Editing John Dryden

{{Short description|English poet and playwright (1631–1700)}}
{{redirect|Dryden|the NHL goaltender|Ken Dryden|other uses|Dryden (disambiguation)|other people of the same name|John Dryden (disambiguation)}}
{{Use British English|date=January 2014}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2018}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| name = John Dryden
| image               = John Dryden portrait painting.jpg
| caption             = Portrait by [[Godfrey Kneller]], {{circa|1693}}
| office              = [[Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom|Poet Laureate of England]]
| monarch            = [[Charles II of England|Charles II]] (until 1685)<br>[[James II of England|James II]]
| term_start         = 13 April 1668
| term_end           = 1688
| predecessor        = ''Inaugural holder''
| successor          = [[Thomas Shadwell]]
| birth_date         = {{birth date|df=y|1631|8|19}}
| birth_place        = [[Aldwincle]], Northamptonshire, England
| death_date         = {{death date and age|df=y|1700|5|12|1631|8|9}}
| death_place        = London, England
| occupation = {{flatlist|
* Poet
* literary critic
* playwright
* librettist
}}
| alma_mater = [[Westminster School]] <br /> [[Trinity College, Cambridge]]
| spouse = {{marriage|Lady Elizabeth Howard|1 January 1663}}
| children = [[Charles Dryden (1666–1704)|Charles]], [[John Dryden (1668–1701)|John]], and [[Sir Erasmus Henry Dryden, 5th Baronet|Erasmus Henry]]
| module      = {{Infobox writer|embed=yes
| pseudonym    = 
| language     = English
|genre        = {{hlist|[[Satire]]|[[playwright]]|[[fable]]|[[poetry]]|[[essay]]|[[libretto]]|translation}}
| subject      = Politics and other
| notableworks = 
| period       = 1659–1700
| movement     = [[Classicism]]
| awards       = 
| signature    = Signatur John Dryden.PNG
}}
}}

'''John Dryden''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|d|r|aɪ|d|ən}}; {{OldStyleDate|19 August|1631|9 August}} – {{OldStyleDate|12 May|1700|1 May}}) was an English poet, [[literary critic]], translator, and playwright who in 1668 was appointed England's first [[Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom|Poet Laureate]].<ref>William Minto and Margaret Bryant (1911). "[[wikisource:1911_Encyclopædia_Britannica/Dryden,_John|Dryden, John]]". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. '''8.''' (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 609-613.</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia|url=https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/172371/John-Dryden |title=John Dryden (British author) |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |access-date=13 May 2014}}</ref>

He is seen as dominating the literary life of [[Restoration (England)|Restoration England]] to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden. [[Romantic era|Romantic]] writer [[Sir Walter Scott]] called him "Glorious John".<ref>Scott, W. ''Waverley'', vol. 12, ch. 14, The Pirate: "I am desirous to hear of your meeting with Dryden". "What, with ''Glorious John''?"</ref>

==Early life==
Dryden was born in the village rectory of [[Aldwincle]] near [[Thrapston]] in Northamptonshire, where his maternal grandfather was the rector of [[All Saints Church, Aldwincle|All Saints]]. He was the eldest of fourteen children born to Erasmus Dryden and wife Mary Pickering, paternal grandson of [[Sir Erasmus Dryden, 1st Baronet|Sir Erasmus Dryden, 1st Barone]]<!--- The [[Gregorian Calender]] was introduced in 1752. Dryden's dates are often given using the Gregorian or [[Julian calendar]]s.--->[[Sir Erasmus Dryden, 1st Baronet|t]] (1553–1632), and wife Frances Wilkes, [[Puritan]] landowning gentry who supported the Puritan cause and Parliament. He was a second cousin once removed of [[Jonathan Swift]]. As a boy, Dryden lived in the nearby village of [[Titchmarsh, Northamptonshire|Titchmarsh]], where it is likely that he received his first education. In 1644 he was sent to [[Westminster School]] as a King's Scholar where his headmaster was [[Richard Busby]], a charismatic teacher and severe disciplinarian.<ref>Hopkins, David, ''John Dryden'', ed. by Isobel Armstrong, (Tavistock: Northcote House Publishers, 2004), 22</ref> Having been re-founded by [[Elizabeth I of England|Elizabeth I]], Westminster during this period embraced a very different religious and political spirit encouraging royalism and [[High church|high Anglicanism]]. Whatever Dryden's response to this was, he clearly respected the headmaster and would later send two of his sons to school at Westminster.

As a [[Humanism|humanist]] public school, Westminster maintained a curriculum which trained pupils in the art of rhetoric and the presentation of arguments for both sides of a given issue. This is a skill which would remain with Dryden and influence his later writing and thinking, as much of it displays these dialectical patterns. The Westminster curriculum included weekly translation assignments which developed Dryden's capacity for assimilation. This was also to be exhibited in his later works. His years at Westminster were not uneventful, and his first published poem, an elegy with a strong royalist feel on the death of his schoolmate Henry, Lord Hastings, from smallpox, alludes to the execution of [[Charles I of England|King Charles I]], which took place on 30 January 1649, very near the school where Busby had first prayed for the King and then locked in his schoolboys to prevent their attending the spectacle.

