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Dryden was an essayist, translator, critic, sharp satirist and poet.

John Dryden (1631 – 1700) was an influential English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who
dominated 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.

Dryden was born in Northampton shire, he was the eldest of fourteen children born to Erasmus Dryden and
wife Mary Pickering (Puritan landowning gentry who supported the Puritan cause and Parliament).

In 1644 he was sent to Westminster School as a King’s Scholar. As a humanist grammar 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 also 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 King Charles I, which took place on 30 January 1649.

In 1650 Dryden went up to Cambridge university, where he would have experienced a return to the religious
and political ethos of his childhood. At Cambridge, Dryden’s he must have followed the standard curriculum of
classics, rhetoric, and mathematics. In 1654 he obtained his BA, graduating top of the list for 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.

Arriving in London during The Protectorate, Dryden procured work with Cromwell’s Secretary of State, John
Thurloe. Dryden was present on 23 November 1658 at Cromwell’s funeral where he processed with the
Puritan poets John Milton and Andrew Marvell. Shortly thereafter he published his first important poem,
Heroique Stanzas (1658), a eulogy on Cromwell’s death which is cautious and prudent in its emotional display.
In 1660 Dryden celebrated the Restoration of the monarchy and the return of Charles II with Astraea Redux, an
authentic royalist panegyric. In this work the interregnum is illustrated as a time of anarchy, and Charles is
seen as the restorer of peace and order.

After the Restoration, Dryden quickly established himself as the leading poet and literary critic of his day and
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.

On 1 December 1663 Dryden married the royalist sister of Sir 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 however, was to bear him three sons and outlive
him.

With the reopening of the theatres after the Puritan ban, Dryden busied himself with the composition of plays.
His best play was All for Love (1678).

In 1667, around the same time his dramatic career began, he published Annus Mirabilis, a lengthy historical
poem which described the events of 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).

Dryden’s greatest achievements were in satiric verse: the mock-heroic MacFlecknoe, which was an attack on the
playwright Thomas Shadwell. This line of satire continued with Absalom and Achitophel (1681).
Dryden translated works by Horace, 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 a national event and brought Dryden the sum of
₤1,400. He further translated a series of episodes from Homer, Ovid, and Boccaccio. As a critic and translator
he was essential in making accessible to the reading English public literary works in the classical languages.

Dryden died in 1700 and is buried in Westminster Abbey.

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.

Dryden's heroic couplet became the dominant poetic form of the 18th century. The most influential poet 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.

His poems were very widely read, and are often quoted, for instance, in Johnson's essays.

One of the first attacks on Dryden's reputation was by 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".

The 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'.

What Dryden achieved in his poetry was not the emotional excitement we find in the Romantic poets of the
early nineteenth century, nor the intellectual complexities of the metaphysical poets. His subject-matter was
often factual, and he aimed at expressing his thoughts in the most precise and concentrated way possible.
Although he uses formal poetic structures such as heroic stanzas and heroic couplets, he tried to achieve the
rhythms of speech. However, he knew that different subjects need different kinds of verse, and in his preface to
Religio Laici he wrote: “...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.”
 John Dryden 'A Song for St. Cecilia's Day, 1687 - YouTube.WEBM
A Song for St. Cecilia's Day (1687)
Stanza 1
From harmony, from Heav'nly harmony
This universal frame began.
When Nature underneath a heap
Of jarring atoms lay,
And could not heave her head,
The tuneful voice was heard from high,
Arise ye more than dead.
Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry,
In order to their stations leap,
And music's pow'r obey.
From harmony, from Heav'nly harmony
This universal frame began:
From harmony to harmony
Through all the compass of the notes it ran,
The diapason closing full in man.

Stanza 2
What passion cannot music raise and quell!
When Jubal struck the corded shell,
His list'ning brethren stood around
And wond'ring, on their faces fell
To worship that celestial sound:
Less than a god they thought there could not dwell
Within the hollow of that shell
That spoke so sweetly and so well.
What passion cannot music raise and quell!
Stanza 3
The trumpet's loud clangor
Excites us to arms
With shrill notes of anger
And mortal alarms.
The double double double beat
Of the thund'ring drum
Cries, hark the foes come;
Charge, charge, 'tis too late to retreat.

Stanza 4
The soft complaining flute
In dying notes discovers
The woes of hopeless lovers,
Whose dirge is whisper'd by the warbling lute.
Stanza 5
Sharp violins proclaim
Their jealous pangs, and desperation,
Fury, frantic indignation,
Depth of pains and height of passion,
For the fair, disdainful dame.

