Dryden as a Satairist
Dryden as a Satirist
Introduction:
Dryden is one of the greatest English satirists. He is the first practitioner of classical satire which after him was to remain in vogue for about one hundred and fifty years. From the very beginning of his literary career Dryden evinced a sharp satiric bent. He translated some of the satires of the Roman writer Persius when he was only a pupil at Westminster. Further, in his comedies he produced numerous passages of sparkling satire. He keenly studied the satirical traditions of Rome and France and whatever satire England had to offer.
But it was not till he was about fifty that he came to write Absalom and Achitophel-fae, first of the four major satiric works on which his reputation as a poet is based. With his practice he gave a new form and direction to English satire and raised it to the level of French and Roman satire. He made satire not only a redoubtable weapon to chastise personal and public enemies but also an important, if not a very exalted, genre of literature which was later to attract such great writers as Pope, Swift, Addison, and Dr. Johnson. Dryden's four important satires are:
(1) Absalom and Acmtopliel.
(2) The second part of Absalom and Achitophel chiefly written by Nahum Tate and including about 200 lines by Dryden.
(3) The Medal.
(4) Mac Flecknoe.
Dryden's Contribution and Place:
Dryden as a satirist does not fall in with native English tradition of Langland. Gascoigne, Donne, Lodge, Hall, Marston, Cleveland, etc. which was carried on by his contemporaries like Oldham and Samuel Butler. Just as in his non-satiric poetry he reacted against the "romanticism" of the Elizabethans and the confusion, grotesqueness, and formlessness of the imitators of Donne, similarly in his satire he broke away from the harshness, disrespect of form, and denunciatory tone of the English satirists before him. He seems to have looked for inspiration not towards them but-a neo-classicist as he was-towards the Roman
Introduction:
Dryden is one of the greatest English satirists. He is the first practitioner of classical satire which after him was to remain in vogue for about one hundred and fifty years. From the very beginning of his literary career Dryden evinced a sharp satiric bent. He translated some of the satires of the Roman writer Persius when he was only a pupil at Westminster. Further, in his comedies he produced numerous passages of sparkling satire. He keenly studied the satirical traditions of Rome and France and whatever satire England had to offer.
But it was not till he was about fifty that he came to write Absalom and Achitophel-fae, first of the four major satiric works on which his reputation as a poet is based. With his practice he gave a new form and direction to English satire and raised it to the level of French and Roman satire. He made satire not only a redoubtable weapon to chastise personal and public enemies but also an important, if not a very exalted, genre of literature which was later to attract such great writers as Pope, Swift, Addison, and Dr. Johnson. Dryden's four important satires are:
(1) Absalom and Acmtopliel.
(2) The second part of Absalom and Achitophel chiefly written by Nahum Tate and including about 200 lines by Dryden.
(3) The Medal.
(4) Mac Flecknoe.
Dryden's Contribution and Place:
Dryden as a satirist does not fall in with native English tradition of Langland. Gascoigne, Donne, Lodge, Hall, Marston, Cleveland, etc. which was carried on by his contemporaries like Oldham and Samuel Butler. Just as in his non-satiric poetry he reacted against the "romanticism" of the Elizabethans and the confusion, grotesqueness, and formlessness of the imitators of Donne, similarly in his satire he broke away from the harshness, disrespect of form, and denunciatory tone of the English satirists before him. He seems to have looked for inspiration not towards them but-a neo-classicist as he was-towards the Roman