In 1650 Dryden went up to [[Trinity College, Cambridge]].<ref>{{acad|id=DRDN650J|name=Dryden, John}}</ref> Here he would have experienced a return to the religious and political ethos of his childhood: the Master of Trinity was a Puritan preacher by the name of [[Thomas Hill (Cambridge)|Thomas Hill]] who had been a rector in Dryden's home village.<ref>''John Dryden The Major Works'', ed. by Keith Walker, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), ix–x</ref> Though there is little specific information on Dryden's undergraduate years, he would most certainly have followed the standard curriculum of classics, rhetoric, and mathematics. In 1654 he obtained his BA, graduating top of the list for Trinity that year. In June of the same year Dryden's father died, leaving him some land which generated a little income, but not enough to live on.<ref>''John Dryden The Major Works'', ed. by Keith Walker, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), x</ref>

Returning to London during [[the Protectorate]], Dryden obtained work with [[Oliver Cromwell]]'s Secretary of State, [[John Thurloe]]. This appointment may have been the result of influence exercised on his behalf by his cousin the Lord Chamberlain, Sir [[Sir Gilbert Pickering, 1st Baronet|Gilbert Pickering]]. At Cromwell's funeral on 23 November 1658 Dryden processed with the Puritan poets [[John Milton]] and [[Andrew Marvell]]. Shortly thereafter he published his first important poem, [[''Heroic Stanzas'']] (1659), a eulogy on Cromwell's death which is cautious and prudent in its emotional display. In 1660 Dryden celebrated the [[English Restoration|Restoration]] of the monarchy and the return of [[Charles II of England|Charles II]] with ''[[Astraea Redux]]'', an authentic royalist [[panegyric]]. In this work the [[Interregnum (England)|Interregnum]] is illustrated as a time of chaos, and Charles is seen as the restorer of peace and order.

==Later life and career==
After the Restoration, as Dryden quickly established himself as the leading poet and literary critic of his day, he transferred his allegiances to the new government. Along with ''Astraea Redux'', Dryden welcomed the new regime with two more panegyrics: ''To His Sacred Majesty: A Panegyric on his Coronation'' (1662) and ''To My Lord Chancellor'' (1662). These poems suggest that Dryden was looking to court a possible patron, but he was to instead make a living in writing for publishers, not for the aristocracy, and thus ultimately for the reading public. These, and his other nondramatic poems, are occasional—that is, they celebrate public events. Thus they are written for the nation rather than the self, and the [[Poet Laureate]] (as he would later become) is obliged to write a certain number of these per annum.<ref>Abrams, M.H., and Stephen Greenblatt eds. 'John Dryden' in ''[[The Norton Anthology of English Literature]]'', 7th ed., (New York: Norton & Co, 2000), 2071</ref> In November 1662, Dryden was proposed for membership in the [[Royal Society]], and he was elected an early fellow. However, Dryden was inactive in Society affairs and in 1666 was expelled for non-payment of his dues.
[[File:John Dryden by John Michael Wright, 1668 (detail), National Portrait Gallery, London.JPG|thumb|upright|150px|Dryden, by [[John Michael Wright]], 1668]]
[[File:John Dryden, Poet and Playwright (3959224502).jpg|thumb|upright|150px|Dryden, by James Maubert, c. 1695]]
On 1 December 1663, Dryden married the royalist sister of Sir [[Robert Howard (playwright)|Robert Howard]]—Lady Elizabeth. Dryden's works occasionally contain outbursts against the married state but also celebrations of the same. Thus, little is known of the intimate side of his marriage. Lady Elizabeth bore three sons, one of whom (Erasmus Henry) became a Roman Catholic priest.{{cn|date=January 2023}}

With the reopening of the theatres in 1660 after the [[London theatre closure 1642|Puritan ban]], Dryden began writing plays. His first play ''[[The Wild Gallant]]'' appeared in 1663, and was not successful, but was still promising, and from 1668 on he was contracted to produce three plays a year for the [[King's Company]] in which he became a shareholder. During the 1660s and 1670s, theatrical writing was his main source of income. He led the way in [[Restoration comedy]], his best-known work being ''[[Marriage à la mode (play)|Marriage à la Mode]]'' (1673), as well as heroic tragedy and regular tragedy, in which his greatest success was ''[[All for Love (play)|All for Love]]'' (1678). 

Dryden was never satisfied with his theatrical writings and frequently suggested that his talents were wasted on unworthy audiences. He thus was making a bid for poetic fame off-stage. In 1667, around the same time his dramatic career began, he published ''[[Annus Mirabilis (poem)|Annus Mirabilis]]'', a lengthy historical poem which described the English defeat of the Dutch naval fleet and the [[Great Fire of London]] in 1666. It was a modern epic in pentameter quatrains that established him as the preeminent poet of his generation, and was crucial in his attaining the posts of Poet Laureate (1668) and historiographer royal (1670).

