Feature
John Dryden: master of
the heroic dramatists
Mohammad Shahidul Islam
On 19th August 1631, John Dryden, the British dramatist, poet and literary critic was born in Aldwinkle, Northamptonshire. He came to ascend the literary arena of his time and be considered master of the heroic dramatists.
Little is known about Dryden's early life, except that as a young boy, the eldest son of a large, socially prominent Puritan family received a classical education at Westminster School through a royal scholarship. While there, he published his first poem, Upon the Death of the Lord Hastings, commemorating the life of a schoolmate who had recently died of smallpox.
In 1650 Dryden began attending Trinity College, Cambridge, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree. Shortly afterward his father died, leaving him to oversee his family affairs and his own small estate. Dryden's activities and whereabouts during the next several years are unknown. However, in 1659 following the death of Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England, Dryden returned to writing and published Heroique Stanzas, a group of complimentary verses which portray Cromwell as architect of a great new age.
His grandeur he derived from Heaven alone,
For he was great ere Fortune made him so;
And wars, like mists that rise against the sun,
Made him but great seem, not greater grow.
In these four lines, taken almost at random from the Heroique Stanzas, we have an epitome of the thought, the preciseness, and the polish that mark all his literary work.
When he was eleven years old, the Civil War broke out and both sides of his family sided with Parliament rather than the King. As Dryden later became a very strong voice in favor of the monarchy, it is a pity that no one knows with whom he sympathized at this first exposure to the divide.
After receiving his BA from Trinity College Cambridge in 1654, he published several important works in the years immediately following. Among these, Astraea Redux and To his Sacred Majesty both were written when Charles II was restored to the throne as a means to reinforce and exalt the monarchy. At the time of Charles II's restoration to the throne, he granted patents for two theaters, and in 1663 Dryden saw his first play on stage. This same year he married to Lady Elizabeth Howard, daughter of Thomas Howard, First Earl of Berkshire. Two years later, he had his first great success with The Indian Emperor and the same year The Great Plague of London hit. Dryden fled town in order to avoid the Plague and wrote "Of Dramatic Poesie", a work that presents the principles of dramatic criticism. The year following the Plague was the year of The Great Fire of London and the birth of Dryden's first son, Charles.
In the years immediately following, Dryden's sons John and Erasmus Henry are born; he becomes Royal historiographer, and writes Annus Mirabilis to celebrate the victories over the Dutch and the survival of the Londoners through The Great Fire of London. This work, as well, reinforces the loyalty of the nation and endorses the royal image. Meanwhile, the Triple Alliance had gone underway and Charles II made a secret agreement with the French. In 1668 Dryden agreed to write exclusively for the Thomas Killigrew Co. and in 1677 wrote his first blank verse tragedy, All for Love. Two years later, Hired men in Rose Alley beat up Dryden, presumably due to the tense literary climate of the day.
Dryden had appealed to his readers mostly in his political and satirical poems, and in 1681, when Charles dissolved Parliament, Dryden wrote his most famous of these poems, Absalom and Achitophel. It was thought that James, Duke of York might success Charles II to the throne, and, in an effort to prevent that, the Whigs (led by Shaftesbury) used the Popish Plot to try to exclude James in favor of Charles' illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth. The King's tactics turned public opinion against the Whigs and Shaftesbury was arrested for treason. Dryden wrote Absalom and Achitophel to support the King. It is the Old Testament story of King David (meant to represent Charles II), his son Absalom (representing the Duke of Monmouth), and the treasonous Achitophel (Shaftesbury) who persuades Absalom to revolt against his father. It is a satirical poem, written from the point of view of the King and the Tories.
Dryden's place among authors is due partly to his great influence on the succeeding age of classicism. Briefly this influence can be summed up by noting the three new elements, which he brought into our English literature:
1. the establishment of the heroic couplet as the fashion for satiric, didactic, and descriptive poetry;
2. his development of a direct, serviceable prose style such as we still cultivate; and
3. his development of the art of literary criticism in his essays and in the numerous prefaces to his poems.
This is certainly a large work for one man to accomplish, and Dryden is worthy of honor, through comparatively little of what he wrote is now found on our bookshelves.
In 1685, four years after Absalom and Achitophel, Charles II died and Dryden died five years later, in London on May 12, 1700, of degenerative diseases. He wrote tragedy, comedy, tragicomedy, heroic play, opera, masque, and oratorio. His greatest strength and greatest weakness were both his boldness in writing and for that he will always be known and remembered. Once again we may celebrate his 378th birth anniversary dedicating the following lines:
” Lock by which the waters of English poetry were let down from the mountains of Shakespeare and Milton to the plain of Pope”; that is, he stands between two very different ages, and serves as a transition from one to the other.
(Writer is travel writer, works in National Tourism Organization.)
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