couplet went out of fashion, Dryden’s translations and his criticism continued to be models of their kind.

In a period of religious and political conflict, when schemers, fanatics, and visionaries continued to threaten not only the throne but also the rule of reason itself, Dryden’s voice urged careful skepticism in thought, sanity in decision, and decorum and dignity in action. His poetic practice mirrored his mind. It was Dryden who established the heroic couplet as a means of distilling passion and speculation into a brief, clear truth. It was he, too, who adapted the heroic couplet to highly effective satire, which could sum up venality, irrationality, or stupidity in two or four lines.

Dryden’s continuing self-criticism is exemplified by the fact that he was willing to change his own practice; when he decided that the couplet was not appropriate for heroic tragedy, he admitted his earlier mistake and wrote All for Love in blank verse. Operating out of his profound knowledge of the classics and of Renaissance writers, Dryden analyzed and synthesized, rather than imitating. Thus his odes differ in form and subject from their classical models. Original and magnificent, they became models for the writers of the eighteenth century.

The precision of Dryden’s mind was also evident in his prose works. As a translator, he was accurate in tone, as well as in meaning. Thus his 1697 translation of Vergil’s Georgics (c. 37-29 b.c.e.; English translation, 1589) is still believed to recreate the original as well as any translation can do. As a critic, Dryden was brilliant and lucid. Making his own evaluations of earlier writers, he did much to convince his own age of the glories of Chaucer and the Elizabethans, who should not be jettisoned, he believed, simply because they were not neoclassical. Again, his emphasis was rational: Critics should see the whole, not the parts, the work itself, not their own prejudices.

Although Dryden’s integrity has been questioned because of his changing religious allegiances, biographers now believe that his life was as honest as his works. Loathing anarchy, whether literary, political, or religious, Dryden did not, however, find order by settling into a narrow rigidity. His willingness to change as his reason prompted is illustrated by the years of religious questioning that preceded his final conversion. His courage, once he was convinced, is attested by the years when, having found the order that he had sought, he stood firm.

Dryden’s Major Works

1659

• Heroic Stanzas

1660

• Astraea Redux

1662

• “To My Lord Chancellor ”

1663

• The Wild Gallant

1664

• The Indian Queen (with Sir Robert Howard)

1664

• The Rival Ladies

1664-1700

• Prologues and Epilogues

1665

• The Indian Emperor: Or, The Conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards

1667

• Annus Mirabilis

1667

• Secret Love: Or, The Maiden Queen

1667

• Sir Martin Mar-All: Or, The Feign’d Innocence (with William Cavendish, duke of Newcastle; adaptation of Molière’s L’Étourdi)

1667

• The Tempest: Or, The Enchanted Island (with Sir William Davenant; adaptation of William Shakespeare’s play)

1668

• “A Defence of An Essay of Dramatic Poesy”

1668

• An Evening’s Love: Or, The Mock Astrologer (adaptation of Thomas Corneille’s Le Feint Astrologue)

1668

• Of Dramatic Poesie: An Essay

1669

• Tyrannic Love: Or, The Royal Martyr

1670

• The Conquest of Granada by the Spaniards, Part I

1671

• The Conquest of Granada by the Spaniards, Part II

1671

• “Preface to An Evening’s Love: Or, The Mock Astrologer ”

1672

• Marriage … la Mode

1672

• “Of Heroic Plays: An Essay”

1672

• The Assignation: Or, Love in a Nunnery

1673

• Amboyna: Or, The Cruelties of the Dutch to the English Merchants

1675

• Aureng-Zebe

1677

• ”The Author’s Apology for Heroic Poetry and Poetic License“

1677

• The State of Innocence, and Fall of Man, pb. 1677 (libretto; adaptation of John Milton’s Paradise Lost)

1677

• All for Love: Or, The World Well Lost

1678

• “Preface to All for Love”

1678

• The Kind Keeper: Or, Mr. Limberham

1678

• Oedipus (with Nathaniel Lee)

1679

• “The Grounds of Criticism in Tragedy”

1679

• Troilus and Cressida: Or, Truth Found Too Late

1680

• Ovid’s Epistles (translation)

1680

• The Spanish Friar: Or, The Double Discovery

1681

• Absalom and Achitophel, Part I

1682

• Absalom and Achitophel, Part II (with Nahum Tate)

1682

• The Duke of Guise (with Lee)

1682

• The Medall: A Satyre Against Sedition

1682

• Mac Flecknoe: Or, A Satyre upon the True-Blew-Protestant Poet, T. S.

