Transcript Restoration Literature

Restoration Literature
Lesson 2 Dryden
Dr. Marguerite Connor
John Dryden, 1631-1700
Sometimes Hard to Read Today
• Works are often political in nature or
occasional pieces (written for a specific
occasion).
• Also wrote for money
– poetry and plays had to meet the taste of
the day.
• Writing is very eloquent and intellectual
– qualities not always appreciated today
Background and Education
• son of a moderate Puritan country
gentleman of moderate means
• First attended Westminster School
• Trinity College, Cambridge,AB.
• Stayed on at Trinity for three years after
graduation, but did not earn a higher
degree.
Early Works/Politics
• His first important poem was Heroic
Stanzas (1659) to commemorate
Cromwell.
• Astraea Redux (1660) in honor of the
Restoration
• For the rest of his life he was loyal to
Charles and James.
Very Important Literary Figure
• He was very much aware of the
religious, political, philosophical and
artistic trends that were swirling about
him, and he wrote about them.
• His occasional poems and Astraea
Redux and Annus Miribilis (1667) are
his greatest examples of this.
First Great Honor
• In 1662, he was elected to the Royal
Society, England’s national academy of
science founded by King Charles II in
1660.
Marriage
• Married Lady Elizabeth Howard, 1663
• the sister of his patron, the poet and courtier,
Sir Robert Howard
• He and Sir Robert wrote the play The Indian
Queen together, 1664.
• By marrying a “lady” he married “above his
station”.
• His election to the Royal Society helped make
the marriage possible.
Playwright
• Between 1664-81 mainly a playwright.
• Openly wrote to please people and
make money
• In this respect he was very much like a
screenplay writer today.
Heroic Plays
• Usually wrote rhymed heroic plays
– the taste in the early part of the Restoration.
• Feature incredibly noble heroes and
heroines who face impossible choices
between love and honor or duty.
• All for Love (1667)
– reworking of Shakespeare’s Antony and
Cleopatra in blank verse and adapted to
the Unities of time, place and action
“Father of English Criticism”
• Studied the great playwright
– Greece
– Rome
– Renaissance
– French contemporaries.
• Sought sound theatrical principles on
which to construct new drama.
Poet Laureate
• In 1668, King Charles made him the
poet laureate
• Two years later gave him the post of
royal historiographer
• Combined income of about £200
– a good sum in those days.
Formal Verse Satire
• Between 1678-81 at his height.
• Mock-epic satire MacFlecknoe (1678)
satirizing the playwright Thomas
Shadwell
• Absalom and Achitophel (1681)
• The Medal in 1682, a poem written in
response to Shaftesbury getting off on
charges of treason.
Religio Laici
• Published 1682
• Title means “A Layman’s Religion”
• Examines the grounds of his religious
faith
• Defended the middle way of the
Anglican Church against Deism and
Catholicism.
Deism
• A philosophy, not really a religion
• Often is called “a natural religion”
• Sought to find a standard and a guide
in all the conflicting creeds and
doctrines of the 17th century
What is a Deist?
• “One who believes in the existence of a
God or supreme being but denies
revealed religion, basing his belief on
the light of nature and reason."
(Webster)
Lord Herbert of Cherbury
• First “name” of English Deism
• 1583-1648
• Codified the philosophy of Deism
Original Five Core Beliefs
• a belief in the existence of the Deity,
• the obligation to reverence such a power,
• the identification of worship with practical
morality,
• the obligation to repent of sin and to abandon
it, and,
• divine recompense in this world and the next.
Deism and Christianity
• "Five Articles" constitute the nucleus of all
religions and of Christianity in its primitive,
uncorrupted form.
• The variations between positive religions are
explained as due partly
– to the allegorization of nature
– partly to self-deception,
– the workings of imagination,
– priestly guile.
Other Deist Influence
• Particularly evident in the writings of the
philosopher Thomas Hobbes.
• Interest in science and maths during
this part of the century, and the reaction
against the harsh religious wars of the
earlier part of the century made Deism
appealing to “Men of Reason” as they
thought of themselves.
