John Dryden :: essays research papers

Research Essay on John Dryden&9John Dryden was born on an unsure date in 1631 in Aldwinkle, Northamptonshire. He was born the oldest of 14 children in a landed family of modest means. His parents sided with the Parliament against he King. There is some question to whether or non he was raised in a strict Puritan environment. His father was a country gentleman of moderate fortune. He was given the opportunity by his father to be educated at Westminster School and at the University of Cambridge. Around 1657 he went to London as a clerk to the chamberlain to the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell. The cobblers last of Cromwell in 1659 inspired Dryden to write his first important poem, Heroic Stanzas. After the rejoinder Dryden became a Royalist and celebrated the return of kin Charles II. During the celebration he wrote two more famous poems, Astraea Redux and Panegyric on the Coronation. The rest of his life was then devoted to being loyal to Charles and his successor, James II. In 166 3 he became happily married to Lady Elizabeth Howard, a sister of his patron. Until then he had no real origin of income. He began writing gambols as a source of income. His first attempt failed, but his second attempt The Rival Ladies, a tragic comedy, was a success. During the next 20 years he became an important and known dramatist in England. Some of his most famous plays included names like Ladies a la Mode, Mock Astrologer, and An Evenings Love. Another play that was famously known because it was banned as indecent was Mr. Limberham. This was unusual for this time period for a play to be banned because of its indecency because the Restoration was a time of change. He was also a master of writing the heroic rhymed couplets. They were extravagant and full of pageantry. One of his later tragedies, the World sanitary Lost, was written in blank verse and was considered one of his greatest plays and one of the masterpieces of the Restoration tragedy. Throughout his career he wro te several "occasional poems," which celebrated finical events of a public character, a military victory, a death, or a political crisis. What made these poems he wrote special was the fact that they were written not for the self-importance but for the nation. In 1670 he was appointed poet laureate and royal historiographer.