1682

• Religio Laici

1684

• The History of the League (translation of Louis Maimbourg’s Histoire de la Ligue)

1685

• Albion and Albanius (libretto; music by Louis Grabu)

1685

• “Preface to Sylvae”

1685

• Threnodia Augustalis

1687

• The Hind and the Panther

1687

• “A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day”

1688

• Britannia Rediviva

1688

• The Life of St. Francis Xavier, 1688 (translation of Dominique Bouhours’s La Vie de Saint François Xavier)

1689

• Don Sebastian, King of Portugal

1690

• Amphitryon: Or, The Two Socia’s

1691

• King Arthur: Or, The British Worthy (libretto; music by Henry Purcell)

1692

• Cleomenes, the Spartan Hero

1692

• Eleonora

1693

• A Discourse Concerning the Original and Progress of Satire

1693

• “Dedication of Examen Poeticum”

1693

• The Satires of Juvenal and Persius (translation)

1694

• “To My Dear Friend Mr. Congreve”

1694

• Love Triumphant: Or, Nature Will Prevail

1695

• “A Parallel of Poetry and Painting”

1697

• Alexander’s Feast: Or, The Power of Music, an Ode in Honor of St. Cecilia’s Day

1697

• “Dedication of the Aeneis”

1697

• The Works of Vergil (translation)

1700

• “To My Honour’d Kinsman, John Driden”

1700

• “Preface to Fables Ancient and Modern”

1700

• The Secular Masque (masque)

1711

• “Heads of an Answer to Rymer”

Bibliography

Dryden, John. The Letters of John Dryden: With Letters Addressed to Him. Edited by Charles E. Ward. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1942. This slender volume contains the few letters of Dryden that are extant, along with careful scholarly notes by the author of a Dryden biography.

Fisk, Deborah Payne, ed. The Cambridge Companion to English Restoration Theatre. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Selection of essays about theater, performance, and the various types of plays produced in Restoration England.

Hammond, Paul. John Dryden: A Literary Life. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991. One of the titles in the Literary Lives Series.

Miner, Earl, ed. John Dryden. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1972. Essays on Dryden by major critics, including Jean H. Hagstrum, John Loftis, and Miner himself. Topics range from the political climate that produced Absalom and Achitophel to Dryden’s translations and his comedies. A major collection.

Owen, Susan J. Restoration Theatre and Crisis. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Describes how works by Dryden, Aphra Behn, and other playwrights both reflected and intervened in the highly politicized environment of Restoration theater.

Schilling, Bernard N., ed. Dryden: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1963. Among others, includes T. S. Eliot’s important essay on Dryden and Louis I. Bredvold’s “The Intellectual Milieu of John Dryden.” Some of the essays deal with single poetic works; particularly recommended are Earl Wasserman on “To My Honor’d Friend Dr. Charleton” and E. M. W. Tillyard on the ode to Anne Killigrew.

Ward, Charles E. The Life of John Dryden. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1961. The standard biography of Dryden, this work is clear, scholarly, and extremely readable. Much interesting material was relegated to the notes, so that the narrative itself would proceed without digression. Indispensable for an understanding of the writer and his works.

Winn, James Anderson. John Dryden and His World. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1987. Winn used public records, recollections of Dryden’s contemporaries and friends, and Dryden’s works to compile this biography.

Zwicker, Steven N., ed. The Cambridge Companion to John Dryden. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Collection of essays examining Dryden’s role as a poet, dramatist, and commentator, Dryden’s London, Restoration theater, and Augustan culture.