Dryden’s Religion
• Anglican during most of his adult life
• In 1686 Dryden and his two sons
converted to Roman Catholicism.
– Political enemies and literary rivals said he
was being an opportunist and converting
to the religion of the king,
Remains Faithful
• Remained a Roman Catholic after James
was overthrown.
• Lost his official positions under William and
Mary in 1688 as well as all of his stipends.
• The Hind and the Panther (1687)
– debate between the pure white hind, (Roman
Catholic faith) and the spotted panther (Anglican
Church)
Need for Money
• After the 1688 revolution, Dryden had
to work hard for money until the end of
his life, as was the situation for many
writers.
• To earn his keep, he resumed writing
plays and started doing translations of
literature.
Best Known Translations
• In 1693 he did translations of Juvenal
and Persius
• In 1697 he published a fine translation
of Virgil.
• In 1700, two months before his death,
he published Fables Ancient and
Modern.
Long-lasting Influence
• Dryden had an incredible influence on
English literature, especially through his
criticism.
• He set the taste and standards in
literature for a century
• Standards were overthrown by the
Romantics, who still hold critical sway
today.
Neoclassicism
• Neo-classical, when used in a specific
literary sense, refers to the theories and
practices of most writers from the latter
part of the 17th century through the 18th
century.
Disparate Writers
• It’s a very broad description
• Includes
– Dryden
– Swift
– Pope
– Addison
– Johnson.
Joseph Addison, whom we
won’t be studying this term
Distinguishing Traits
• Admired restraint, clarity, order, balance
and proportion.
• Applied the principle of decorum
– the idea of a rich and elevated language is
the appropriate one for writing tragedy, but
that a simpler language was used for
comedy and other genres that deal with
ordinary life.
Examples
• Dryden as well as Swift and Pope
would invert this formula, often using
rich elevated language when writing
satire.
• Examples of this are MacFlecknoe, The
Lady’s Dressing Room, and The Rape
of the Lock
Aristotle’s “Unities”
• From The Poetics
• Later codified by French and Italian
writers during the Renaissance.
• Dryden argues that the Unities are
important, but good drama is more
important, so if one has to bend the
rules, it’s permissible.
Neo-classicism Explained
• “Neoclassicists generally regarded man as a
limited creature whose understanding was
not adequate to an exploration of the infinite.
In his Essay Concerning Human
Understanding (1690), John Locke expressed
the hope that his ‘inquiry into the nature of
understanding’ would lead ‘the busy mind of
man to be more cautious in meddling with
things exceeding its comprehension… . Our
business here is not to know all things, but
those which concern our conduct.’
Definition 2
• This acceptance of human limitations and this
emphasis on ‘conduct’, on the behaviour
proper to men in society, was congenial to an
age in which many of the greatest literary
productions were satires of human
pretensions. Commonly, the enlightened
minds of the age believed that the orderly laws
of the physical universe (as Newton and
others were revealing them) demonstrated that
a beneficent creator existed and that human
affairs were to be directed toward
understanding man’s position in the physical
universe and in the social world. As Pope
wrote, ‘The proper study of mankind is man.’
Definition 3
• “For the writer, the proper goal, as the
Roman poet Horace had said, to instruct and
to delight. Through embellishments of
language, the poet was to please his reader
and thus lead him to see his characters as
individuals who were yet general
representations of humankind. Recognizing
in the actions of these characters what was
virtuous as well as what was foolish, the
reader learned, presumably, to admire the
former and avoid the latter.
Definition Conclusion
• To achieve his goal, the poet had to do more
than just trust his inspiration: he had to study
his craft, particularly as it had been practised
by the great writers of the Classical ages of
Greece and Rome. For in their works and in
the ‘rules’ that the best critics of the past had
devised, he would find reflected those
general laws governing man an the world that
are the true source of knowledge -- in short,
‘Nature’.” (Beckson and Ganz’s Literary Terms: A
dictionary)
An Essay on Dramatic Poesy
• Socratic dialogue
• We only read a small segment
• Speakers based on real people.
Eugenius
• Charles Sackville, Earl of Dorset who
used the courtesy title Lord Buckhurst,
• Dryden’s patron and friend
• also a poet and court wit.