When the [[Great Plague of London]] closed the theatres in 1665, Dryden retreated to Wiltshire where he wrote ''Of Dramatick Poesie'' (1668), arguably the best of his unsystematic prefaces and essays. Dryden constantly defended his own literary practice, and ''Of Dramatick Poesie'', the longest of his critical works, takes the form of a dialogue in which four characters—each based on a prominent contemporary, with Dryden himself as 'Neander'—debate the merits of classical, French and English drama. The greater part of his critical works introduce problems which he is eager to discuss, and show the work of a writer of independent mind who feels strongly about his own ideas, ideas which demonstrate the breadth of his reading. He felt strongly about the relation of the poet to tradition and the creative process, and his best heroic play ''[[Aureng-zebe]]'' (1675) has a prologue which denounces the use of rhyme in serious drama. His play ''[[All for Love (play)|All for Love]]'' (1678) was written in blank verse, and was to immediately follow ''Aureng-Zebe''.{{cn|date=January 2023}}

Dryden's poem "An Essay upon Satire" contained a number of attacks on [[Charles II of England|King Charles II]], his mistresses and courtiers, but most pointedly on the [[John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester|Earl of Rochester]], a notorious womaniser.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=https://planetpeschel.com/2008/12/john-dryden-suffers-for-his-art-1679/|title=John Dryden Suffers For His Art (1679)|last=Peschel|first=Bill|date=18 December 2008|website=Bill Peschel|language=en-US|access-date=5 February 2019|archive-date=13 February 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220213023722/https://planetpeschel.com/2008/12/john-dryden-suffers-for-his-art-1679/|url-status=dead}}</ref> Rochester responded by hiring thugs who attacked Dryden whilst walking back from [[Will's Coffee House]] (a popular London coffee house where the Wits gathered to gossip, drink and conduct their business) to his house on Gerrard Street. 
At around 8 pm on 18 December 1679, Dryden was attacked in Rose Alley behind the [[Lamb and Flag, Covent Garden|Lamb & Flag pub]], near his home in [[Covent Garden]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.londonremembers.com/memorials/dryden|title=Dryden|website=London Remembers|language=en|access-date=5 February 2019|archive-date=7 February 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190207072502/https://www.londonremembers.com/memorials/dryden|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>John Richardson, {{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0wUCjfE6Lk4C&pg=PA156 |title=The Annals of London |page=156 |publisher=University of California Press|year= 2000|isbn=978-0520227958 |access-date=30 July 2010}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Wilson|first=Harold J|date=1939|title=Rochester, Dryden, and the Rose-Street Affair|journal=The Review of English Studies|volume=15|issue=59|pages=294–301|doi=10.1093/res/os-XV.59.294|jstor=509792}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.luminarium.org/eightlit/rochester/wilmotbio.htm |title=John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester |publisher=luminarium.org |access-date=2 August 2010 }}</ref> Dryden survived the attack, offering £50 for the identity of the thugs placed in the [[The London Gazette|London Gazette]], and a Royal Pardon if one of them would confess. No one claimed the reward.<ref name=":0" />

Dryden's greatest achievements were in satiric verse: the mock-heroic ''[[Mac Flecknoe]]'', a more personal product of his laureate years, was a lampoon circulated in manuscript and an attack on the playwright [[Thomas Shadwell]]. Dryden's main goal in the work is to "satirize Shadwell, ostensibly for his offenses against literature but more immediately we may suppose for his habitual badgering of him on the stage and in print."<ref>Oden, Richard, L. Dryden and Shadwell, The Literary Controversy and 'Mac Flecknoe' (1668–1679); {{ISBN|0820112895}}</ref> It is not a belittling form of satire, but rather one which makes his object great in ways which are unexpected, transferring the ridiculous into poetry.<ref>Eliot, T. S., 'John Dryden', in ''Selected Essays'', (London: Faber and Faber, 1932), p. 308</ref> This line of satire continued with ''[[Absalom and Achitophel]]'' (1681) and ''The Medal'' (1682). His other major works from this period are the religious poems ''[[Religio Laici]]'' (1682), written from the position of a member of the Church of England; his 1683 edition of ''[[Parallel Lives|Plutarch's Lives Translated From the Greek by Several Hands
]]'' in which he introduced the word 'biography' to English readers; and ''[[The Hind and the Panther]],'' (1687) which celebrates his conversion to [[Roman Catholicism]].{{cn|date=July 2022}}
[[File:VirgilDryden1716Vol2.jpg|thumb|upright|left|200px|Frontispiece and title page, vol. II, 1716 edition, ''Works of Virgil'' translated by Dryden]]
He wrote ''Britannia Rediviva'' celebrating the birth of a son and heir to the Catholic [[James II of England|King]] and [[Mary of Modena|Queen]] on 10 June 1688.<ref>[http://www.bartleby.com/204/16.html Britannia Rediviva: a Poem on the Birth of the Prince. John Dryden. 1913. The Poems of John Dryden]. Bartleby.com. Retrieved 12 May 2014.</ref> 

