介绍英国诗人的英语作文

介绍英国诗人的英语作文

John Dryden

(1631-1700)

POEMS:

Absalom and Achitophel

Alexander's Feast

Mac Flecknoe

The Secular Masque

Religio Laici

Veni, Creator Spiritus

Song to a Fair Young Lady, going out of the Town in the Spring

A Song for St. Cecilia's Day, 1687

Of Dramatic Poesie

John Dryden, (1631-1700), English poet, literary critic, dramatist and

leader in Restoration comedy wrote the comedic

play Marriage A-la-Mode (1672), and the tragedy All for Love (1678).

John Dryden was borm in Aldwinkle, Northamptonshire, England,

the eldest of fourteen children of Erasmus Dryden

(C.1602-1654) and Mary Pickering (d. 1676).

Dryden was a King's scholar studying the classics at Westminster. He

contributed to the collection of tributes to

honour Henry, Lord Hastings, an elegy in Lachrymae Musarum

(1649). He entered Trinity College, Cambridge in 1650,

graduating in February of 1654, the same year his father died. While

living in London in 1657 Dryden started working

with the civil service and began in earnest writing plays of heroic

tragedy and satires of varying success. Heroic

Stanzas (1658), on the death of Oliver Cromwell is his first important

work. With the protectorate crumbling, Dryden

sought other work including writing for a bookseller. With the return

of Charles II he celebrated the King's divine

right with, among other works, his poem Astraea Redux (1 660). To

His Sacred Majesty, a Panegyrick on his Coronation

(1661) came next, Dryden courting favour with the new regime

which would later bring allegations of insincere and

self-serving allegiance.

On 1 December 1663 Dryden married the daughter of the Earl of

Berkshire, Lady Elizabeth Howard (c.1638-1714),

with whom he would have three sons. His first play The Wild Gallant

was first staged in 1662. The Rival Ladies (1663)also had Spanish

influences. Attached to itis one of his famous Prefaces where he

describes his principles ofdramatic criticism. His first successful play,

written in heroic couplets wasThe Indian Emperor(1665).The same yearof

the Great Fire in London, Annus Mirabllis (1666) celebrates the English

Navy's victory over the Dutch. Dryden hadretired to the country with the

plague threat, where his first son was bom, and he continued to write.

The MaidenQueen composed in blank verse, rhyming couplets and prose

and The Assignation, or Love in a Nunnery wereproduced in

Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668) was written two years after the

Restoration with the reopeningof the theatres. Dryden entered into a

contractin 1668 with the King's Theatre Company in which he would

producethree plays a year. For hisefforts the Archbishop of

Canterburyawarded himan 1668. The same yearhebecame Poet

laureate and in 1670 Royal Historiographer which would provide a

stableincome for play Marriage A-la-Mode (1672) was followed

by his unsuccessful work on the theme of Paradise Lost, The Stateof

Innocence, staged in 1676, he began to use blank verse, and

he produced his best play, All for Love in1678. It is Dryden's most famous

masterpiece based on Anthony and had mastered the

artofcomparative criticism, using prose and dialogue for debate, and wit

and satire toillustrate disparities between churchand state. A year later

Dryden was beaten by thugs, an attack that had been ordered by the Earl

of Rochester whenDryden was suspected of collaboration on An Essay

upon Satire, which vilified various prominent figures, of whichthe real

author was never realised.

The well-known political satire of Shaftesbury underthe transparent

guise of the Old Testament, Absalom andAchitophel, Dryden'sallegorical

poem appeared in 1681and his didactic poem Religio Laici (1682)

followed, whichargues the case for Anglicanism. Threnodia Angustalis

(1685) is an ode to Charlesll. The Hind and the Panther (1687)marked

Dryden's final conversion to Roman Catholicism.

After the Revolution of 1688 he lost his Laureateship with the

accession of ng to take an oath ofallegiance, his politics

and religion left him outof favour with the court, and his sole source

ofincome was from hisplays and translations of poetry from Latin and

Greek. The tragi-comedy Don Sebastian (1690) was on a par with Allfor

Love. Another tragi-comedy Love Triumphant (1694) would be

hislastplay. Included in his ensuing critical essayswas A Discourse

conceming the Original and Progress of Satire. Dryden would also take

on the massive task oftranslating the works of Virgil to prose.

John Dryden died on 12May 1700 from inflammation caused by

gout. He is buried in the Poet's Comer ofWestminster Abbey, London,

England, nearby to his longtime friend William Congreve.