The Cambridge Companion to John Dryden

This Companion provides a fresh look at Dryden's work in the context of his time.

John Dryden, Poet Laureate to Charles II and James II, was one of the great literary figures of the late seventeenth century. This Companion provides a fresh look at Dryden's tactics and triumphs in negotiating the extraordinary political and cultural revolutions of his time. The newly commissioned essays introduce readers to the full range of his work as a poet, as a writer of innovative plays and operas, as a purveyor of contemporary notions of empire, and most of all as a man intimate with the opportunities of aristocratic patronage as well as the emerging market for literary gossip, slander and polemic. Dryden's works are examined in the context of seventeenth-century politics, publishing and ideas of authorship. A valuable resource for students and scholars, the Companion includes a full chronology of Dryden's life and times and a detailed guide to further reading.

Chronology; Part I. Pleasures of the Imagination: 1. Composing a literary life: introduction Steven N. Zwicker; 2. Dryden and the theatrical imagination Stuart Sherman; 3. Dryden and the energies of satire Ronald Paulson; 4. Dryden and the imperial imagination Laura Brown; 5. Dryden and the invention of Augustan culture Paul Davis; 6. Dryden's triplets Christopher Ricks; Part II. A Literary Life in Restoration England: 7. Dryden's London Harold Love; 8. Dryden's theatre and the passions of politics Paulina Kewes; 9. Dryden's anonymity John Mullan; 10. Dryden and the modes of restoration sociability Katsuhiro Engetsu; Part III: 11. Dryden and patronage John Barnard; 12. Dryden and political allegiance Annabel Patterson; 13. The piety of John Dryden John Spurr; 14. Dryden's 'Fables' and the judgment of art Anne Cotterill; 15. Dryden and the problem of literary modernity: epilogue Steven N. Zwicker.

John Dryden was one of the great literary figures of the late seventeenth century. This Companion provides a fresh look at the full range of Dryden's work in the context of his time, and includes a chronology of Dryden's life and times and a guide to further reading.

Steven N. Zwicker is Stanley Elkin Professor of Humanities at Washington University, St. Louis and Professor of English and Adjunct Professor of History. He is the editor of The Cambridge Companion to English Literature, 1650-1740 (Cambridge, 1998), Reading, Society, and Politics in Early Modern England, ed. with Kevin Sharpe (Cambridge, 2003), John Dryden: Selected Poems (2001), Refiguring Revolutions, ed. with Kevin Sharpe (1998), Lines of Authority (1993), Politics of Discourse, ed. with Kevin Sharpe (1987) and Politics and Language in Dryden's Poetry (1984).