When, later in the same year, James II was deposed in the [[Glorious Revolution]], Dryden's refusal to take the oaths of allegiance to the new monarchs, [[William III of England|William]] and [[Mary II of England|Mary]], left him out of favour at court. [[Thomas Shadwell]] succeeded him as Poet Laureate, and he was forced to give up his public offices and live by the proceeds of his pen. Dryden translated works by [[Horace]], [[Satires of Juvenal|Juvenal]], [[Ovid]], [[Lucretius]], and [[Theocritus]], a task which he found far more satisfying than writing for the stage. In 1694 he began work on what would be his most ambitious and defining work as translator, ''The Works of Virgil'' (1697), which was [[Publication by subscription|published by subscription]]. The publication of the translation of [[Virgil]] was a national event and brought Dryden the sum of £1,400.<ref>''John Dryden The Major Works'', ed. by Keith Walker, p. xiv</ref> Dryden translated the ''[[Aeneid]]'' into [[couplet]]s, turning Virgil's almost 10,000 lines into 13,700 lines; [[Joseph Addison]] wrote the (prose) prefaces for each book, and [[William Congreve]] checked the translation against the Latin original.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Dryden's ''Aeneid'' |first=Robert |last=Fitzgerald |authorlink=Robert Fitzgerald |journal=Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics |year=1963 |volume=2 |issue=3 |pages=17–31 |jstor=20162849 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20162849}}</ref> His final translations appeared in the volume ''[[Fables, Ancient and Modern|Fables Ancient and Modern]]'' (1700), a series of episodes from [[Homer]], [[Ovid]], and [[Giovanni Boccaccio|Boccaccio]], as well as modernised adaptations from [[Geoffrey Chaucer]] interspersed with Dryden's own poems. As a translator, he made great literary works in the older languages available to readers of English.{{cn|date=January 2023}}

==Death==
Dryden died on 12 May 1700, and was initially buried in St. Anne's cemetery in Soho, before being exhumed and reburied in [[Westminster Abbey]] ten days later.<ref>Winn, James Anderson. ''John Dryden and His World''. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987. p. 512</ref> He was the subject of poetic eulogies, such as ''Luctus Brittannici: or the Tears of the British Muses; for the Death of John Dryden, Esq.'' (London, 1700), and ''[[The Nine Muses]]''. A [[Royal Society of Arts]] [[blue plaque]] commemorates Dryden at 43 Gerrard Street in London's [[Chinatown (London)|Chinatown]].<ref name="EngHet">{{cite web| url=http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/dryden-john-1631-1700|title=Dryden, John (1631–1700)|publisher=English Heritage| access-date=26 April 2017}}</ref> He lived at 137 [[Long Acre]] from 1682 to 1686 and at 43 Gerrard Street from 1686 until his death.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Wheatley, Henry B.|author-link=Henry B. Wheatley|url=http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/007089756|title=Gerrard Street and its neighbourhood|year=1904|postscript=; 35 pages|publisher=K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co.}}</ref>

In his will, he left The George Inn at Northampton to trustees, to form a school for the children of the poor of the town. This became John Dryden's School, later The Orange School.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oTQJAAAAQAAJ&q=george+inn+northampton+john+dryden&pg=PA325|title=The Critical and Miscellaneous Prose Works of John Dryden: Now First Collected : with Notes and Illustrations|last=Dryden|first=John|date=1800|publisher=Cadell and Davies|isbn=9780608383576|language=en}}</ref>

==Reputation and influence==
[[File:Gérard Edelinck - John Dryden.JPG|thumb|left|Dryden near end of his life]]

Dryden was the dominant literary figure and influence of his age. He established the [[heroic couplet]] as a standard form of English poetry by writing successful satires, religious pieces, fables, epigrams, compliments, prologues, and plays with it; he also introduced the [[alexandrine]] and triplet into the form. In his poems, translations, and criticism, he established a poetic diction appropriate to the heroic couplet—[[W. H. Auden|Auden]] referred to him as "the master of the [[middle style]]"<ref>{{cite book|first =W.H.|last= Auden|chapter=New Year Letter|title= Collected Poems|page = 202|chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=0R-aO9bolKcC&pg=PA202 |editor-first = Edward|editor-last= Mendelson|editor-link=Edward Mendelson|publisher = Modern Library|date = 2007|isbn= 9780679643500}}</ref>—that was a model for his contemporaries and for much of the 18th century. The considerable loss felt by the English literary community at his death was evident in the elegies written about him.<ref>''John Dryden The Major Works'', 37</ref> Dryden's heroic couplet became the dominant poetic form of the 18th century. [[Alexander Pope]] was heavily influenced by Dryden and often borrowed from him; other writers were equally influenced by Dryden and Pope. Pope famously praised Dryden's versification in his imitation of [[Horace]]'s Epistle II.i: "Dryden taught to join / The varying pause, the full resounding line, / The long majestic march, and energy divine." [[Samuel Johnson]]<ref>{{cite book|chapter = Dryden|first= Samuel |last=Johnson|title=Samuel Johnson: The Major Works |editor-link=Donald Greene|editor-first= Donald|editor-last = Greene|page =  717|isbn = 978-0199538331|publisher = Oxford University Press|date =2009|orig-year=First Published 1779}}</ref> summed up the general attitude with his remark that "the veneration with which his name is pronounced by every cultivator of English literature, is paid to him as he refined the language, improved the sentiments, and tuned the numbers of English poetry." His poems were very widely read, and are often quoted, for instance, in [[Henry Fielding]]'s ''[[The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling|Tom Jones]]'' and Johnson's essays.

