Introduction: A Tercentenary Tribute

Individually, these pieces help us to rethink Dryden's encounter with the full range of political and cultural issues of his age: with the intricacies of court alliance, the temptations and dangers of empire, the dynamics of patronage and literary polemic, the frustrations of loyalism, and the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Huntington Library quarterly 2000-01, Vol.63 (1/2), p.1-4
Main Author: Zwicker, Steven N.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aspiration
Careers
Dryden, John (1631-1700)
Essays
Figurative Language
Imagination
Literary Genres
Poetry
Poets
Prose
Translation
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Summary:Individually, these pieces help us to rethink Dryden's encounter with the full range of political and cultural issues of his age: with the intricacies of court alliance, the temptations and dangers of empire, the dynamics of patronage and literary polemic, the frustrations of loyalism, and the twilight world of Roman Catholic recusancy he entered near the close of his century. Dryden wrote as a humanist, dependent on aristocratic patrons and aiming at eternity in the pantheon of letters; but he also wrote as an entrepreneur, sharply mindful of the taste of the theater-going public, of the practices of the book trade, and ever responsive to commission and occasion. How fitting, then, that this tercentenary tribute should itself form a miscellany-a collection of essays and reviews that will help determine our own habits of reading Dryden's poetry, drama, and criticism, and that will remind us how exacting are the arts of editing and of historical understanding. Perhaps with Fables Dryden "intended but a lodge," a casual assortment of favorite poems and translations; but he also understood that poems and plays, and essays and translations, not only provided the temporary shelter of a life of letters (and in Restoration England that was precarious shelter indeed), they might yet prove the best preservative of fame.
ISSN:0018-7895
1544-399X
DOI:10.2307/3817861