Derek Hughes
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198119746
- eISBN:
- 9780191671203
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198119746.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
The early celebrations of restoration, such as John Dryden's poem Astraea Redux, depict the return of justice to a world distracted by anarchy and subverted degree, but the treatment of justice ...
More
The early celebrations of restoration, such as John Dryden's poem Astraea Redux, depict the return of justice to a world distracted by anarchy and subverted degree, but the treatment of justice rapidly becomes more critical, as a result both of rapid reassessment of the new regime and of growing interest in those aspects of life that are not socially assimilable. On the one hand, there are encounters between the ministers of justice and the forces of the flesh (carnival, festivity, saturnalia), the balance between authority and licence undergoing several revealing shifts during the period. On the other hand, interest in the perceptual and epistemological isolation of the individual consciousness leads to emphasis on the imprecision and even meaninglessness of legal judgement: on the inevitable mismatch between publicly formulated judicial categories (such as guilt and innocence) and the invisible individual consciousness to which they are applied.Less
The early celebrations of restoration, such as John Dryden's poem Astraea Redux, depict the return of justice to a world distracted by anarchy and subverted degree, but the treatment of justice rapidly becomes more critical, as a result both of rapid reassessment of the new regime and of growing interest in those aspects of life that are not socially assimilable. On the one hand, there are encounters between the ministers of justice and the forces of the flesh (carnival, festivity, saturnalia), the balance between authority and licence undergoing several revealing shifts during the period. On the other hand, interest in the perceptual and epistemological isolation of the individual consciousness leads to emphasis on the imprecision and even meaninglessness of legal judgement: on the inevitable mismatch between publicly formulated judicial categories (such as guilt and innocence) and the invisible individual consciousness to which they are applied.
Derek Hughes
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198119746
- eISBN:
- 9780191671203
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198119746.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
This book traces patterns of diversity that gradually shift in their composition and proportions, and a number of interlinked motifs become evident. It is noteworthy that, after 1688, contented Whigs ...
More
This book traces patterns of diversity that gradually shift in their composition and proportions, and a number of interlinked motifs become evident. It is noteworthy that, after 1688, contented Whigs such as Thomas Shadwell and Libber resurrect fixity of place as an important moral and social symbol, and that, partly in consequence, the stranger once more becomes a dramatically potent figure. It is equally noteworthy, however, that it was not only melancholy Jacobites such as John Dryden who continued the portrayal of human dislocation: it is a fundamental state in the plays of William Congreve and John Vanbrugh, and Congreve more than anyone else inherits the youthful Dryden's interest in the isolated consciousness. This is not a book on the diverse and changing relationship between consciousness and the exterior world in Restoration drama, but it does assume that the dramatists' creative personalities are fundamentally influenced by their interpretation of this relationship, in all its multitude of implications.Less
This book traces patterns of diversity that gradually shift in their composition and proportions, and a number of interlinked motifs become evident. It is noteworthy that, after 1688, contented Whigs such as Thomas Shadwell and Libber resurrect fixity of place as an important moral and social symbol, and that, partly in consequence, the stranger once more becomes a dramatically potent figure. It is equally noteworthy, however, that it was not only melancholy Jacobites such as John Dryden who continued the portrayal of human dislocation: it is a fundamental state in the plays of William Congreve and John Vanbrugh, and Congreve more than anyone else inherits the youthful Dryden's interest in the isolated consciousness. This is not a book on the diverse and changing relationship between consciousness and the exterior world in Restoration drama, but it does assume that the dramatists' creative personalities are fundamentally influenced by their interpretation of this relationship, in all its multitude of implications.
Richard Terry
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780198186236
- eISBN:
- 9780191718557
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198186236.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature
This chapter discusses two related conceits that express how literature is passed down between generations. In the first, tradition is viewed as a process of filiation: a great writer of an earlier ...