Crites
• Sir Robert Howard, Dryden’s brother-inlaw and fellow playwright
• They argued about the use of blank
verse in drama.
Lisideius
• Sir Charles Sedley, another
poet/playwright associated with Court
circles
Neader
• Dryden himself
Dryden, c 1698
Dryden on the Puritans
• “Be it spoken to the honour of the English, our nation
can never want in any age such who are able to
dispute the empire of wit with any people in the
universe. And though the fury of a civil war, and
power for twenty years together of a barbarous race
of men, enemies of all good learning, had buried the
muses under the ruins of monarchy; yet, with the
restoration of our happiness, we see revived poesy
lifting up its head, and already shaking off the
rubbish which lay so heavy on it.”
Absalom and Achitophel
• Occasional poem linked to the trial of
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 1st Earl of
Shaftesbury
Shaftesbury background
• First been a soldier for Charles I
• Became a Parliamentarian under Cromwell.
• On the Restoration he was pardoned by
Charles II
• Became an influential politician
– member of Charles’s infamous “Cabal” ministry
Shaftesbury and Politics
• Appointed Lord Chancellor in 1672
• Did not support James to become king after
his brother because of his Catholicism.
• Supported Charles’s illegitimate son, James,
Duke of Monmouth’s claim to the throne
• He was brought to trial for treason in 1681.
Final Flight
• Although he was vindicated in this trial,
he fell from favor so dramatically that
he was forced to flee to the
Netherlands in 1682
• He died there the next year.
Notes on Lecture
• Shaftesbury really a brilliant statesman, but
his image has been colored by Dryden’s
depiction.
• There is no action in the poem. The rebellion
is stopped. So for us as readers, the
portraits of the people involved are what’s
important.
• The poem glamorizes the king. It has to,
really, and it has to gloss over some of
Charles’s faults
Characters
• David - Charles
• Absalom - Monmouth
• Achitophel - Shaftesbury
• Enemies - the Whig party
• Zimri - George Villiers, Duke of
Buckingham
Duke of Monmouth
• Charles’s oldest child and a favorite.
• Came to Court 1662, made Duke and
married to Anne, Countess of
Buccleuch
• Military commands on Continent
• Captain General, 1678
Plot to Supplant James
• Shaftesbury, among others, tried to get
Monmouth made heir
• Tried to have Charles legitimize him.
• Started a rumor campaign that Charles
had actually been legally married to
Lucy Walters, Monmouth’s mother.
• Charles always denied this.
Banishment
• In 1679, Charles sent both Monmouth
and the Duke of York (his brother
James) into exile.
• At this point, he was also pretty
disgusted with his brother for his
obstinate avowal of his Catholic faith.
Popular with the People
• Monmouth returned without the king's
permission
• Forbidden to come to court.
• Because of anti-Catholic sentiment
welcomed in London and the western
counties.
More Plotting
• After the arrest of Shaftesbury for
treason in 1681 he was heard to speak
openly of rebellion.
• When a plot to assassinate King
Charles and the Duke of York was
discovered in 1683 and some of the
Whig leaders were arrested, Monmouth
fled to Holland.
Under King James II
• June 1685, four months after James’s
ascension, Monmouth returned to England
and raised a small force.
• At Taunton he was proclaimed king
• For a short time his chances for success
looked very promising.
• Gentry failed to come to his support, and his
army was routed by James's troops.
• Monmouth was captured and beheaded in
London.
Biblical Allusions
• See 2 Samuel 13-18
• King James Bible is the one that
Dryden would have known.
• Really beautiful language
The Tories
• Crown party
• Those who stood for the traditional values of
king and country
• Dryden, Swift, Behn and Manley are some of
the staunch Tory poets we’ll discuss this
term.
• It’s also the party associated with the
Anglican and Catholic churches, though
members of these faiths could be Whigs.
The Whigs
• Parliamentarian party
• associated with the ousted Puritans, but more
with the rising mercantile middle-class
– people who have earned wealth and position
though hard work and not birth
– though there were members of the peerage who
were Whigs.