Johnson also noted, however, that "He is, therefore, with all his variety of excellence, not often pathetic; and had so little sensibility of the power of effusions purely natural, that he did not esteem them in others. Simplicity gave him no pleasure." Readers in the first half of the 18th century did not mind this too much, but later generations considered Dryden's absence of sensibility a fault.

One of the first attacks on Dryden's reputation was by [[William Wordsworth]], who complained that Dryden's descriptions of natural objects in his translations from Virgil were much inferior to the originals. However, several of Wordsworth's contemporaries, such as [[George Crabbe]], [[Lord Byron]], and [[Walter Scott]] (who edited Dryden's works), were still keen admirers of Dryden. Besides, Wordsworth did admire many of Dryden's poems, and his famous "Intimations of Immortality" ode owes something stylistically to Dryden's "[[Alexander's Feast (Dryden)|Alexander's Feast]]". [[John Keats]] admired the ''Fables'', and imitated them in his poem ''Lamia''. Later 19th-century writers had little use for verse satire, Pope, or Dryden; [[Matthew Arnold]] famously dismissed them as "classics of our prose". He did have a committed admirer in [[George Saintsbury]], and was a prominent figure in quotation books such as Bartlett's, but the next major poet to take an interest in Dryden was [[T. S. Eliot]], who wrote that he was "the ancestor of nearly all that is best in the poetry of the eighteenth century", and that "we cannot fully enjoy or rightly estimate a hundred years of English poetry unless we fully enjoy Dryden."<ref>Eliot, T. S., ''John Dryden'', 305–06</ref> However, in the same essay, Eliot accused Dryden of having a "commonplace mind".  Critical interest in Dryden has increased recently, but, as a relatively straightforward writer ([[William Empson]], another modern admirer of Dryden, compared his "flat" use of language with [[John Donne|Donne]]'s interest in the "echoes and recesses of words"<ref>{{cite book|first = William|last = Empson|title = Seven Types of Ambiguity|chapter = VII|page = [https://archive.org/details/seventypesofambi0000emps/page/199 199]|url = https://archive.org/details/seventypesofambi0000emps|url-access = registration|publisher = New Directions Publishing|date= 1966 |isbn = 9780811200370}}</ref>), his work has not occasioned as much interest as [[Andrew Marvell]]'s, [[John Donne]]'s or Pope's.<ref>[[Robert M. Adams (literary scholar)|Robert M. Adams]], "The Case for Dryden", ''The New York Review of Books'' 17 March 1988</ref>

[[File:John Dryden by Sir Godfrey Kneller, Bt.jpg|thumb|upright|150px| Dryden]]

Dryden is believed to be the first person to assert that English sentences should not end in prepositions because Latin sentences cannot end in prepositions.<ref>[http://ling.kgw.tu-berlin.de/lexicography/data/B_HIST_EU.html Gilman, E. Ward (ed.). 1989. "A Brief History of English Usage", Webster's Dictionary of English Usage. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, pp. 7a–11a], {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081201152753/http://ling.kgw.tu-berlin.de/lexicography/data/B_HIST_EU.html |date=1 December 2008 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Greene|first=Robert Lane|title=Three Books for the Grammar Lover in Your Life : NPR|website=NPR.org |url=https://www.npr.org/2011/05/17/133652882/three-books-for-the-grammar-lover-in-your-life?sc=fb&cc=fp|publisher=[[National Public Radio|NPR]]|access-date=18 May 2011}}</ref> Dryden created the proscription against [[preposition stranding]] in 1672 when he objected to [[Ben Jonson]]'s 1611 phrase, 'The bodies that those souls were frighted from.' However, he did not provide the rationale for his preference.<ref>Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey K. Pullum, 2002, The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 627ff.</ref> Dryden often translated his writing into Latin, to check whether his writing was concise and elegant, Latin being considered an elegant and long-lived language with which to compare; then Dryden translated his writing back to English according to Latin-grammar usage. As Latin does not have sentences ending in prepositions, Dryden may have applied Latin grammar to English, thus forming the rule of no sentence-ending prepositions, subsequently adopted by other writers.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3komDgAAQBAJ&q=word+by+word+kory+stamper|title=Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries|last=Stamper|first=Kory|date=1 January 2017|publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group|isbn=978-1101870945|pages=47|language=en}}</ref>

The phrase "blaze of glory" is believed to have originated in Dryden's 1686 poem ''[[The Hind and the Panther]]'', referring to the throne of God as a "blaze of glory that forbids the sight."<ref name=cresswell>{{cite book |first=Julia |last=Cresswell |title=The Cat's Pyjamas: The Penguin Book of Clichés |publisher=Penguin Books|year=2007|edition=2nd   |isbn=978-0141025162 |page=98 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m3MEbgED8eQC&pg=PT134 }}</ref>

==Poetic style==
What Dryden achieved in his poetry was neither the emotional excitement of the early nineteenth-century [[Romantic poetry|romantics]] nor the intellectual complexities of the [[metaphysical poets|metaphysicals]]. His subject matter was often factual, and he aimed at expressing his thoughts in the most precise and concentrated manner. Although he uses formal structures such as heroic couplets, he tried to recreate the natural rhythm of speech, and he knew that different subjects need different kinds of verse. In his preface to ''[[Religio Laici]]'' he says that "the expressions of a poem designed purely for instruction ought to be plain and natural, yet majestic... The florid, elevated and figurative way is for the passions; for (these) are begotten in the soul by showing the objects out of their true proportion.... A man is to be cheated into passion, but to be reasoned into truth."