More
This chapter discusses two related conceits that express how literature is passed down between generations. In the first, tradition is viewed as a process of filiation: a great writer of an earlier time stands to one of a later era as a father to his son, and a great work of a previous age can be seen as a sort of familial heirloom passed down from one generation to the next. In the second, the later writer is linked to the former not through figurative parentage, but through the Pythagorean transmigration of souls. Specifically as regards English literature, an influential metaphor has long been one in which the unfolding of tradition is figured as a paternal-filial nexus: the earlier writer uses his influence, as it were, to sire the later one. The conceit of literary paternity has become a standard way of imagining the relations of influence and emulation obtaining between writers in the literary tradition. The popularity of the parental metaphor may still owe much to the particular use made of it by one writer alone: John Dryden.Less
This chapter discusses two related conceits that express how literature is passed down between generations. In the first, tradition is viewed as a process of filiation: a great writer of an earlier time stands to one of a later era as a father to his son, and a great work of a previous age can be seen as a sort of familial heirloom passed down from one generation to the next. In the second, the later writer is linked to the former not through figurative parentage, but through the Pythagorean transmigration of souls. Specifically as regards English literature, an influential metaphor has long been one in which the unfolding of tradition is figured as a paternal-filial nexus: the earlier writer uses his influence, as it were, to sire the later one. The conceit of literary paternity has become a standard way of imagining the relations of influence and emulation obtaining between writers in the literary tradition. The popularity of the parental metaphor may still owe much to the particular use made of it by one writer alone: John Dryden.
Derek Hughes
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198119746
- eISBN:
- 9780191671203
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198119746.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
In 1669, Sir William Killigrew published his last play, The Imperial Tragedy, which deals with regicide and restoration based on Zeno; sive, Ambitio Infelix by the English Jesuit Joseph Simons, which ...
More
In 1669, Sir William Killigrew published his last play, The Imperial Tragedy, which deals with regicide and restoration based on Zeno; sive, Ambitio Infelix by the English Jesuit Joseph Simons, which opens with the appearance of Astraea on high. Gerard Langbaine believed that the play had been acted at the Barbican Nursery, but there is no record of performance at either of the main houses, and by this time its subject and outlook were dated. Indeed, Simons was at the time helping to make it even more dated by converting the Duke of York to Catholicism. Earl of Orrery's Tryphon, another play about restoration, had already failed, and when John Dryden depicted the deposition of the usurper Maximin in Tyrannick Love, he portrayed not a return to hereditary monarchy but the election of two emperors by the Senate. Increasingly, indeed, serious dramatists turned from celebration of restored authority to reflection upon the problems inherent in the exercise and very nature of power.Less
In 1669, Sir William Killigrew published his last play, The Imperial Tragedy, which deals with regicide and restoration based on Zeno; sive, Ambitio Infelix by the English Jesuit Joseph Simons, which opens with the appearance of Astraea on high. Gerard Langbaine believed that the play had been acted at the Barbican Nursery, but there is no record of performance at either of the main houses, and by this time its subject and outlook were dated. Indeed, Simons was at the time helping to make it even more dated by converting the Duke of York to Catholicism. Earl of Orrery's Tryphon, another play about restoration, had already failed, and when John Dryden depicted the deposition of the usurper Maximin in Tyrannick Love, he portrayed not a return to hereditary monarchy but the election of two emperors by the Senate. Increasingly, indeed, serious dramatists turned from celebration of restored authority to reflection upon the problems inherent in the exercise and very nature of power.
Derek Hughes
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198119746
- eISBN:
- 9780191671203
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198119746.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
By 1676, the festive comedy of the early Restoration had given way to darker treatments of human desire. In serious drama, the heroic idealism of Earl of Orrery — the object of such festive plays as ...
More
By 1676, the festive comedy of the early Restoration had given way to darker treatments of human desire. In serious drama, the heroic idealism of Earl of Orrery — the object of such festive plays as The Comical Revenge — had all but disappeared, though John Dryden, Thomas Otway, and Nathaniel Lee had continued to use the old genres and subjects to criticize the ideals formerly associated with them. However, by the end of 1676, all three had abandoned the heroic play, though minor writers protracted the genre into 1678, chiefly in the form of Siege, Conquest, and Destruction plays. One late exercise in the heroic mode that did not follow the Conquest pattern was Charles Davenant's rhymed opera Circe, the last operatic spectacular until Dryden's Albion and Albanius.Less
By 1676, the festive comedy of the early Restoration had given way to darker treatments of human desire. In serious drama, the heroic idealism of Earl of Orrery — the object of such festive plays as The Comical Revenge — had all but disappeared, though John Dryden, Thomas Otway, and Nathaniel Lee had continued to use the old genres and subjects to criticize the ideals formerly associated with them. However, by the end of 1676, all three had abandoned the heroic play, though minor writers protracted the genre into 1678, chiefly in the form of Siege, Conquest, and Destruction plays. One late exercise in the heroic mode that did not follow the Conquest pattern was Charles Davenant's rhymed opera Circe, the last operatic spectacular until Dryden's Albion and Albanius.