• Whigs tended to be less conservative,
forward-looking and closer to what we would
call “liberal” today.
H.T. Dickinson on the Whigs
• “The Whigs regarded both absolute
monarchy and a democratic republic as
inimical to that political and social order
which they believed was natural and
best suited to England . . .
• (con’t)
Dickinson 2
• “Whiggism was opposed to all the
fundamental tenets of the Tory theory of
order: namely absolute monarchy, divine
right, indefeasible hereditary succession,
non-resistance and passive obedience.
Whigs recognized the need for an absolute
and irresistible authority in the state, but they
refused to confer such authority on a single
magistrate.”
Dickinson 3
• “…since the monarch existed for the benefit
of his subjects and not vice-versa, and since
all governments were man-made and not
specifically ordained by God, no ruler could
claim his title by divine right. Rulers could
govern only with the consent of the people.”
– Dickinson, H.T. "Whiggism in the Eighteenth Century." The Whig
Ascendancy: Colloquie on Hanoverian England. John Cannon, ed. London:
Edward Arnold, 1981. 28-44.
Divine Right of Kings
• This is an ancient doctrine that kings
received their thrones from God, as you
can see illustrated in the Bible story you
read today. David is king of Israel
because God wills it. The ruler, then,
was answerable to no one but God.
Long History
• While this idea goes back as far as the
Hebrews, it did not come into
prominence in Western Civilization until
the Middle Ages.
• It then held sway throughout Europe
until the changes wrought by the
Enlightenment, beginning in the mid17th century.
King James I: On the Divine Right of Kings (1609)
• “The state of monarchy is the supremest thing upon
earth; for kings are not only God's lieutenants upon
earth, and sit upon God's throne, but even by God
himself are called gods. There be three principal
similitudes that illustrate the state of monarchy: one
taken out of the word of God; and the two other out
of the grounds of policy and philosophy. In the
Scriptures kings are called gods, and so their power
after a certain relation compared to the divine power.
More James I
• “Kings are also compared to fathers of families: for a
king is truly Parens patriae, the politique father of his
people. And lastly, kings are compared to the head of
this microcosm of the body of man.”
• [note from me, this tied in real well with the
strengthening of the patriarchy!]
More James I
• “Kings are justly called gods, for that they
exercise a manner or resemblance of divine
power upon earth: for if you will consider the
attributes to God, you shall see how they
agree in the person of a king.”
• Finally he wrote: “First, that you do not
meddle with the main points of government;
that is my craft . . . to meddle with that were
to lesson me . . . I must not be taught my
office.
Conclusion of James I Quote
• “Secondly, I would not have you meddle with
such ancient rights of mine as I have
received from my predecessors . . . . All
novelties are dangerous as well in a politic as
in a natural body. and therefore I would be
loath to be quarreled in my ancient rights and
possessions, for that were to judge me
unworthy of that which my predecessors had
and left me.”
Father to Son
• James taught this to his son and heir, of course, and
it was the arrogance of this position which brought
Charles I to his death.
• Charles II was aware of the doctrine, of course, but
he proved himself a bit more flexible, though he
indeed, did believe that he had been called to the
throne by God.
• He also believed that if God willed it, Charles would
have had a legitimate son, but as he didn’t, the
throne must go to his brother James, as that seemed
to be God’s will as well.
Tories vs. Whigs
• Tories held fast to the idea of the Divine
Right of kings
• Whigs don’t believe it.
Structure of poem
• Lines 1-149 are an introduction to the
dilemma and the political situation
• Lines 150-490 are the temptation of Absalom
• Lines 491-681 Achitophel’s men
• Lines 682-816 Dryden’s view of kingship
• Lines 817-932 “Good guys” listed
• Lines 933-end David asserts himself
Description Very Important
• The physical descriptions of people are
very important in this poem.
• Dryden was very interested in the
connection between the visual arts and
poetry
• Dryden being unusually visually-based
in his descriptions, more than in any
other poem
Physiognomy
• “Science” which seeks links between
the character and the body.
• These ideas are still with us today, but
they have been discredited as science.
• But we hold on to our prejudices.