===Translation style===
While Dryden had many admirers, he also had his share of critics, [[Mark Van Doren]] among them.  Van Doren complained that in translating Virgil's ''[[Aeneid]]'', Dryden had added "a fund of phrases with which he could expand any passage that seemed to him curt."  Dryden did not feel such expansion was a fault, arguing that as Latin is a naturally concise language it cannot be duly represented by a comparable number of words in English.  "He...recognized that Virgil 'had the advantage of a language wherein much may be comprehended in a little space' (5:329–30).  The 'way to please the best Judges...is not to Translate a Poet literally; and Virgil least of any other' (5:329)."<ref>{{cite book|last=Corse|first=Taylor|title=Dryden's Aeneid|publisher=Associated University Presses|page=15}}</ref>

For example, take lines 789–795 of Book 2 when Aeneas sees and receives a message from the ghost of his wife, Creusa.

<blockquote><poem>''iamque vale et nati serva communis amorem.{{'}}''
''haec ubi dicta dedit, lacrimantem et multa volentem''
''dicere deseruit, tenuisque recessit in auras.''
''ter conatus ibi collo dare bracchia circum;''
''ter frustra comprensa manus effugit imago,''
''par levibus ventis volucrique simillima somno.''
''sic demum socios consumpta nocte reviso''<ref>{{cite book|last=Virgil|title=The Aeneid|publisher=Bolchazy-Carducci|location=Mundelein IL|page=140}}</ref></poem></blockquote>

Dryden translates it like this:

<blockquote><poem>I trust our common issue to your care.'
She said, and gliding pass'd unseen in air.
I strove to speak: but horror tied my tongue;
And thrice about her neck my arms I flung,
And, thrice deceiv'd, on vain embraces hung.
Light as an empty dream at break of day,
Or as a blast of wind, she rush'd away.
Thus having pass'd the night in fruitless pain,
I to my longing friends return again<ref>{{Cite book|author=Virgil|title=Aeneid|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/228/228-h/228-h.htm|access-date=15 April 2014|date=March 1995}}</ref></poem></blockquote>

Dryden's translation is based on presumed authorial intent and smooth English. In line 790 the literal translation of ''haec ubi dicta dedit'' is "when she gave these words." But "she said" gets the point across, uses half the words, and makes for better English.{{According to whom|date=October 2022}} A few lines later, with ''ter conatus ibi collo dare bracchia circum; ter frustra comprensa manus effugit imago'', he alters the literal translation "Thrice trying to give arms around her neck; thrice the image grasped in vain fled the hands," in order to fit it into the metre and the emotion of the scene.

In his own words,

<blockquote>The way I have taken, is not so streight as Metaphrase, nor so loose as Paraphrase: Some things too I have omitted, and sometimes added of my own.  Yet the omissions I hope, are but of Circumstances, and such as wou'd have no grace in English; and the Addition, I also hope, are easily deduc'd from Virgil's Sense.  They will seem (at least I have the Vanity to think so), not struck into him, but growing out of him. (5:529)<ref>{{cite book|last=Dryden|first=Jonh|title=The Works of Virgil in English|date=1697|publisher=University of California Press|location=Berkeley}}</ref></blockquote>

In a similar vein, Dryden writes in his Preface to the translation anthology ''Sylvae'':

<blockquote>Where I have taken away some of [the original authors'] Expressions, and cut them shorter, it may possibly be on this consideration, that what was beautiful in the Greek or Latin, would not appear so shining in the English; and where I have enlarg’d them, I desire the false Criticks would not always think that those thoughts are wholly mine, but that either they are secretly in the Poet, or may be fairly deduc’d from him; or at least, if both those considerations should fail, that my own is of a piece with his, and that if he were living, and an Englishman, they are such as he wou’d probably have written.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Dryden|first1=John|title=Preface to Sylvae|url=http://www.bartleby.com/204/180.html|website=Bartelby.com|access-date=27 April 2015}}</ref></blockquote>

==Personal life==
On 1 December 1663, Dryden married Lady Elizabeth Howard (died 1714)<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.luminarium.org/eightlit/dryden/drydenbio.htm |title=The Life of John Dryden|website=luminarium.org|access-date=6 May 2017}}
</ref> at [[St Swithin, London Stone|St Swithin's, London]], and the consent of the parents is noted on the licence, although Lady Elizabeth was then about twenty-five. 