Stanza 6
But oh! what art can teach
What human voice can reach
The sacred organ's praise?
Notes inspiring holy love,
Notes that wing their Heav'nly ways
To mend the choirs above.
Stanza 7
Orpheus could lead the savage race;
And trees unrooted left their place;
Sequacious of the lyre:
But bright Cecilia rais'd the wonder high'r;
When to her organ, vocal breath was giv'n,
An angel heard, and straight appear'd
Mistaking earth for Heav'n.
GRAND CHORUS
As from the pow'r of sacred lays
The spheres began to move,
And sung the great Creator's praise
To all the bless'd above;
So when the last and dreadful hour
This crumbling pageant shall devour,
The trumpet shall be heard on high,
The dead shall live, the living die,
And music shall untune the sky.
BACKGROUND TO THE POEM: St Cecilia was a Christian martyr who became the patron saint of
music.
Dryden wrote Song for Saint Cecilia’s Day for the performance with orchestra to celebrate the festival of
Saint Cecilia’s Day in 1687, celebrates and glorifies the power of music, and was set to music for the
formal day of celebration on 22 November.
The poem begins by describing the creation of the universe and the role of music in creating harmony.
(Check references to music you find in this first stanza, and what is the impact of the repetition Dryden
uses). In stanza 2, ‘Jubal’ refers to the biblical character regarded as the father of music (According to
the biblical book of Genesis 4:21 Jubal was the father of all harpists and organists.). His invention of the
lyre encouraged listeners to make connections between music and the Divine. In the remaining stanzas
music refers to other aspects that music affects and rouse-- war and conflict, love and singing. He
mentions trumpets and flutes, violins and the human voice. Notice how he wonders whether the human
voice can match ‘The sacred organ’s praise’.
The feast-day of St. Cecilia (Nov. 22) commemorated the legend that Cecilia invented the organ, and is
consequently the patron saint of music, by the performance of formal odes set to music. The theme
conventionally combines a tribute to the power of music, and a final tribute to the saint. The poem
celebrates the power of music by drawing upon classical myths and Christian and Jewish sources and
legends.
The dominant theme is directly expressed in the line “What passion cannot Music raise and quell!” Its
development associates specific passions with specific instruments. This theme is developed, however,
within the larger context of the hexameral (6 part) tradition which associates music with the creation and
of the Christian eschatological tradition which associates the trumpet with Judgment Day and the
crumbling of creation. Eschatological means the department of theological science concerned with the 4
last things: death, judgement, heaven, and hell.
The power of music to raise passions is developed in the middle five stanzas about how music from
individual instruments raises emotions.
In the Grand Chorus does Dryden explore how music quells emotions.
The mythic figures mentioned in the poem contribute to the idea of music developing from humble
origins after the fall of man.
The sublime music of creation of the first stanza that regulates the spheres remains unheard by men
after the Fall in the Garden of Eden. Instead, Jubal creates the first musical sounds by blowing upon a
sea shell and, as Dryden’s description indicates, fills his hearers with wonder. Orpheus.
Orpheus is a legendary musician, poet, and prophet in ancient Greek religion and myth. The major
stories about him are centered on his ability to charm all living things and even stones with his music.
Orpheus confirms the power of music by his appeal to the plant and animal kingdoms. Thereafter, music
increases its power over human emotions, as more complex instruments are fashioned.

This is a Pythagorean doctrine. Pythagoras saw the universe as the manifestation of the heavenly
harmony which he believed had held contrary things together. This was not merely a conjecture for him:
the essential element for him in harmony was numbers and so harmony was founded upon numerical
proportions as it is also today. But while drawing upon the Pythagorean theory Dryden has also used
the biblical theory of Creation in which man was the latest and the best product in the process of
Genesis:
In these stanzas Dryden illustrates how human beings are over-powered by various kinds of music.
First of all, he refers to Jubal who is the father of music in ancient Jewish literature and who is thought to
have invented the lyre made of strings stretched across the shell of a tortoise. Here Jubal is introduced
to show that music can force man towards divinity and thus testifies to its divine association,
In the third stanza Dryden describes how wild music of trumpet incites the passion of anger in human
hearts, and how the wild beats of drum leads them to take up arms against the enemies.
In the fourth stanza Dryden shows that music even can reflect the most refined feelings like those of the
“hopeless lovers”.
In the fifth stanza the power of the musical instrument violin is described. It is to be noted that Dryden
has carefully selected different rhythms in describing different instruments. Thus he has conveyed their
various kinds of impact.
In the sixth stanza the divine qualities of the musical instrument like the organ have been contrasted
with those of the human voice:
What human voice can reach l The sacred organ's praise?
Dryden refers to organ and its divine association in order to come to the central figure of the poem, St
Cecilia. But before that he refers to the mythical, musical figure of ancient Greece, Orpheus who is
attributed with so many miracles he had performed by his power of music with the lyre.
But according to Dryden, St Cecilia had performed greater miracle by attracting an angel who mistook
earth for heaven by listening to her music.
In the grand Chorus he concludes by uttering a prophecy that as the universe was created from the
power generated out the musical harmony, so the universe will cease to exist with the end of that
harmony:
So when the last and dreadful hour
This crumbling pageant shall devour,
The trumpet shall be heard on high,
The dead shall live, the living die,
And music shall untune the sky.

This theory is wholly Biblical in spirit referring to the Apocalypse prophesied by St John in the final
chapter of the Bible.
Farewell, ungrateful traitor!

Farewell, ungrateful traitor! The passion you pretended

Farewell, my perjur'd swain!
Let never injur'd woman
Believe a man again.
The pleasure of possessing
Surpasses all expressing,
But 'tis too short a blessing,
And love too long a pain.
Was only to obtain,
But once the charm is ended,
The charmer you disdain.
Your love by ours we measure
Till we have lost our treasure,
But dying is a pleasure
When living is a pain.

'Tis easy to deceive us

In pity of your pain,
But when we love, you leave us
To rail at you in vain.
Before we have descried it,
There is no joy beside it,
But she that once has tried it
Will never love again.
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.