Erik Visits a Non-American Grave, Part 2,015

This is the grave of John Dryden.

Born in 1631 in Aldwincle, Northamptonshire, England, Dryden grew up wealthy, the oldest child of 14 in a family whose grandfather had served in the House of Commons. Dryden was also distantly related to Jonathan Swift. He went to Westminster School, which was about the best schooling available in 17th century England. He and his fellow students were locked into the school to prevent them from watching the execution of King Charles in 1649 by the Puritans, but he published his first poem about it. He went to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1650 and graduated in 1654. His father died that year and he didn’t leave his son that much money–enough for relative comfort by middle class standards, but certainly not that of a gentlemen. So he got a minor job under Oliver Cromwell through his connections (parts of his family had supported the Puritans). When Cromwell died in 1659, he published his poem “Heroic Stanzas” about it, which brought him quite a bit of attention.

But Dryden was no committed Puritan and adjusted to the Restoration just fine. For one thing, the end of the Puritans meant the reopening of the theaters and there was room for young playwrights to make their name. Dryden jumped into it. He also married a royalist woman in 1663. By 1668, he was producing about a play a year for the King’s Company. This was the era of the great Restoration comedy and Dryden was at its peak. These plays include 1673’s Marriage a La Mode and 1678’s All for Love.

Dryden thought he was debasing himself for money in the theater and really wanted to be seen as a poet primarily. He did work hard, no doubt about that. In 1667, he published Annus Mirabilis about the years 1665-1666 and the Great Fire of London. The idea is that it was a year of miracles and everything could have been worse. Yeah, I guess. But the time had also produced some English victorious in the endless wars of that period that Dryden wanted to celebrate. He knew who buttered his bread. That it was this huge epic talking about the glories of the nation meant that he was named the nation’s poet laureate in 1668.

Dryden could get nasty with his pen. In the late 1670s, he published a poem attacking the bad behavior of Charles II and his advisors, especially the Earl of Rochester. The latter tried to have Dryden killed. He was returning from a night out when Rochester’s thugs beat him and nearly killed him. Dryden offered a big reward for their identities but of course no one came forward. But the point was made–he survived and would fight back and keep publishing his scabrous attacks. He published the poem “Mac Flecknoe” as a satirical attack on the playwright Thomas Shadwell. He became more broadly satirical over the years too. Shadwell would have his revenge though–Dryden was deeply opposed to the overthrow of James II and the Glorious Revolution and refused to take an oath of allegiance to William and Mary, so he was tossed out of his position of poet laureate and Shadwell named to replace him.

But hell, all this meant for Dryden was a new period is his career. He started translating classics into English and usually did it by subscription, so he remained pretty loaded. He took on Horace, Ovid, Juvenal, Lucretius, and several others. The biggest task was Virgil and his 1697 The Works of Virgil made him about 1,400 pounds, a ton of money for the late 17th century. He then did some shorter Homer translations and also updated Chaucer for a more modern English.

It’s almost impossible to overstate Dryden’s influence. Perhaps only Shakespeare has been more influential on the history of English literature in the last 500 years and I don’t say that lightly given Austen and Bronte and Dickens and so many others. Sure, Chaucer basically invented the heroic couplet but it was Dryden who made it standard in English poetry, though certainly Alexander Pope has claims here as well. Samuel Johnson later said of Dryden, “the veneration with which his name is pronounced by every cultivator of English literature, is paid to him as he refined the language, improved the sentiments, and tuned the numbers of English poetry.” Dryden is also generally credited with creating the rule in English that sentences cannot end in prepositions. This is nonsense, really. Who cares? But Dryden’s feeling is that you couldn’t do this in Latin so you can’t do that in English. I guess there’s a logic there, though, again, it still feels like nonsense to me.

Incidentally, we brought the indigenous scholar and comic book artist Lee Francis to campus last week and he noted that Dryden invented the term “noble savage” to describe North American Indians. I did not know this. This came in his 1672 play The Conquest of Granada by the Spaniards. This archetype soon became beloved in Europe as a way to idealize a people that whites believed and demanded would go away, but could serve as a supposed mirror on their own culture and a way to criticize it. Not without its major problems, that’s for sure!

Another phrase Dryden invented is “blaze of glory,” in his allegoric poem The Hind and the Panther.” And where would Jon Bon Jovi have been without “Blaze of Glory,” not to mention the Young Guns soundtrack. Incidentally “The Hind and the Panther” runs a mere 2,600 lines. Some hated this poem at the time because it had animals debated theology and how outrageous was that! Blasphemy! 17th century England can sound pretty annoying.

Of course over the years, lots of people have criticized Dryden, but it’s like criticizing Shakespeare or Dante. I mean, sure, go ahead, but really, it’s above serious dismissal at this point. On the other hand, who actually reads Dryden in 2025? No one reads anyone anymore, not when you can doomscroll on your phone or watch Tiktok videos or stream incredibly shitty Netflix shows while AI tells you what to watch next. What do we need Dryden for as we waste the hours before our deaths? But hell, it’s not as if I’ve ever read him either.