The couple met after 1660, when Dryden began lodging in London with her brother, Sir Robert Howard, son of the earl of Berkshire. The marriage lasted until his death, but there is little evidence about how they lived as a couple. A small estate in [[Wiltshire]] was settled upon them by her father. The lady's intellect and temper were apparently not good; her husband was treated as an inferior by those of her social status.<ref name=DNB>{{DNB |last=Stephen |first=Leslie|wstitle=Dryden, John |inline=1 |volume=16 |pages=66, 73–74}}</ref> 

Both Dryden and his wife were warmly attached to their children.{{sfn|Stephen|1888|p=66}} They had three sons: [[Charles Dryden (1666–1704)|Charles]] (1666–1704), [[John Dryden (1668–1701)|John]] (1668–1701), and [[Sir Erasmus Henry Dryden, 5th Baronet|Erasmus Henry]] (1669–1710). Lady Elizabeth Dryden survived her husband, but reportedly lost her wits after becoming a widow.{{sfn|Stephen|1888|pp=72-74}} Although some have historically claimed to be from the lineage of John Dryden, his three children, one of whom became a Roman Catholic priest, had no children themselves.<ref>
{{cite web
  |url=http://www.genealogy.com/users/d/r/y/Ron-Dryden/FILE/0003text.txt 
  |title=Archived copy 
  |access-date=25 June 2014 |url-status=dead 
  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140617020607/http://www.genealogy.com/users/d/r/y/Ron-Dryden/FILE/0003text.txt 
  |archive-date=17 June 2014}}
</ref>

==Selected works==
[[File:The Hind and the Panther 1687.jpg|thumb|The title page of ''[[The Hind and the Panther]]'']]
[[File:Alexander's Feast page 6.jpg|thumb|Frontispiece by Richard Savage for a 1904 edition of ''[[Alexander's Feast (Dryden)|Alexander's Feast]]'']]

=== Dramatic works ===
Dates given are (acted/published) and unless otherwise noted are taken from Scott's edition.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Works of John Dryden|editor=Walter Scott|year=1808|location=London|publisher=William Miller}}</ref>

*''[[The Wild Gallant]], a Comedy'' (1663/1669)
*''[[The Rival Ladies|The Rival Ladies, a Tragi-Comedy]]'' (1663/1664)
*''[[The Indian Queen (play)|The Indian Queen]], a Tragedy'' (1664/1665)
*''[[The Indian Emperour|The Indian Emperor]], or the Conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards'' (1665/)
*''[[The Maiden Queen|Secret Love, or the Maiden Queen]]'' (1667/)
*''[[Sir Martin Mar-all]], or the Feigned Innocence, a Comedy'' (1667/1668)
*''[[The Tempest (1667)|The Tempest]], or the Enchanted Island, a Comedy'' (1667/1670), an adaptation with [[William D'Avenant]] of [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare's]] ''[[The Tempest]]''
*''[[An Evening's Love]], or the Mock Astrologer, a Comedy'' (1668/1668)
*''[[Tyrannick Love]], or the Royal Martyr, a Tragedy'' (1668 or 1669/1670)
*''Almanzor and Almahide, or [[the Conquest of Granada]] by the Spaniards, a Tragedy'', Part I & Part II (1669 or 1670/1672)
*''[[Marriage à la mode (play)|Marriage-a-la-Mode]], a Comedy'' (1673/1673)
*''[[The Assignation]], or Love in a Nunnery, a Comedy'' (1672/1673)
*''[[Amboyna (play)|Amboyna]]; or the Cruelties of the Dutch to the English Merchants, a Tragedy'' (1673/1673)
*''[[The Mistaken Husband]]'' (comedy) (1674/1675)<ref>Authorship is unresolved; not included in Scott.</ref>
*''[[The State of Innocence]], and Fall of Man, an Opera'' (/1674)
*''[[Aureng-Zebe]], a Tragedy'' (1676/1676)
*''[[All for Love (play)|All for Love]], or the World Well Lost, a Tragedy'' (1678/1678)
*''[[Limberham, or the Kind Keeper]], a Comedy'' (/1678)
*''[[Oedipus (play by John Dryden)|Oedipus]], a Tragedy'' (1678 or 1679/1679), an adaptation with [[Nathaniel Lee]] of [[Sophocles]]' ''[[Oedipus]]''
*''[[Troilus and Cressida (Dryden play)|Troilus and Cressida, or Truth found too late, a Tragedy]]'' (/1679)
*''[[The Spanish Friar]], or the Double Discovery'' (1681 or 1682/)
*''[[The Duke of Guise (play)|The Duke of Guise]], a Tragedy'' (1682/1683) with Nathaniel Lee
*''[[Albion and Albanius]], an Opera'' (1685/1685)
*''[[Don Sebastian (play)|Don Sebastian]], a Tragedy'' (1690/1690)
*''[[Amphitryon (Dryden)|Amphitryon]], or the Two Sosias, a Comedy'' (1690/1690)
*''[[King Arthur (opera)|King Arthur]], or the British Worthy, a Dramatic Opera'' (1691/1691)
*''[[Cleomenes, the Spartan Hero|Cleomenes, the Spartan Hero, a Tragedy]]'' (1692/1692)
*''[[Love Triumphant|Love Triumphant, or Nature will prevail, a Tragedy]]'' (1693 or 1694/1693 or 1694)
*''[[The Secular Masque]]'' (1700/1700)