Rachel Willie
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719087639
- eISBN:
- 9781526104052
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719087639.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Chapter four demonstrates how Davenant’s first protectorate entertainment, The Siege of Rhodes (1656 and 1663), was revised at the Restoration as a heroic drama to make it suitable for the changing ...
More
Chapter four demonstrates how Davenant’s first protectorate entertainment, The Siege of Rhodes (1656 and 1663), was revised at the Restoration as a heroic drama to make it suitable for the changing times. In chapter four, I turn to examine how the text was made fit for a Restoration audience. The chapter also addresses John Dryden’s epic ten-act The Conquest of Granada (1670 and 1671) to show how early Restoration heroic dramas appropriated and reworked ideas of kingship that had circulated over the previous twenty years. By relocating war and usurpation to another land, these plays endeavour to create a neutral territory through which to question notions of sovereignty. Yet the brief fashion for heroic drama was not without its critics: a response to The Conquest of Granada, but also to the brief fashion for heroic drama, the Duke of Buckingham’s burlesque of the heroic genre, The Rehearsal (1672), brings questions of governance back to England through figuring the trials and tribulations of the two kings of Brentford.Less
Chapter four demonstrates how Davenant’s first protectorate entertainment, The Siege of Rhodes (1656 and 1663), was revised at the Restoration as a heroic drama to make it suitable for the changing times. In chapter four, I turn to examine how the text was made fit for a Restoration audience. The chapter also addresses John Dryden’s epic ten-act The Conquest of Granada (1670 and 1671) to show how early Restoration heroic dramas appropriated and reworked ideas of kingship that had circulated over the previous twenty years. By relocating war and usurpation to another land, these plays endeavour to create a neutral territory through which to question notions of sovereignty. Yet the brief fashion for heroic drama was not without its critics: a response to The Conquest of Granada, but also to the brief fashion for heroic drama, the Duke of Buckingham’s burlesque of the heroic genre, The Rehearsal (1672), brings questions of governance back to England through figuring the trials and tribulations of the two kings of Brentford.
Matthew Reynolds
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199605712
- eISBN:
- 9780191731617
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199605712.003.0011
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
In his Preface to Ovid's Epistles, Dryden advocates translation‐as‐paraphrase, in which the ‘sense’ is allowed to ‘amplified’ but not ‘altered’—though he admits that, in the translations themselves, ...
More
In his Preface to Ovid's Epistles, Dryden advocates translation‐as‐paraphrase, in which the ‘sense’ is allowed to ‘amplified’ but not ‘altered’—though he admits that, in the translations themselves, he has ‘transgressed’ these ‘rules.’ I show that, in his version of Ovid's ‘Canace to Macareus’, Dryden's transgressions as a translator echo Canace's sexual transgression with her brother even while apparently holding it up for disapproval: this creates an intensely conflicted poetry of translation. Other contributors to the same volume adopt related practices of ‘opening’, due in part to the cultural circumstances in which they were working. I discuss in particular Aphra Behn's polemical expansions of ‘Oenone to Paris’.Less
In his Preface to Ovid's Epistles, Dryden advocates translation‐as‐paraphrase, in which the ‘sense’ is allowed to ‘amplified’ but not ‘altered’—though he admits that, in the translations themselves, he has ‘transgressed’ these ‘rules.’ I show that, in his version of Ovid's ‘Canace to Macareus’, Dryden's transgressions as a translator echo Canace's sexual transgression with her brother even while apparently holding it up for disapproval: this creates an intensely conflicted poetry of translation. Other contributors to the same volume adopt related practices of ‘opening’, due in part to the cultural circumstances in which they were working. I discuss in particular Aphra Behn's polemical expansions of ‘Oenone to Paris’.
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804759441
- eISBN:
- 9780804779791
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804759441.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
John Dryden's translations, including those of Ovid and Juvenal, his own versions of Persius, the complete works of Virgil, and the Fables, allowed him to explore and extend poetic subjectivity as ...
