John Dryden biography

Dromo's Den

John Dryden Biography

DRYDEN, John (1631–1700). An English dramatist, poet, and critic, born at Aldwinkle, a village of Northamptonshire, Aug. 9, 1631. His father, Erasmus Dryden, was the third son of Sir Erasmus Dryden, or Driden, Baronet. Dryden received the rudiments of his education at Tichmarsh and was a King’s scholar at Westminster School, under Dr. Busby. In 1649 he contributed an elegy to the Tears of the Muses, a collection of 33 poems on the death of Henry, Lord Hastings. The poem, written in the "metaphysical" style, was a poor performance even for a schoolboy. In May, 1650, he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, and in October was elected to a scholarship from his old school. Later in the same year he prefixed a few commendatory verses to the Sion and Parnassus of John Hoddesdon; he graduated B.A. in January, 1654. His father died in 1654 and left him a small estate estimated at £60 a year, of which sum his mother had life interest in a third. It is thought that he remained at Cambridge till 1657 and then took up his residence in London. Like the rest of his family, he was an adherent of Cromwell. In 1658 he published his first poem of importance, entitled Heroic Stanzas to the Memory of Oliver Cromwell. The restoration of Charles II he celebrated in two poems, Astrœa Redux (1660) and Panegyric on the Coronation (1661). There is no good reason for doubting the sincerity of Dryden in these poems. He had admired Cromwell rather than Puritanism, and he was glad to see the old order restored. His social position, rather than his scientific attainments, was honored by election as fellow of the Royal Society (1662). He had become the friend of Sir Robert Howard, himself a poet, and on Dec. 1, 1663, he married Sir Robert’s sister, the Lady Elizabeth Howard, a woman whose previous reputation was not above the reach of scandal and with whom Dryden was unhappy. He had already begun his career as dramatist, and his first play, the Wild Gallant, was performed without success at the King’s Theatre in February, 1663. During the next 20 years he produced many successful plays, although the comedies are coarse and the tragedies stiff. The best is All for Love (1678), founded on Shakespeare’s Anthony and Cleopatra, written in blank verse, while his other tragedies are in heroic couplets. In the meantime he had produced Annus Mirabilis (1667), the subject of which is the Dutch war and the fire in London of the year before. In 1668 he published his great Essay on Dramatic Poesy, which established his reputation as one of the greatest English critics, but which led to a quarrel with his brother-in-law over the comparative merits of rhyme and blank verse. Though they both had written "heroic plays," i.e., melodramatic tragedies in rhymed couplet, Howard saw fit to defend blank verse against Dryden’s preference for rhyme. Later Dryden himself went back to blank verse, when under the spell of Shakespeare. In 1670 he was appointed poet laureate and historiographer with a salary of £200 a year. This double post he held till the revolution in 1688. In 1671 the Duke of Buckingham produced a famous attack on the English heroic drama, of which Dryden was the head. This satirical piece was entitled The Rehearsal, and when it was brought on the stage the town was amused to find all the artificialities of this kind of writing brought together and exaggerated and charged to Dryden. Although personally satirized, Dryden endured his castigation in silence and, awaiting his opportunity, incidentally revenged himself on the witty and profligate Duke in Absalom and Achitophel (first part, 1681). This magnificent satire arose out of the political commotions of the times and is an elaborate defense of the King against the Whig party. Charles II is David; Monmouth, Absalom; Cromwell, Saul; Buckingham, Zimri; and Shaftesbury, Achitophel. Its success was amazing. Immediately after its publication Shaftesbury was arrested on a charge of high treason, but the London grand jury, on November 24, threw out the indictment. His release was celebrated by a medal, with his portrait on one side and on the other a representation of the city of London. In March, 1882, Dryden published his satire The Medal. One of the numerous replies to this satire was written by a former friend, Thomas Shadwell, who attacked Dryden in a savage poem, The Medal of John Bayes. Dryden took a crushing revenge in his immortal MacFlecnoe, published October, 1682. In November Nahum Tate brought out a continuation of Absalom and Achitophel, into which Dryden inserted a passage containing magnificently savage portraits of Elkanah Settle, another of his enemies, and of Shadwell. His critics now crushed, Dryden became the undisputed king and lawgiver of English literature in his day. In 1682 he stated and maintained the doctrines of the Church of England in a poem entitled Religio Laici.

After the death of Charles II Dryden became a convert to the Roman Catholic faith. This event was announced by the publication of The Hind and Panther (1687). For this change of faith he has been much abused. Macaulay calls him "an illustrious renegade." Others strenuously defend his sincerity. At the revolution he was deprived of his laureateship, and, somewhat straitened in circumstances, he turned again to the stage. His translation of Vergil, begun in 1694, was published in 1697. In 1687 he had written his beautiful Song for St. Cecilia's Day, and exactly 10 years later he treated the subject with still greater success in his noble ode, Alexander's Feast. Both poems were written for a London musical society and were set to music. In 1699 he published, under the title of Fables, versions of Ovid, Boccaccio, and Chaucer, to which was added one of his great prefaces. He died May 1, 1700, and on the 13th was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Although the great bulk of Dryden's work consists of plays which are for the most part devoid of character, feeble in sentiment, false to nature, and exaggerated in expression, he must always remain a prominent figure in English literature. His Satires are masterpieces. In these he is masculine and natural, and his versification flows on, broad, deep, and majestic. Nor is it only as a poet that he excels; his prefaces and Essay on Dramatic Poesy prove him to be a master of "that other harmony of prose." Dryden's plays were published separately during his lifetime. His poems were collected in 1 vol. (1701), in 2 vols. (1742), and in 4 vols. (1760). His prose was collected in 4 vols. by Malone (1800). His Complete Works were edited with a Life, by Walter Scott in 18 vols. (Edinburgh, 1808; reprinted 1821, and revised by Saintsbury, 1882–93) ; the Poetical Works were edited, with a Life, by Christie (London, 1870); and a critical edition of Essays, ed. by Ker, was published in Oxford in 1900. Consult also: Garnett, Age of Dryden.

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. VII (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 278-279.