=== Other works ===
[[File:Jacobite broadside - Portrait of Prince James as a young boy cropped.jpg|thumb|The [[James Francis Edward Stuart|infant Prince of Wales]] whose birth Dryden celebrated in ''Britannia Rediviva'']]

*''[[Astraea Redux]]'', 1660
*''[[Annus Mirabilis (poem)|Annus Mirabilis]]'' (poem), 1667
*''[[Essay of Dramatick Poesie|An Essay of Dramatick Poesie]]'', 1668
*''[[Absalom and Achitophel]]'', 1681
*''[[Mac Flecknoe]]'', 1682
*''The Medal'', 1682
*''[[Religio Laici]]'', 1682
*''[[To the Memory of Mr. Oldham]]'', 1684
*''[[Threnodia Augustalis]]'', 1685
*''[[The Hind and the Panther]]'', 1687
*''[[A Song for St. Cecilia's Day]]'', 1687
*''Britannia Rediviva'', 1688, written to mark the birth of [[James Francis Edward Stuart|James, Prince of Wales]].
*''Epigram on Milton'', 1688
*''Creator Spirit, by whose aid'', 1690. Translation of [[Rabanus Maurus]]' [[Veni Creator Spiritus]]<ref>Hatfield, Edwin F., ed., ''The Church Hymn'' book, 1872 (n. 313, pp. 193–94), New York and Chicago</ref>
*''The Works of [[Virgil]]'', 1697
*''[[Alexander's Feast (Dryden)|Alexander's Feast]]'', 1697
*''[[Fables, Ancient and Modern]]'', 1700
*''[[Palamon and Arcite]]''
*''The Art of Satire''

==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==Further reading==
=== Editions ===
* ''The Works of John Dryden'', 20 vols., ed. H.T. Swedenberg Jr. et al. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1956–2002)
* ''John Dryden The Major Works'', ed. by Keith Walker, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987)
* ''The Works of John Dryden'', ed. by David Marriott (Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions, 1995)
* ''John Dryden Selected Poems'', ed. by David Hopkins (London: Everyman Paperbacks, 1998)
* ''John Dryden Selected Poems'', ed. by Steven N. Zwicker and David Bywaters (London: Penguin Books, 2001) {{ISBN|978-0140439144}}

=== Biography ===
* Winn, James Anderson. ''John Dryden and His World'' (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987)
===Correspondence===
*Dryden, John. Eds. Stephen Bernard and John McTague. 2022. ''The Correspondence of John Dryden.'' Manchester: Manchester University Press.
*Dryden, John. Eds. Charles Eugene. Ward, and Charles Eugene Ward. ''The Letters of John Dryden, with Letters Addressed to Him.'' New York: AMS Press, 1965.

=== Modern criticism ===
* Eliot, T. S., "John Dryden," in ''Selected Essays'' (London: Faber and Faber, 1932)
* Hopkins, David, ''John Dryden'', ed. by Isobel Armstrong (Tavistock: Northcote House Publishers, 2004)
* {{Cite EB1911|wstitle= Dryden, John | volume= 8 |last1= Minto |first1= William |author1-link= William Minto |last2= Bryant |first2= Margaret |author2-link= | pages = 609&ndash;613 |short=1}}
* Oden, Richard, L. Dryden and Shadwell, ''The Literary Controversy and 'Mac Flecknoe (1668–1679)'' (Scholars' Facsimiles and Reprints, Inc., Delmar, New York, 1977)
* Stark, Ryan. "John Dryden, New Philosophy, and Rhetoric," in ''Rhetoric, Science, and Magic in Seventeenth-Century England''  (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 2009)
* {{cite book |first=Mark |last=Van Doren |author-link=Mark Van Doren |title=John Dryden: A Study of His Poetry |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1JbKAy4tknIC |year=2007 |publisher=Read Books |isbn=978-1406724882}}
* Wilding, Michael, 'Allusion and Innuendo in MacFlecknoe', Essays in Criticism, 19 (1969) 355–70

==External links==
{{commons category}}
{{wikiquote}}
{{wikisource author}}
* {{Gutenberg author |id=Dryden,+John | name=John Dryden}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=John Dryden}}
* {{Librivox author |id=2353}}
* [http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=1893 Poems by John Dryden at PoetryFoundation.org]
* [http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person.php?LinkID=mp01369 John Dryden] at the [[National Portrait Gallery, London|National Portrait Gallery]], London

{{s-start}}
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{{s-bef|before=[[William Davenant]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=English [[Poet Laureate]]|years=1668–1689}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Thomas Shadwell]]}}
{{s-bef|before=[[James Howell]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=English [[Historiographer Royal (England)|Historiographer Royal]]|years=1670–1689}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Thomas Shadwell]]}}
{{s-end}}
{{John Dryden}}
{{Restoration comedy}}
{{Plutarch}}
{{Poets Laureate of the United Kingdom}}
{{Authority control}}

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