The Works of John Dryden, Volume XIII: Plays: All for Love, Oedipus, Troilus and Cressida

John Dryden

University of California Press, 1956 - Drama - 672 pages

The dramatic opera, King Arthur, benefited from a fine score by Henry Purcell and has remained in the operatic repertoire to this day. Cleomenes, the tragedy, was banned until Dryden was able to convince Queen Mary that it did not reflect any seditious sympathy with the exiled James II, after which it was successful. The fate of Love Triumphant, the tragicomedy, was different; possibly because of a growing swell of moral reform, the play was universally damned, even though its themes of incest and miscellaneous fornication had never brought rejection to Dryden in the past. The Secular Masque, Dryden's principal contribution to The Pilgrim by Fletcher, had undistinguished music, but its lively verse and broad review of the previous century kept the piece on the stage for the next fifty years, and in anthologies up to the present.

About the author

Born August 9, 1631 into a wealthy Puritan family, John Dryden received an excellent education at Westminster School and Cambridge University. After a brief period in government, he turned his attention almost entirely to writing. Dryden was one of the first English writers to make his living strictly by writing, but this meant he had to cater to popular taste. His long career was astonishingly varied, and he turned his exceptional talents to almost all literary forms. Dryden dominated the entire Restoration period as a poet, playwright, and all-round man of letters. He was the third poet laureate of England. In his old age Dryden was virtually a literary "dictator" in England, with an immense influence on eighteenth-century poetry. His verse form and his brilliant satires became models for other poets, but they could rarely equal his standard. Dryden was also a master of "occasional" poetry - verse written for a specific person or special occasion. Like most poets of his time, Dryden saw poetry as a way of expressing ideas rather than emotions, which makes his poetry seem cool and impersonal to some modern readers. Dryden also wrote numerous plays that helped him make him one of the leading figures in the Restoration theatre. Today, however he is admired more for his influence on other writers than for his own works. He died on April 30, 1700 in London.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Works of John Dryden, Volume XIII: Plays: All for Love, Oedipus, Troilus and Cressida; Volume 13 of The Works of John Dryden, Volume XIII; Volume 13 of Works of John Dryden, Hugh Thomas Swedenberg
• Author: John Dryden
• Editors: Edward Niles Hooker, Hugh Thomas Swedenberg, Vinton A. Dearing
• author of text accompanying photos: Vinton A. Dearing
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: University of California Press, 1956
• ISBN: 0520021274, 9780520021273
• Length: 672 pages
• Subjects: Drama / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh; Drama / General; Language Arts & Disciplines / Reference; Literary Criticism / American / General; Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh; Literary Criticism / Poetry; Performing Arts / Theater / General; Religion / General