More
John Dryden's translations, including those of Ovid and Juvenal, his own versions of Persius, the complete works of Virgil, and the Fables, allowed him to explore and extend poetic subjectivity as well as combine other voices with his own. Aside from leaving his mark on the poetry, drama, satire, and criticism of his age, Dryden's reflections on translation synthesized earlier commentary and at the same time took it to a new level, just as his practice established a new standard for poetic translation. In his “Dedication of the Aeneis,” Dryden reflects on the complexities of his own role as a translator, reaching back to Virgil and to his previous translators John Denham and Jean de Segrais to confront time, change, and the contradictory status of the translator-author. The “Dedication” is not only a political reading of the Aeneid, but also a comparison between Virgil's life and career and Dryden's.Less
John Dryden's translations, including those of Ovid and Juvenal, his own versions of Persius, the complete works of Virgil, and the Fables, allowed him to explore and extend poetic subjectivity as well as combine other voices with his own. Aside from leaving his mark on the poetry, drama, satire, and criticism of his age, Dryden's reflections on translation synthesized earlier commentary and at the same time took it to a new level, just as his practice established a new standard for poetic translation. In his “Dedication of the Aeneis,” Dryden reflects on the complexities of his own role as a translator, reaching back to Virgil and to his previous translators John Denham and Jean de Segrais to confront time, change, and the contradictory status of the translator-author. The “Dedication” is not only a political reading of the Aeneid, but also a comparison between Virgil's life and career and Dryden's.
Richard H. Armstrong
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199288076
- eISBN:
- 9780191713439
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199288076.003.0009
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter discusses the retranslation of Greek epic poetry and argues for its importance in understanding how literary traditions shape the translation scenario. First, it treats the epic ...
More
This chapter discusses the retranslation of Greek epic poetry and argues for its importance in understanding how literary traditions shape the translation scenario. First, it treats the epic adaptations and translational practices of Roman authors, with particular focus on Ennius and Virgil. It also treats lesser-known translations of Greek epic from Roman times, and outlines the continuing history of Latin translation during the Renaissance, which was very influential for the burgeoning literatures of Western Europe. Then it details how this Latin tradition still informs the ‘classic’ English translations of George Chapman, John Dryden, Alexander Pope, and William Cowper, who still read their Greek under the strong influence not only of Latin literary values, but also of Latin translational practices. While the Latin tradition was highly influential in shaping European retranslation of Greek epic, that tradition itself effectively produced no translation on a par with Chapman's Homer or Dryden's Virgil.Less
This chapter discusses the retranslation of Greek epic poetry and argues for its importance in understanding how literary traditions shape the translation scenario. First, it treats the epic adaptations and translational practices of Roman authors, with particular focus on Ennius and Virgil. It also treats lesser-known translations of Greek epic from Roman times, and outlines the continuing history of Latin translation during the Renaissance, which was very influential for the burgeoning literatures of Western Europe. Then it details how this Latin tradition still informs the ‘classic’ English translations of George Chapman, John Dryden, Alexander Pope, and William Cowper, who still read their Greek under the strong influence not only of Latin literary values, but also of Latin translational practices. While the Latin tradition was highly influential in shaping European retranslation of Greek epic, that tradition itself effectively produced no translation on a par with Chapman's Homer or Dryden's Virgil.
Lauren Shohet
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199295890
- eISBN:
- 9780191594311
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199295890.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
Chapter 5 traces masques' representations of political alternatives throughout the seventeenth century, masques' prominently varied epistemological investments, and their deployment in creating an ...
More
Chapter 5 traces masques' representations of political alternatives throughout the seventeenth century, masques' prominently varied epistemological investments, and their deployment in creating an adaptive theatrical history that spans the full century. Self‐consciously inheriting both the elite dramatic tradition of the court masque and more popular traditions associated with other kinds of masquing, the seventeenth‐century masque engages multiple aspects of public culture. Case studies in masques that taxonomize political alternatives include Campion's royal Caversham entertainment, Middleton and Rowley's public The World Tossed at Tennis, Thomas Jordan's Interregnum Fancy's Festivals, and Anthony Sadler's Restoration Subjects Joy. Case studies exploring how masque sponsors epistemological reflection include Milton's Ludlow masque Comus, Kynaston's Corona Minervae, Nabbes's Microcosmus, and John Sadler's Mascarade du ciel. The chapter closes by tracing how masques, and masque adaptations of earlier plays, attempt to construct an account of English theater across the Stuart, Interregnum, and Restoration eras, when masques persist as a distinctively English form of early opera. Case studies here include Jonson (The Masque of Augurs), Shirley (Cupid and Death, The Triumph of Beauty), John Crown (Calisto), Davenant's Shakespearian adaptations, and Dryden (The Secular Masque).Less
Chapter 5 traces masques' representations of political alternatives throughout the seventeenth century, masques' prominently varied epistemological investments, and their deployment in creating an adaptive theatrical history that spans the full century. Self‐consciously inheriting both the elite dramatic tradition of the court masque and more popular traditions associated with other kinds of masquing, the seventeenth‐century masque engages multiple aspects of public culture. Case studies in masques that taxonomize political alternatives include Campion's royal Caversham entertainment, Middleton and Rowley's public The World Tossed at Tennis, Thomas Jordan's Interregnum Fancy's Festivals, and Anthony Sadler's Restoration Subjects Joy. Case studies exploring how masque sponsors epistemological reflection include Milton's Ludlow masque Comus, Kynaston's Corona Minervae, Nabbes's Microcosmus, and John Sadler's Mascarade du ciel. The chapter closes by tracing how masques, and masque adaptations of earlier plays, attempt to construct an account of English theater across the Stuart, Interregnum, and Restoration eras, when masques persist as a distinctively English form of early opera. Case studies here include Jonson (The Masque of Augurs), Shirley (Cupid and Death, The Triumph of Beauty), John Crown (Calisto), Davenant's Shakespearian adaptations, and Dryden (The Secular Masque).
