The Major Works

by John Dryden, Keith Walker

John Dryden (1631-1700) was the leading writer of his day and a major cultural spokesman following the restoration of Charles II in 1660. His work includes political poems, satire, religious apologias, translations, critical essays and plays. This authoritative edition brings together a unique
combination of Dryden's poetry and prose--all the major poems in full, literary criticism, and translations--to give the essence of his work and thinking.

The collection includes the poems, MacFlecknoe and Absalom and Achitophel as well as Dryden's classical translations; his versions of Homer, Horace, and Ovid are reproduced in full. There are also substantial selections from Dryden's Virgil, Juvenal, and other classical writers. Fables, Ancient
and Modern , taken from Chaucer, Ovid, Boccaccio, and Homer, his last and possibly greatest work, also appears in full.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Plays, Fiction, British Literature, Essays

992 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1956

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

John Dryden was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who was made Poet Laureate in 1668. He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden. Walter Scott called him "Glorious John."

Reviews

[Patrick Gibson · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He who can call today his own:
He who, secure within, can say,
Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.
Be fair or foul or rain or shine
The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine.
Not Heaven itself upon the past has power,
But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour."

Great collection to pick up, read a little, get inspired and fired up, then put back on the shelf. I can not critique poetry an more than Neal Diamond can sing opera. But I like it. I always feel superior to the monkeys, when I add another volume to the poetry shelf.

[Alan · Rating 5 out of 5]

As graduate Teaching Assistant in a Dryden course at U Minnesota in '68, I learned that Dryden essentially invented modern criticism. Prior to Dryden, I argued in my Ph.D. thesis, This Critical Age,* criticism was often (usually) in verse form: the sonnet form especially included critiques of the sonnet, say Shakespeare's #116, or Sidney's Astrophel and Stella #VI, "Some lovers speak, when they their muses entertain/ Of hopes begot by fear, of wot not what desires, /Of force of heavenly beams infusing hellish pains/... Of living Deaths, dear wounds, fair storms, and freezing fires..." Shakespeare's, mentioned, "My Mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun,/ Coral is far more red than her lips' red;/ If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;/ If haires be wires, black wires grow from her head."
Dryden raised the art of prose criticism, with his enormous learning and literary skill, as he also raised the art of translating Vergil, Persius, Ovid and others. Much of his criticism was practical and introductory, the Prologs to various Restoration plays, and of course introductions to his translations. Just found my Everyman Dryden's Criticism, vol 1*; I had hoped to quote a couple brilliant passages that changed lit history, but instead found one that may apply to our own time,
"a judicious critic has observed from Aristotle that pride and want of commiseration are the most predominant vices in [presidents] humankind" ("The Grounds of Criticism in Tragedy" *245). Want of commiseration with the spouse of a Black soldier killed in Niger? Pride? How could these apply to an American leader...
Dryden also wrote the most enduring political verse satire of his age, "Absalom and Achitophel." My Dryden mentor, David Haley, thoroughly knew English Seventeenth Century history and politics; his first book, Dryden and the Problem of Freedom, filled with the minutiae of a revolutionary century in England. I should credit Prof Haley with an ironic note on "Heroic Stanzas on the Death of Oliver Cromwell" [1658] (of course essential for my thesis on Marvell, esp his Horatian Ode); David H noted the Stanzas end with Dryden's "typically incorrect prediction" on Cromwell, "His ashes in a peaceful urn shall rest." Dryden's argument for Cromwell, "He made us freemen of the continent." I guess in the year of Brexit, Theresa May could be said, "She made us divorcées of the continent."
Dryden, who invented English prose criticism, also promoted Shakespeare to his rightful place among the panoply of classical tragedians and comedians. With his enormous learning, Dryden recognized Shakespeare as an equal to Aristophanes and Sophocles.

* Published 1981. On the shelves of two German libraries: Pope Benedict's Regensburg, and the Freie University Berlin.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

I started reading Dryden about ten years ago, because I knew nothing about him and he seemed totally irrelevant to this day and age. A classic Dead Poet, in fact. But he's actually tremendously interesting, although he was topical at the time and includes lots of contemporary allusions. But there are some great quote-worthy passages also. It's easy to overlook the fact that such a rock of English literature had to start out just like everyone else, struggling to express himself and make a living. I remember quoting a famous verse of his at midnight as the new millennium started:

All, all of a piece throughout:
Thy chase had a beast in view;
Thy wars brought nothing about;
Thy lovers were all untrue.
'Tis well an old age is out,
And time to begin a new.

(The Secular Masque)

[Diana · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading his poem Absalom and Achitophil the most out of the 3 we had to read for class, the other's being Alexander's Feast and Mac Flecknoe. Our professor gave us a link to a "cheat sheet" from the time period that had what was supposed to be who the characters were based on for example King Charles II was King David. That made what the characters were saying more interesting. While I'm pretty sure I've never read the poem before, I have heard some of the stanzas quoted before. It was an interesting take on what happened during and after Cromwell's takeover of Britain.

[Lukas Evan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really puts the dry In Dryden

[sologdin · Rating 1 out of 5]

should be famous for urging companions 'let's bugger each other by god!'