Here’s a Dryden poem for us. This is “Alexander’s Feast, or, The Power of Music,” written in 1697:

‘Twas at the royal feast for Persia won
By Philip’s warlike son—
Aloft in awful state
The godlike hero sate
On his imperial throne;
His valiant peers were placed around,
Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound
(So should desert in arms be crowned);
The lovely Thais by his side
Sate like a blooming eastern bride
In flower of youth and beauty’s pride:—
Happy, happy, happy pair!
None but the brave
None but the brave
None but the brave deserves the fair!

Timotheus placed on high
Amid the tuneful quire
With flying fingers touched the lyre;
The trembling notes ascend the sky
And heavenly joys inspire.
The song began from Jove
Who left his blissful seats above—
Such is the power of mighty love!
A dragon’s fiery form belied the god
Sublime on radiant spires he rode
When he to fair Olympia prest,
And while he sought her snowy breast,
Then round her slender waist he curled,
And stamped an image of himself, a sovereign of the world.
– The listening crowd admire the lofty sound!
A present deity! they shout around:
A present deity! the vaulted roofs rebound!
With ravished ears
The monarch hears,
Assumes the god,
Affects to nod,
And seems to shake the spheres.

The praise of Bacchus then the sweet musician sung,
Of Bacchus ever fair and ever young:
The jolly god in triumph comes!
Sound the trumpets, beat the drums!
Flushed with a purple grace
He shows his honest face:
Now give the hautboys breath; he comes, he comes!
Bacchus, ever fair and young,
Drinking joys did first ordain;
Bacchus’ blessings are a treasure,
Drinking is the soldier’s pleasure:
Rich the treasure,
Sweet the pleasure,
Sweet is pleasure after pain.

Soothed with the sound, the king grew vain;
Fought all his battles o’er again,
And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew the slain.
The master saw the madness rise,
His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes;
And while he Heaven and Earth defied
Changed his hand and checked his pride.
He chose a mournful Muse
Soft pity to infuse:
He sung Darius great and good,
By too severe a fate
Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,
Fallen from his high estate,
And weltering in his blood;
Deserted, at his utmost need,
By those his former bounty fed;
On the bare earth exposed he lies
With not a friend to close his eyes.
– With downcast looks the joyless victor sate,
Revolving in his altered soul
The various turns of Chance below;
And now and then a sigh he stole,
And tears began to flow.

The mighty master smiled to see
That love was in the next degree;
‘Twas but a kindred-sound to move,
For pity melts the mind to love.
Softly sweet, in Lydian measures
Soon he soothed his soul to pleasures.
War, he sung, is toil and trouble,
Honour but an empty bubble;
Never ending, still beginning,
Fighting still, and still destroying;
If the world be worth thy winning,
Think, O think, it worth enjoying:
Lovely Thais sits beside thee,
Take the good the gods provide thee!
– The many rend the skies with loud applause;
So Love was crowned, but Music won the cause.
The prince, unable to conceal his pain,
Gazed on the fair
Who caused his care,
And sighed and looked, sighed and looked,
Sighed and looked, and sighed again:
At length with love and wine at once opprest
The vanquished victor sunk upon her breast.

Now strike the golden lyre again:
A louder yet, and yet a louder strain!
Break his bands of sleep asunder

And rouse him like a rattling peal of thunder.
Hark, hark! the horrid sound
Has raised up his head:
As awaked from the dead
And amazed he stares around.
Revenge, revenge, Timotheus cries,
See the Furies arisel
See the snakes that they rear
How they hiss in their hair,
And the sparkles that flash from their eyes!
Behold a ghastly band,
Each a torch in his hand!
Those are Grecian ghosts, that in battle were slain
And unburied remain
Inglorious on the plain:
Give the vengeance due
To the valiant crew!
Behold how they toss their torches on high,
How they point to the Persian abodes
And glittering temples of their hostile gods.
– The princes applaud with a furious joy:
And the King seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy;
Thais led the way
To light him to his prey,
And like another Helen, fired another Troy!

– Thus, long ago,
Ere heaving bellows learned to blow,
While organs yet were mute,
Timotheus, to his breathing flute
And sounding lyre,
Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.
At last divine Cecilia came,
Inventress of the vocal frame;
The sweet enthusiast from her sacred store
Enlarged the former narrow bounds,
And added length to solemn sounds,
With Nature’s mother-wit, and arts unknown before.
– Let old Timotheus yield the prize
Or both divide the crown;
He raised a mortal to the skies;
She drew an angel down!

Dryden worked until the very end. His Chaucer semi-translation came out in 1700. He died that year as well, at the age of 68. Not sure why, but it was 1700 and he was pretty old.

John Dryden is buried in Westminster Abbey, London, England.

If you would like this series to visit American poets, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. Lizette Woodworth Reese is in Baltimore and Frances Densmore is in Red Wing, Minnesota. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.