Ros Ballaster
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199234295
- eISBN:
- 9780191696657
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199234295.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature, 18th-century Literature
This chapter argues that fictions claiming to derive from and about India repeatedly trope India as a dream, but not always in the positive sense of a space to be possessed by the imagination. ...
More
This chapter argues that fictions claiming to derive from and about India repeatedly trope India as a dream, but not always in the positive sense of a space to be possessed by the imagination. Equally, the dream can be a kind of consoling or duplicitous fiction. India generates illusions and illusionists; the fakirs and Brahmans of ethnographic report are represented as master tricksters while Islam is, as in the case of Ottoman and Persian accounts, denounced as a gross imposture. The chapter addresses three principal areas of fiction that relate to India: John Dryden's theatrical representation of the court of Aurangzeb; collections of oriental tales relating to India by Thomas–Simon Gueullette, James Ridley, and Alexander Dow; and ‘translations’ derived from the 3rd-century Sanskrit collection of animal and human fables, known to 17th-century Europe as the Fables of Pilpay.Less
This chapter argues that fictions claiming to derive from and about India repeatedly trope India as a dream, but not always in the positive sense of a space to be possessed by the imagination. Equally, the dream can be a kind of consoling or duplicitous fiction. India generates illusions and illusionists; the fakirs and Brahmans of ethnographic report are represented as master tricksters while Islam is, as in the case of Ottoman and Persian accounts, denounced as a gross imposture. The chapter addresses three principal areas of fiction that relate to India: John Dryden's theatrical representation of the court of Aurangzeb; collections of oriental tales relating to India by Thomas–Simon Gueullette, James Ridley, and Alexander Dow; and ‘translations’ derived from the 3rd-century Sanskrit collection of animal and human fables, known to 17th-century Europe as the Fables of Pilpay.
Matthew C. Augustine
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781526113894
- eISBN:
- 9781526138897
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781526113894.003.0013
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter reconsiders John Dryden’s dramatic adaptation of Paradise Lost, The State of Innocence. Not exactly neglected, neither has Dryden’s opera been much appreciated by modern critics. ...
More
This chapter reconsiders John Dryden’s dramatic adaptation of Paradise Lost, The State of Innocence. Not exactly neglected, neither has Dryden’s opera been much appreciated by modern critics. Focusing on the relation between text and paratext, this chapter brings into focus not only Dryden’s ambivalence about Milton but also about the nature and direction of his own art by the middle of the 1670s. Suspended daringly between the heroic and the mock-heroic, Dryden’s opera detunes the antithesis between Milton’s ‘strenuous liberty’ and Restoration libertinage even as it accommodates Milton’s anti-Augustan poetics to Dryden’s mature Augustan vision.Less
This chapter reconsiders John Dryden’s dramatic adaptation of Paradise Lost, The State of Innocence. Not exactly neglected, neither has Dryden’s opera been much appreciated by modern critics. Focusing on the relation between text and paratext, this chapter brings into focus not only Dryden’s ambivalence about Milton but also about the nature and direction of his own art by the middle of the 1670s. Suspended daringly between the heroic and the mock-heroic, Dryden’s opera detunes the antithesis between Milton’s ‘strenuous liberty’ and Restoration libertinage even as it accommodates Milton’s anti-Augustan poetics to Dryden’s mature Augustan vision.
Edward Holberton
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199544585
- eISBN:
- 9780191719981
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199544585.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
This book shows that the Protectorate's instabilities helped to generate lively and innovative poetry. Protectorate verse explores the fault-lines of a culture which ceaselessly contested the ...
