Age Of Dryden - Verse

Question 1

The Stuart Restoration was followed by an immense change in the temper of the English. Describe the era briefly. Did it impact literature?

Answer 1

A sweeping reaction against Puritanism set in and even decency was cast aside.

England was now at its lowest in history. The court of Charles II is the most shameless the country ever knew; profligacy became fashionable.

The spirit of moral corruption spread wide and into literature too. As literature is a social product it was impacted too.

Question 2

How was the literature of Age of Dryden?

Answer 2

Openly corrupt.
Real earnest purpose and passion had gone away.

The thoughts of men no longer scaled the heights but soared the plain; becoming pedestrian.

Literature was intellectual rather than imaginative and emotional, and though brilliant, is often unsympathetic.

Question 3

How was poetry of the Age of Dryden specifically?

Answer 3

Poetry became prosaic, was judged by prose standards and made to do work of prose.

The poet made his verse the vehicle of controversy and personal +political satire.

The era of the Versified pamphlet began.

Question 4

The men of the Restoration were the real creators of ___

Answer 4

Modern English prose

Question 5

What was the influence of France on Restoration prose?

Answer 5

The European supremacy of Italy had passed and France had become the world’s great arbiter of taste.

The political relations between England and France made in England a vogue for all things French.

The contemporary literature of France was characterized by reason and close attention to form. IT was essentially a literature of polite society.
The intellectual, critical mind was always in control.

Question 6

As in prose, the principles of correctness to form and order were cultivated in verse at the expense of real feeling. This grew an ___kind of poetry

Answer 6

Artificial

Question 7

Dryden has been called?

Answer 7

” the greatest man of a little age “

Question 8

Dryden has two master writers who are pioneers of the classical school of poetry. Talk more about them and who are they.

Answer 8

Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham.
In general these two men were against excesses of metaphysical poetry and in favour of sensible, clear poetry.

They were reformers of English verse at a time when it was too rugged. This is especially true of Waller.

Question 9

How did Waller reshape the heroic couplet? Was he the first?

Answer 9

He brought into use the kind of ‘classic/closed’ heroic couplet in which the rule is that the couplet should regularly close at the end of the second line both rhetorically and metrically.

Dryden is wrong to say that Waller invented the closed heroic couplet. But when Waller began his work, the tendency was towards a formless kind of verse SO it is from him the new movement may be said to gain power.

Question 10

What is Denham, one of Drydens masters, chiefly remembered for?

Answer 10

Coopers Hill a descriptive poem

Question 11

Where was Dryden born and when?

Answer 11

Aldwinkle All Saints, Northamptonshire in 1631

Question 12

Where was Dryden educated and where did he settled?

Answer 12

Educated at Westminster and at Trinity College, Cambridge

Settled in London later

Question 13

What were Drydens first poems?

Answer 13

Heroic Stanzas of the Death of Oliver Cromwell, and rapidly changing sides, Astrea Redux in celebration of Charles IIs restoration

Question 14

Later after poetry, Dryden began to work for the___ which was the only profitable writing profession. And for many years __ was his chief occupation.

Answer 14

Stage, playwriting

Question 15

In 1670 Dryden was made __ and then later he opened a new chapter in his career with the publication of the first of his great verse satires ___

Answer 15

Poet laureate, Absalom and Achitophel

Question 16

His great verse satire was followed by similar works, then two theological poems ___ a defence of the Church of England and ___ an argument in favour of Roman Catholics, to which he has converted.

Answer 16

Religio Laici, The Hind and the Panther

Question 17

Because Dryden converted to Catholicism, the revolution of 1688 was a huge blow and he lost the position of ___. How did he spend his remaining years? When he died?

Answer 17

Poet laureate, spent remaining years producing more plays
translations of Juvenal, Persius, Virgil
A volume of Fables( or paraphrases from Homer, Ovid, Boccaacio, Chaucer)
He died in 1700.

Question 18

As a poet, Dryden ripened very slowly. What was his first poem?

Answer 18

An elegy on the death of the young Lord Hastings; incredibly badly written

Question 19

What was Drydens poem written in his late 20s? Which other early poem was it similar to and how? Talk about both poems.

Answer 19

He wrote Heroic Stanzas on the Death of Oliver Cromwell and there are few fine lines but it’s mostly crudely bombastic.

He was greatly influenced by Cowley” the darling of my youth” as a result all the characteristic absurdities of the metaphysical school are in his early works.

