For fifty years Dryden lived in the city of Milton, in the country of John
Bunyan; but his works might indicate that he inhabited a different planet.
Unlike his two great contemporaries, his first object was to win favor; he
sold his talent to the highest bidder, won the leading place among
second-rate Restoration writers, and was content to reflect a generation
which had neither the hearty enthusiasm of Elizabethan times nor the moral
earnestness of Puritanism.
Life
Knowledge of Dryden's life is rather meager, and as his
motives are open to question we shall state here only a few facts.
He was born of a Puritan and aristocratic family, at Aldwinkle, in
1631. After an excellent education, which included seven years at
Trinity College, Cambridge, he turned to literature as a means of
earning a livelihood, taking a worldly view of his profession and
holding his pen ready to serve the winning side. Thus, he wrote his
"Heroic Stanzas," which have a hearty Puritan ring, on the death of
Cromwell; but he turned Royalist and wrote the more flattering
"Astrĉa Redux" to welcome Charles II back to power.
His Versatility
In literature Dryden proved himself a man of remarkable
versatility. Because plays were in demand, he produced many that
catered to the evil tastes of the Restoration stage,--plays that he
afterwards condemned unsparingly. He was equally ready to write
prose or verse, songs, criticisms, political satires. In 1670 he
was made poet laureate under Charles II; his affairs prospered; he
became a literary dictator in London, holding forth nightly in
Will's Coffeehouse to an admiring circle of listeners. After the
Revolution of 1688 he lost his offices, and with them most of his
income.
In his old age, being reduced to hackwork, he wrote obituaries,
epitaphs, paraphrases of the tales of Chaucer, translations of
Latin poets,--anything to earn an honest living. He died in 1700,
and was buried beside Chaucer in Westminster Abbey.
Such facts are not interesting; nor do they give us a true idea of
the man Dryden. To understand him we should have to read his works
(no easy or pleasant task) and compare his prose prefaces, in which
he is at his best, with the comedies in which he is abominable.
When not engaged with the degenerate stage, or with political or
literary or religious controversies, he appears sane,
well-balanced, good-tempered, manly; but the impression is not a
lasting one. He seems to have catered to the vicious element of his
own age, to have regretted the misuse of his talent, and to have
recorded his own judgment in two lines from his ode "To the Memory
of Mrs. Killigrew":
O gracious God, how far have we
Profaned thy heavenly grace of poesy!
Works of Dryden
The occasional poems written by Dryden may be left in the
obscurity into which they fell after they had been applauded. The same may
be said of his typical poem "Annus Mirabilis," which describes the
wonderful events of the year 1666, a year which witnessed the taking of New
Amsterdam from the Dutch and the great fire of London. Both events were
celebrated in a way to contribute to the glory of King Charles and to
Dryden's political fortune. Of all his poetical works, only the odes
written in honor of St. Cecilia are now remembered. The second ode,
"Alexander's Feast," is one of our best poems on the power of music.
His Plays
Dryden's numerous plays show considerable dramatic power, and every one of
them contains some memorable line or passage; but they are spoiled by the
author's insincerity in trying to satisfy the depraved taste of the
Restoration stage. He wrote one play, All for Love, to please
himself, he said, and it is noticeable that this play is written in blank
verse and shows the influence of Shakespeare, who was then out of fashion.
If any of the plays are to be read, All for Love should be selected,
though it is exceptional, not typical, and gives but a faint idea of
Dryden's ordinary dramatic methods.
Satires
In the field of political satire Dryden was a master, and his work here is
interesting as showing that unfortunate alliance between literature and
politics which led many of the best English writers of the next century to
sell their services to the Whigs or Tories. Dryden sided with the later
party and, in a kind of allegory of the Bible story of Absalom's revolt
against David, wrote "Absalom and Achitophel" to glorify the Tories and to
castigate the Whigs. This powerful political satire was followed by others
in the same vein, and by "MacFlecknoe," which satirized certain poets with
whom Dryden was at loggerheads. As a rule, such works are for a day, having
no enduring interest because they have no human kindness, but occasionally
Dryden portrays a man of his own time so well that his picture applies to
the vulgar politician of all ages, as in this characterization of Burnet:
Prompt to assail and careless of defence,
Invulnerable in his impudence,
He dares the world, and eager of a name
He thrusts about and justles into fame;
So fond of loud report that, not to miss.
Of being known (his last and utmost bliss),
He rather would be known for what he is.
These satires of Dryden were largely influential in establishing the heroic
couplet, [Footnote: The heroic couplet consists of two iambic pentameter
lines that rime. By "pentameter" is meant that the line has five feet or
measures; by "iambic," that each foot contains two syllables, the first
short or unaccented, the second long or accented.] which dominated the
fashion of English poetry for the next century. The couplet had been used
by earlier poets, Chaucer for example; but in his hands it was musical and
unobtrusive, a minor part of a complete work. With Dryden, and with his
contemporary Waller, the making of couplets was the main thing; in their
hands the couplet became "closed," that is, it often contained a complete
thought, a criticism, a nugget of common sense, a poem in itself, as in
this aphorism from "MacFlecknoe":
All human things are subject to decay,
And when Fate summons, monarchs must obey.
Prose Works
In his prose works Dryden proved himself the ablest critic of his time, and
the inventor of a neat, serviceable style which, with flattery to
ourselves, we are wont to call modern. Among his numerous critical works we
note especially "An Essay of Dramatic Poesy," "Of Heroic Plays," "Discourse
on Satire," and the Preface to his Fables. These have not the vigor
or picturesqueness of Bunyan's prose, but they are written clearly, in
short sentences, with the chief aim of being understood. If we compare them
with the sonorous periods of Milton, or with the pretty involutions of
Sidney, we shall see why Dryden is called "the father of modern prose." His
sensible style appears in this criticism of Chaucer:
"He must have been a man of a most wonderful comprehensive nature,
because, as it has been truly observed of him, he has taken into
the compass of his Canterbury Tales the various manners and
humours (as we now call them) of the whole English nation in his
age. Not a single character has escaped him.... We have our fathers
and great-grand-dames all before us as they were in Chaucer's days:
their general characters are still remaining in mankind, and even
in England, though they are called by other names than those of
monks and friars and canons and lady abbesses and nuns; for mankind
is ever the same, and nothing lost out of nature though everything
is altered."
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