More
This book shows that the Protectorate's instabilities helped to generate lively and innovative poetry. Protectorate verse explores the fault-lines of a culture which ceaselessly contested the authority of its own institutions, including the office of Protector itself. This study reads poems by Andrew Marvell, Edmund Waller, John Dryden, and a number of writers who will be less familiar, in a cross-section of institutional contexts, including an embassy to Sweden, Oxford University, parliamentary crises, and a state funeral. It finds that their poetry often proves difficult to align with established ideas of the political and cultural contests of the age, because it becomes entangled with cultural institutions which were transforming rapidly. The readings of this book challenge previous representations of Protectorate culture as a phase of conservative backsliding, or pragmatic compromise, under a quasi-monarchical order. Protectorate verse emerges as nuanced and vital writing, which looks beyond the personality of Oliver Cromwell to the tensions that are shaping his power. Poetry and the Cromwellian Protectectorate argues that it is precisely through being contingent and compromised that these poems achieve their vitality, and become so revealing.Less
This book shows that the Protectorate's instabilities helped to generate lively and innovative poetry. Protectorate verse explores the fault-lines of a culture which ceaselessly contested the authority of its own institutions, including the office of Protector itself. This study reads poems by Andrew Marvell, Edmund Waller, John Dryden, and a number of writers who will be less familiar, in a cross-section of institutional contexts, including an embassy to Sweden, Oxford University, parliamentary crises, and a state funeral. It finds that their poetry often proves difficult to align with established ideas of the political and cultural contests of the age, because it becomes entangled with cultural institutions which were transforming rapidly. The readings of this book challenge previous representations of Protectorate culture as a phase of conservative backsliding, or pragmatic compromise, under a quasi-monarchical order. Protectorate verse emerges as nuanced and vital writing, which looks beyond the personality of Oliver Cromwell to the tensions that are shaping his power. Poetry and the Cromwellian Protectectorate argues that it is precisely through being contingent and compromised that these poems achieve their vitality, and become so revealing.
Derek Hughes
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198119746
- eISBN:
- 9780191671203
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198119746.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
By late 1676, the predominant character of comedy was clearly darkening, as dramatists reacted with various kinds of moral earnestness to George Etherege's morally dispassionate portrayal of ...
More
By late 1676, the predominant character of comedy was clearly darkening, as dramatists reacted with various kinds of moral earnestness to George Etherege's morally dispassionate portrayal of Dorimant's sexual Machiavellism. Sex comedy became largely critical of the faithless male, and often very pessimistic in its portrayal of human sexuality. The transformation of drama was soon accentuated by the grave political crisis that began in September 1678, with Titus Oates's first allegations of a popish conspiracy to murder the King and initiate a general rebellion. The crisis produced a drama that was often heavily politicized, though not always in predictable ways, since several leading dramatists changed tack according to the fluctuating fortunes of the Exclusionist cause. The genre chiefly affected was tragedy, but in some of the comic work of Thomas Otway, Aphra Behn, and John Dryden growing concern with painful and unresolvable sexual dilemmas became a means for glancing at more comprehensive dilemmas of order.Less
By late 1676, the predominant character of comedy was clearly darkening, as dramatists reacted with various kinds of moral earnestness to George Etherege's morally dispassionate portrayal of Dorimant's sexual Machiavellism. Sex comedy became largely critical of the faithless male, and often very pessimistic in its portrayal of human sexuality. The transformation of drama was soon accentuated by the grave political crisis that began in September 1678, with Titus Oates's first allegations of a popish conspiracy to murder the King and initiate a general rebellion. The crisis produced a drama that was often heavily politicized, though not always in predictable ways, since several leading dramatists changed tack according to the fluctuating fortunes of the Exclusionist cause. The genre chiefly affected was tragedy, but in some of the comic work of Thomas Otway, Aphra Behn, and John Dryden growing concern with painful and unresolvable sexual dilemmas became a means for glancing at more comprehensive dilemmas of order.
Willard Spiegelman
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195368130
- eISBN:
- 9780199852192
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195368130.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
This chapter looks at English Romantic poet William Wordsworth's translation of Virgil's Aeneid. It mentions the temperamental affinities of Wordsworth with Virgil, his similar appreciation of a ...
