John Dryden
(1631–1700)
Born in
Northamptonshire, England, on August 9, 1631, John Dryden came from a
landowning family with connections to Parliament and the Church of England. He
studied as a King’s Scholar at the prestigious Westminster School of London,
where he later sent two of his own children. There, Dryden was trained in the
art of rhetorical argument, which remained a strong influence on the poet’s writing
and critical thought throughout his life.
Dryden published his first poem in
1649. He enrolled at Trinity College in Cambridge the following year, where he
likely studied the classics, rhetoric, and mathematics. He obtained his BA in
1654, graduating first in his class. In June of that year, Dryden’s father
died.
After graduation, Dryden found work
with Oliver Cromwell’s Secretary of State, John Thurloe, marking a radical
shift in the poet’s political views. Alongside Puritan poets John Milton and Andrew
Marvell, Dryden was present at Cromwell’s funeral in 1658, and one year later
published his first important poem, Heroic Stanzas, eulogizing the
leader.
In 1660, Dryden celebrated the
regime of King Charles II with Astraea Redux, a royalist panegyric in
praise of the new king. In that poem, Dryden apologizes for his allegiance with
the Cromwellian government. Though Samuel Johnson excused Dryden for this,
writing in his Lives of the Poets (1779) that “if he changed, he changed
with the nation," he also notes that the earlier work was “not totally
forgotten” and in fact “rased him enemies.”
Despite this, Dryden quickly
established himself after the Restoration as the leading poet and literary
critic of his day. He published To His Sacred Majesty: A Panegyric on his
Coronation (1662), and To My Lord Chancellor (1662), possibly to
court aristocratic patrons. That year, Dryden was proposed for membership in
the Royal Society, and was elected an early fellow. In 1663, he married Lady
Elizabeth, the royalist sister of Sir Robert Howard.
Following the death of William
Davenant in April 1668, Dryden became the first official Poet Laureate of
England, conferred by a letters patent from the king. The royal office carried
the responsibility of composing occasional works in celebration of public
events. Dryden, having exhibited that particular dexterity with his earlier
panegyrics, was a natural choice. Though the position was most often held for
life (until 1999), Dryden was the lone exception. He was dismissed by William
III and Mary II in 1688 after he refused to swear an oath of allegiance,
remaining loyal to James II.
As a playwright, Dryden published The
Wild Gallant in 1663. Though it was not financially successful, he was
commissioned to produce three plays for the King’s Company, in which he later
became a shareholder. His best known dramatic works are Marriage á la Mode
(1672) and All for Love (1678), which was written in blank verse.
When the bubonic plague swept
through London in 1665, Dryden moved to Wiltshire where he wrote Of
Dramatick Poesie (1668). The longest of his critical works, the piece takes
the form of a dialogue among characters debating and defending international
dramatic works and practices. In 1678, Dryden wrote Mac Flecknoe (1682),
a work of satiric verse attacking Thomas Shadwell, one of Dryden’s prominent
contemporaries, for his “offenses against literature.” Other works of satire, a
genre for which Dryden has received significant praise, include Absalom and
Achitophel (1681) and The Medal (1682).
Though his early work was
reminiscent of the late metaphysical work of Abraham Cowley, Dryden developed a
style closer to natural speech which remained the dominant poetic mode for more
than a century. He is credited with standardizing the heroic couplet in English
poetry by applying it as a convention in a range of works, including satires,
religious pieces, fables, epigrams, prologues, and plays.
Dryden died on May 1, 1700, and was
initially buried in St. Anne’s Cemetery. In 1710, he was moved to the Poets’
Corner of Westminster Abbey, where a memorial has been erected.
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