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Dryden's Epic Manner and Virgil

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Reuben Arthur Brower
Reuben Arthur Brower*
Affiliation:
Amherst College
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Extract

“A Heroic Poem, truly such, is undoubtedly the greatest work which the soul of man is capable to perform.” While the solemnity of this pronouncement is certainly more characteristic of Rapin than of Dryden, the reverence for epic poetry is quite typical of the author of An Essay of Heroic Plays. As every reader of Dryden knows, the influence of Renaissance epic theory is all but omnipresent in his critical essays and prefaces. It is equally well known that the epic manner which Dryden often adopted in his verse owes much in a general way to the idea of the heroic poem. But fewer readers, I believe, realize the extent to which Dryden's epic style is directly indebted to his “master,” Virgil.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 55 , Issue 1 , March 1940 , pp. 119 - 138
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1940

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References

1 Dedication of the Aeneis, Essays of John Dryden, ed. W. P. Ker (Oxford, 1926), ii, 154.

2 See J. E. Spingarn, A History of Literary Criticism in the Renaissance (New York, 1908); B. J. Pendlebury, Dryden's Heroic Plays, a Study of the Origins (London, 1923); George Saintsbury, A History of Criticism and Literary Taste in Europe, ii, From the Renaissance to the Decline of Eighteenth Century Orthodoxy (Edinburgh and London, 1902); F. Vial, L. Denise, Idées et Doctrines Littéraires du XVII e Siècle (Paris, 1928).

3 Ker, op. cit., i, xvii.

4 Spingarn, op. cit., p. 108; Saintsbury, op. cit., p. 78.

5 Saintsbury, op. cit., pp. 131, 311–314.

6 The Works of John Dryden, ed. Sir Walter Scott, revised and corrected by George Saintsbury (Edinburgh, 1882–93), v, 196.—Hereafter cited as SS.

7 Ker. op. cit., ii, 38.

8 SS., v, 196.

9 Op. cit., p. 8.

10 Sir William D'Avenant, Gondibert, an Heroick Poem (London, 1651), “The author's Preface To his much honour'd friend, Mr. HOBS (sic),” pp. 1–70; “The Answer of Mr Hobbes to Sr Will. D'Avenant's Preface Before Gondibert,” pp. 71–88.

11 Ibid., pp. 72–73.

12 Ker, op. cit., i, 149.

13 Ibid., i, 150.

14 Ibid., i, 151.

15 SS., ii, 332; cf. Æn., v, 294–361.

16 SS., ii, 380; cf. Æn., xi, 695.

17 SS., ii, 359; cf. Æn., ii, 265.

18 SS., ii, 382.

19 Ibid., ii, 334.

20 Ibid., ii, 403.

21 Ibid., iv, 376.

22 See Ker, i, 152–153, 189–190.

23 SS., iii, 388.

24 Cf. Æm., i, 85–90, especially 88; eripiunt subito nubes caelumque diemque. Scott, loc. cit., notes the Latinism.

25 SS., iii, 426.

26 Æn., vi, 886–887.

27 SS., iii, 457; cf. Æn., i, 402–417.

28 SS., iii, 394; cf. Aegaeon qualis …

… Iovis cum fulmina contra Æn., x, 565–567.

29 Æn., xi, 139–181.

30 SS., iii, 392.

31 The First Part, SS., iv, 35.

32 Ibid., iv, 36.

33 Georg., i, 375–376.

34 The First Part, SS., iv, 37.

35 Cf. Georg., iii, 51–55; 233–234.

36 The First Part, SS., iv, 38; cf. Georg., iii, 75–76, 193–195.

37 The First Part, SS., iv, 38–39.

38 Æn., ix, 435–437.

39 The First Part, SS., iv, 61; cf. Æn., xii, 908–913.

40 The Second Part, SS., iv, 151–152; cf. Æn., i, 402–417; ii, 589–592.

41 The Second Part, SS., iv, 160; cf. Æn., xii, 941.

42 The Second Part, SS., iv, 154.

43 G. R. Noyes, Selected Dramas of John Dryden (Chicago and New York, 1910), note to p. 92, l. 105, at p. 440.

44 Æn., x, 356–358; cf. Georg., i, 318–320.