More
This chapter looks at English Romantic poet William Wordsworth's translation of Virgil's Aeneid. It mentions the temperamental affinities of Wordsworth with Virgil, his similar appreciation of a universal sorrow which touches and colors all mortal affairs, and his own tender heart and lofty sense of moral dignity. It also discusses Wordsworth's criticism on John Dryden's 1697 translation of Virgil's epic poem.Less
This chapter looks at English Romantic poet William Wordsworth's translation of Virgil's Aeneid. It mentions the temperamental affinities of Wordsworth with Virgil, his similar appreciation of a universal sorrow which touches and colors all mortal affairs, and his own tender heart and lofty sense of moral dignity. It also discusses Wordsworth's criticism on John Dryden's 1697 translation of Virgil's epic poem.
Philip Connell
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780199269587
- eISBN:
- 9780191820496
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199269587.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
This chapter begins with some consideration of the libertine anti-clericalism of court wits such as Rochester, but its principal points of focus are the career of John Dryden in the 1670s and 1680s, ...
More
This chapter begins with some consideration of the libertine anti-clericalism of court wits such as Rochester, but its principal points of focus are the career of John Dryden in the 1670s and 1680s, the Exclusion Crisis of 1679–81, and the rhetoric of atheism and religious imposture to which both whigs and tories resorted at this time. The structure of contemporary political argument provides the basis for new readings of Dryden’s anti-exclusionist satires, Absalom and Achitophel and The Medall, although some consideration is also given to the former poem’s allusions to the writings of John Milton, along with Dryden’s Miltonic adaptation, The State of Innocence. The chapter concludes with a discussion of Religio Laici and The Hind and the Panther in their relation to the rapidly shifting ecclesiastical politics of the 1680s.Less
This chapter begins with some consideration of the libertine anti-clericalism of court wits such as Rochester, but its principal points of focus are the career of John Dryden in the 1670s and 1680s, the Exclusion Crisis of 1679–81, and the rhetoric of atheism and religious imposture to which both whigs and tories resorted at this time. The structure of contemporary political argument provides the basis for new readings of Dryden’s anti-exclusionist satires, Absalom and Achitophel and The Medall, although some consideration is also given to the former poem’s allusions to the writings of John Milton, along with Dryden’s Miltonic adaptation, The State of Innocence. The chapter concludes with a discussion of Religio Laici and The Hind and the Panther in their relation to the rapidly shifting ecclesiastical politics of the 1680s.
Derek Hughes
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198119746
- eISBN:
- 9780191671203
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198119746.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
Until the mid-1670s, tragedy was the more radical genre than comedy. If comic dramatists in the years immediately following 1668 were slow to imitate George Etherege and John Dryden, they were not ...
More
Until the mid-1670s, tragedy was the more radical genre than comedy. If comic dramatists in the years immediately following 1668 were slow to imitate George Etherege and John Dryden, they were not content simply to adore the ancient glories of the gentry. What is most noticeable in the years from 1668 to 1672 is a sustained attempt at both theatres to absorb and Anglicize Molière. The series of close Molière adaptations is suddenly suspended in late 1672, when the movement towards a sex comedy of contemporary English life received new impetus from two Duke's Company plays: Henry Neville Payne's The Morning Ramble; or, The Town-Humours and Thomas Shadwell's Epsom-Wells, the first clearly indebted to The Comical Revenge and the second to She Would If She Could.Less
Until the mid-1670s, tragedy was the more radical genre than comedy. If comic dramatists in the years immediately following 1668 were slow to imitate George Etherege and John Dryden, they were not content simply to adore the ancient glories of the gentry. What is most noticeable in the years from 1668 to 1672 is a sustained attempt at both theatres to absorb and Anglicize Molière. The series of close Molière adaptations is suddenly suspended in late 1672, when the movement towards a sex comedy of contemporary English life received new impetus from two Duke's Company plays: Henry Neville Payne's The Morning Ramble; or, The Town-Humours and Thomas Shadwell's Epsom-Wells, the first clearly indebted to The Comical Revenge and the second to She Would If She Could.
Margaret J. M. Ezell
- Published in print:
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- eISBN:
- 9780191849572
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780191849572.003.0019
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
There were three poets laureate in the last decade of the century: John Dryden, Thomas Shadwell, and Nahum Tate, all of whom had begun their careers writing for the stage. Poets active during this ...
