biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1631–1700)
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| biography:
| Poet, dramatist, and critic, born in Aldwinkle, Northamptonshire, C England, UK. He studied at Cambridge, where he held republican sympathies, and went to London in 1657. In 1658, he wrote Heroic Stanzas in homage to Oliver Cromwell. On the restoration of Charles II, he published Astraea Redux (1660) in praise of the new monarch. He wrote several plays and satires for the court, his first successful play, written in heroic couplets, being The Indian Emperor (1665). After 1676, he began to write in blank verse, producing his best play, All for Love (1678). In 1668 Charles II appointed him poet laureate and in 1670 historiographer royal. A loyal Tory, he was called to defend the king's party in a series of verse-satires, notably Absalom and Achitophel (1681), which did much to turn the tide against the Whigs, and The Spanish Friar, which attacked the Roman Catholic Church. To this era also belong the didactic poem Religio laici (1682), which argues the case for Anglicanism. On the accession of James II, a Catholic, Dryden was converted to Catholicism, and his next play, The Hind and the Panther (1687), celebrated his new-found faith. He composed the libretti for the operas Albion and Albanus (1685) and King Arthur (1691) in honour of Charles II and James II respectively. His political reward was a place as controller of customs in the port of London. On the accession of William III (1688), a Protestant, Dryden forfeited his laureateship for refusing to take the oath of allegiance to the king. He also wrote a number of important critical works, many in his late years. |
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