45 SS., v, 204.

46 Ibid., v, 205.

47 Ibid., v, 207.

48 Æn., iii, 45–46.

49 SS., v, 210.

50 Ibid., v, 215.

51 Ibid., v, 232.

52 Ibid., v, 292.

53 Ibid., v, 196.

54 This opera was nearly finished before the death of Charles II (1685).

55 SS., v, 420.

56 Æn., ii, 324–326.

57 In Troilus and Cressida (1678), I find no sure Virgilian allusions.

58 SS., vi, 417, 503.

59 Ibid., vii, 255–256, 279–281.

60 “The Scene is a Poetical Hell.” Ibid., vii, 257.

61 Ibid., vii, 259; cf. Æn., vii, 336–350.

62 SS., vii, 404–405.

63 Preface to Don Sebastian, Ibid., vii, 311.

64 Ibid., vii, 327.

65 Ibid., viii, 165.

66 Æn., vi, 256–258. Compare also the storm from the fourth book of the Æneid especially,

Interea magno misceri murmur caelum

incipit, insequitur commixta grandine nimbus …

Æn., iv, 160–161.

67 SS., viii, 190.

68 Ibid., viii, 275–276.

69 Georg., iii, 219–233.

70 Æn., x, 454–455.

71 Ker, op. cit., i, 11.

72 Ibid., i, 17.

73 Ll. 489–492. All references to Dryden's verse, except in the plays, are to The Poetical Works of John Dryden, ed. G. R. Noyes (Cambridge, Mass., 1909).

74 The addresses of the general, ll. 297–304, 397–404; and Charles II's prayer, ll. 1045–1080.

75 “The cherub with the flaming sword”; l. 1082; “the broad extinguisher” sent by God to quench the fire, ll. 1117–1124.

76 A Discourse concerning the Original and Progress of Satire, Ker, op. cit., ii, 107–108.

77 Ll. 1026–1131.

78 Cf. Æn., x, 113–115 and Iliad, i, 528–530.

79 Ecl., iv, 5.

80 Ecl., x, 1.

81 L. 87.

82 Ll. 831–851.

83 Æn., ii, 257; x, 380.

84 Æn., v, 49–50.

85 Æn., vi, 878–879.

86 On the Death of Amyntas, a Pastoral Elegy, ll. 67–75.

87 Ecl., v, 56–57.

88 Ll. 108–111.

89 Æn., xii, 166–168.

90 Æn., ii, 682–684.

91 Ll. 134–138.

92 Æn., vi, 77–79.

93 Ll. 94–95.

94 Ll. 211–213.

95 The Hind and the Panther; To the Reader, Noyes, op. cit., p. 217.

96 L. 354; cf. Æn., iv, 172.

97 Ll. 551–552; cf. Eel, ix, 53–54.

98 Ll. 1561–1567.

99 Ll. 1721–1932.

100 “Dryden's Poetic Diction and Virgil,” Philological Quarterly, xviii (1939), 211–217.

101 Poetical Works of John Dryden, ed. W. D. Christie (London, 1925), fn. p. 560.

102 The Knight's Tale, ll. 2924–55; Æn., xi, 188–196; Palamon and Arcile, iii, 986–997.

103 Sigismonda and Guiscardo, l. 711.

104 Æn., iv, 496.

105 Æn., iv, 648–650.

106 L. 266.

107 Æn., vi, 256.

108 Ll. 285–299.

109 The games of the Trojan boys led by Ascanius, Æn., v, 577–591.

110 “… in the passage on the jousting knights Dryden has remembered the metrical pattern which he used some years before to describe the Trojan boys [i.e. in his Æneis]…” Mark Van Doren, The Poetry of John Dryden (New York, 1920), p. 285.

111 Æn., xi, 624–628.