More
There were three poets laureate in the last decade of the century: John Dryden, Thomas Shadwell, and Nahum Tate, all of whom had begun their careers writing for the stage. Poets active during this time included Anne Finch, who was circulating her verses in manuscript among friends and compiling manuscript collections, and Mary Astell, who created a manuscript volume of verse for Archbishop Sancroft. Prolific poets in print included Sir Richard Blackmore, Samuel Garth, and Matthew Prior, who all published in miscellany collections. Jonathan Swift began publishing occasional verse in periodicals including the Athenian GazetteLess
There were three poets laureate in the last decade of the century: John Dryden, Thomas Shadwell, and Nahum Tate, all of whom had begun their careers writing for the stage. Poets active during this time included Anne Finch, who was circulating her verses in manuscript among friends and compiling manuscript collections, and Mary Astell, who created a manuscript volume of verse for Archbishop Sancroft. Prolific poets in print included Sir Richard Blackmore, Samuel Garth, and Matthew Prior, who all published in miscellany collections. Jonathan Swift began publishing occasional verse in periodicals including the Athenian Gazette
Toni Bowers
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199592135
- eISBN:
- 9780191725340
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199592135.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
James, Duke of Monmouth (1649–85) embodied the paradoxes involved in distinguishing between force and fraud in late seventeenth‐century England. He appears as both seducer and victim of seduction in ...
More
James, Duke of Monmouth (1649–85) embodied the paradoxes involved in distinguishing between force and fraud in late seventeenth‐century England. He appears as both seducer and victim of seduction in innumerable literary productions of the late 1670s and early 1680s, including John Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel (1681). The figure of Monmouth proved a magnet for a Protestant nation anxious about a Catholic succession, specifically that of the aging Charles II's designated heir, James, Duke of York. Monmouth led an armed rebellion after James's accession in 1685, a rebellion that resulted in bloodshed, dislocation, and, eventually, governmental savagery against his supporters. The Monmouth Rebellion became a site for public debate over the doctrine of passive obedience and the problem of imagining virtuous resistance to authority. Monmouth's cause and execution continued to resonate, paradoxically, among tory writers, for whom his tragic career as seduced seducer made visible pressing anxieties about their own positions as collusive and coerced subjects.Less
James, Duke of Monmouth (1649–85) embodied the paradoxes involved in distinguishing between force and fraud in late seventeenth‐century England. He appears as both seducer and victim of seduction in innumerable literary productions of the late 1670s and early 1680s, including John Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel (1681). The figure of Monmouth proved a magnet for a Protestant nation anxious about a Catholic succession, specifically that of the aging Charles II's designated heir, James, Duke of York. Monmouth led an armed rebellion after James's accession in 1685, a rebellion that resulted in bloodshed, dislocation, and, eventually, governmental savagery against his supporters. The Monmouth Rebellion became a site for public debate over the doctrine of passive obedience and the problem of imagining virtuous resistance to authority. Monmouth's cause and execution continued to resonate, paradoxically, among tory writers, for whom his tragic career as seduced seducer made visible pressing anxieties about their own positions as collusive and coerced subjects.
Derek Hughes
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198119746
- eISBN:
- 9780191671203
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198119746.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
After the Revolution, there was an appreciable revival in the demand for new plays: between November 1688 and the opening of the actors' breakaway company in April 1695 there were forty-six known ...
More
After the Revolution, there was an appreciable revival in the demand for new plays: between November 1688 and the opening of the actors' breakaway company in April 1695 there were forty-six known premieres. There was also a boost in quality, associated with the arrival of William Congreve, the maturing of Thomas Southerne, and the brief returns of Thomas Shadwell and of John Dryden, stripped of his laureateship and short of money. Dryden's four last plays contain two of his finest (and one of his worst), and respond to the deposition of James II with detailed studies of displacement and exile. Nevertheless, there were clear and quite rapid breaks with earlier drama. However, tyranny was now more easily subject to justice, and in both tragedy and comedy justice was frequently freed from the epistemological and linguistic problems that had bedevilled it in the 1670s.Less
After the Revolution, there was an appreciable revival in the demand for new plays: between November 1688 and the opening of the actors' breakaway company in April 1695 there were forty-six known premieres. There was also a boost in quality, associated with the arrival of William Congreve, the maturing of Thomas Southerne, and the brief returns of Thomas Shadwell and of John Dryden, stripped of his laureateship and short of money. Dryden's four last plays contain two of his finest (and one of his worst), and respond to the deposition of James II with detailed studies of displacement and exile. Nevertheless, there were clear and quite rapid breaks with earlier drama. However, tyranny was now more easily subject to justice, and in both tragedy and comedy justice was frequently freed from the epistemological and linguistic problems that had bedevilled it in the 1670s.