The fantastic conceits are even found in Annus Mirabilis, written about the War in Holland and the Great Fire of London.
But though it’s faults are many, the masculine vigour of the poem shows an immense development in the poets genius.

Question 20

For Drydens full powers, we have to turn to the work of the last 20 years of his life. WHY so?

Answer 20

His emancipation from the metaphysical writers is complete and his work flows clear and strong, no longer choked with rubbish.

This marks the definite establishment of the classical school of poetry in England.

Question 21

Talk about Drydens classical political satires.

Answer 21

Absalom and Achitophel, written amid the excitement of the Popish Plot conspiracy, was to defend the Kings policy against the Earl of Shaftesbury.

IT is famous for its character studies, of Shaftesbury under the name Achitophel and of Duke of Buckingham under the name Zimri.

The Medal is a further attack against Shaftesbury.

MacFlecknoe is a scathing personal attack on a former friend Thomas Shadwell who had abused Dryden in verse after The Medal.

Question 22

Talk about Drydens classical doctrinal poems.

Answer 22

Religio Laici and The Hind and the Panther, are theological and controversial not spiritual.

They are written from opposing points of view and show Drydens mastery to conduct an argument in verse for whatever position he adopts.

Question 23

Talk about Drydens classical Fables.

Answer 23

These poems written in Drydens last years and under burden of age and ill health show the poet at his best and shows him as one of the best verse storytellers.

Palamon and Arcite, based on Knightes Tale of Chaucer, give an opportunity for a comparison between form and art of 17th century poet VS 14th century poet.

Question 24

Drydens poetry is thoroughly representative of its age.
As a whole it is marked by general want of the essential poetic qualities such as ? Except in the poems?

On the other hand it has? Therefore we can say Dryden holds his own as a satirist and reasoner in verse.

Answer 24

Such as imagination, feeling and spiritual glow, lyrical note
Except in the remarkable odes To the Memory of Mrs Anne Killigrew and Alexanders Feast

On the other hand it has splendid intellectuality and masculine vigour of style.

Question 25

IT was Drydens influence that lifted the classic couplet into the place as the accepted measure for serious English poetry. How so? Did he ever use a different format?

Answer 25

When he began to write, like the literary world in general he was struggling to adopt a certain form.

Thus he fluctuated between the Gondibert stanza in the poems Heroic Stanzas and Annus Mirabilis, and the heroic couplet in Astrea Redux and the Panegyric on Charles II’s Restoration.

With Absalom and Achitophel he finally chose the heroic couplet.

Question 26

Who is Restoration poet who lives on entirely in the strength of one work? Which work?

Answer 26

Samuel Butler, author of Hudibras

Question 27

Hudibras’ 3 parts were published when?

Answer 27

1663,1664,1678(big gap)

Question 28

What is Hudibras and what is it inspired by?

Answer 28

It is a satire on the Puritans which instantly hit the taste of the time and became immensely popular.

The poem is fashioned on the Spanish burlesque romance Don Quixote. IT also tells of the misadventures of a knight and his squire and the knights ill fortunes in love.

Question 29

Talk about story of Hudibras.

Answer 29

IT has two contrasted representatives of Puritanism. One is the Presbyterian Sir Hudibras, a military enthusiast who is an unconscious hypocrite. His attendant Ralpho is a vulgar hypocrite and impostor who appears virtuous only for his own profit.

The story begins with two of them attempting to put down a bear baiting, which leads to their being set on by the heels in the parish stocks. This is the most amusing portion of the book.

Question 30

Hudibras’ demerits?

Answer 30

Other incidents follow the first part of the story that keep up the interest well into the second part; after this the story lapses into odds and ends.

To modern readers Hudibras is far too long and some of its best passages suffer from prolixity, and too much space is given to discussion of Puritan casuistry.

The local and temporary nature of its subject matter is another serious modern disadvantage.

Question 31

Hudibras’ merits?

Answer 31

IT is full of vivacity, and even its doggerel metre and astonishing double rhyme are, as Dryden said, fitted to the purpose of burlesque.

Question 32

IT was Butlers intention to kill Puritanism by _ . This poem was the favourite reading of _. Who while he praised the author over it, nevertheless let him spend his last years in neglect and poverty.

Answer 32

Ridicule, Charles II

Question 33

We are not to take Butlers picture of Puritanism as final? WHY?

Answer 33

It’s a mere caricature.
Butler only saw the charlatanism which was associated with Puritanism and
not the greatness and strength which made it important in the making of history.