John Dryden

Lore & Background

Dryden was born in the village rectory of Aldwincle near Thrapston in Northamptonshire, the eldest of fourteen children born to Erasmus Dryden and Mary Pickering. He was a second cousin once removed of Jonathan Swift. As a boy he lived in Titchmarsh, where he likely received his first education. In 1644 he was sent as a King's Scholar to Westminster School under headmaster Richard Busby. The curriculum trained pupils in rhetoric and presenting arguments for both sides of an issue, a skill that influenced his later writing. In 1650 he went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating as a BA in 1654 at the top of the list for Trinity that year. After his father's death in June 1654, he returned to London during the Protectorate and obtained work with Oliver Cromwell's Secretary of State, John Thurloe. At Cromwell's funeral on 23 November 1658 he processed with the Puritan poets John Milton and Andrew Marvell. He soon published his first important poem, Heroic Stanzas (1659), a eulogy on Cromwell's death. In 1660 he celebrated the Restoration with Astraea Redux, an authentic royalist panegyric. On 1 December 1663, Dryden married Lady Elizabeth, sister of Sir Robert Howard. She bore three sons, one of whom (Erasmus Henry) became a Roman Catholic priest. With the reopening of the theatres in 1660, Dryden began writing plays. His first play The Wild Gallant appeared in 1663 and was not successful. From 1668 he was contracted to produce three plays a year for the King's Company, in which he became a shareholder. His best-known play is All for Love (1678). In 1667 he published Annus Mirabilis, a lengthy historical poem describing the English defeat of the Dutch naval fleet and the Great Fire of London in 1666. This established him as the preeminent poet of his generation and was crucial in his attaining the posts of Poet Laureate (1668) and historiographer royal (1670). When the Great Plague closed the theatres in 1665, Dryden retreated to Wiltshire where he wrote Of Dramatick Poesie (1668). On 18 December 1679, Dryden was attacked in Rose Alley behind the Lamb & Flag pub near his home in Covent Garden. He survived, offering £50 for the identity of the thugs placed in the London Gazette, and a Royal Pardon if one would confess. No one claimed the reward.

Reader's Guide

John Dryden's greatest achievements were in satiric verse. Mac Flecknoe, a mock-heroic lampoon circulated in manuscript, attacked the playwright Thomas Shadwell. This line of satire continued with Absalom and Achitophel (1681) and The Medal (1682). His other major works from this period include the religious poem Religio Laici (1682), written from the position of a member of the Church of England; his 1683 edition of Plutarch's Lives Translated From the Greek by Several Hands, in which he introduced the word 'biography' to English readers; and The Hind and the Panther (1687), which celebrates his conversion to Roman Catholicism. He wrote Britannia Rediviva celebrating the birth of a son and heir to the Catholic King and Queen on 10 June 1688. When James II was deposed in the Glorious Revolution later that year, Dryden's refusal to take the oaths of allegiance to William and Mary left him out of favour at court. Thomas Shadwell succeeded him as Poet Laureate, and he was forced to give up his public offices and live by the proceeds of his pen. He translated works by Horace, Juvenal, Ovid, Lucretius, and Theocritus. In 1694 he began work on his most ambitious translation, The Works of Virgil (1697), published by subscription.

Did You Know?

• Dryden was a second cousin once removed of Jonathan Swift.
• At Cromwell's funeral on 23 November 1658, Dryden processed with poets John Milton and Andrew Marvell.
• Dryden introduced the word 'biography' to English readers in his 1683 edition of Plutarch's Lives.
• On 18 December 1679, Dryden was attacked in Rose Alley behind the Lamb & Flag pub; he offered £50 for the attackers' identities, but no one claimed the reward.
• Dryden's son Erasmus Henry became a Roman Catholic priest.

Formative Years and the Making of a Thinker

Born in 1631 at the rectory of Aldwincle in Northamptonshire, Dryden was the eldest of fourteen children in a gentry family that had supported the Puritan cause. His earliest schooling likely occurred in nearby Titchmarsh before he entered Westminster School as a King's Scholar in 1644, under the charismatic yet severe headmaster Richard Busby. Westminster's humanist programme drilled pupils in rhetoric and the discipline of arguing both sides of any question—a dialectical habit that would permeate Dryden's later writing. Weekly translation assignments further cultivated his capacity to absorb and rework foreign material, a gift that later defined his work as a translator. His first published poem, an elegy on the smallpox death of classmate Henry, Lord Hastings, carried a royalist tone and alluded to the execution of Charles I, an event Busby had shielded his boys from by locking the school gates. In 1650 Dryden matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where the Puritan spirit of his childhood reasserted itself under Master Thomas Hill, a preacher who had once been rector in Dryden's home village. He graduated at the top of his class in 1654, the same month his father died, leaving behind a small landholding that proved insufficient for a living.

From Cromwell's Court to Poet Laureate

After Cambridge, Dryden found employment in London during the Protectorate, working under John Thurloe, Oliver Cromwell's Secretary of State—an appointment possibly secured through his cousin, the Lord Chamberlain Sir Gilbert Pickering. He processed alongside Milton and Marvell at Cromwell's funeral in November 1658, then published Heroic Stanzas, a deliberately restrained eulogy on the late Lord Protector. With Charles II's Restoration in 1660, Dryden pivoted decisively, producing Astraea Redux, a full-throated royalist panegyric painting the Interregnum as chaos and the king as restorer of order. He followed with two further celebratory poems in 1662, all occasional verse written for public events rather than private patrons. Crucially, Dryden made his living writing for publishers and the reading public rather than aristocratic households, a choice that shaped the public-facing character of his nondramatic poetry. The breakthrough came in 1667 with Annus Mirabilis, a sweeping historical poem in pentameter quatrains chronicling the English naval victory over the Dutch and the Great Fire of London. The work cemented his reputation as the preeminent poet of his generation and directly led to his appointment as England's first Poet Laureate in 1668, followed by the post of historiographer royal in 1670.

The Stage and the Struggle for Poetic Fame

When the Puritan ban on theatres lifted in 1660, Dryden turned to playwriting with growing ambition. His first effort, The Wild Gallant (1663), was not a success but showed enough promise to open doors. By 1668 he had secured a contract to produce three plays a year for the King's Company, in which he also held a share, and during the 1660s and 1670s theatrical writing became his principal source of income. He led the way in Restoration comedy, with Marriage à la Mode (1673) standing as his best-known work in that genre, and he also wrote in heroic tragedy and regular tragedy, achieving his greatest dramatic success with All for Love (1678). Yet Dryden was never content with his stage output. He repeatedly suggested that his talents were being wasted on unworthy audiences, and he was making a deliberate bid for poetic fame off-stage. This tension between the commercial demands of the theatre and his aspirations as a serious poet ran throughout his career. The Great Plague of 1665, which forced the theatres to close, sent him retreating to Wiltshire, a period of enforced distance from the stage that may have sharpened his desire to be remembered for more than his plays.

The Age of Dryden and His Lasting Shadow

John Dryden's hold on Restoration literary life was so total that the period came to be known in scholarly circles simply as the Age of Dryden. He wore many hats—poet, critic, translator, playwright—and in 1668 became England's first Poet Laureate, a role obliging him to produce a set number of occasional poems each year for public events. His influence extended beyond the page: elected a fellow of the Royal Society in November 1662, he was nonetheless expelled in 1666 for inactivity and non-payment of dues. His personal life was quieter than his public presence suggested. On 1 December 1663 he married Lady Elizabeth, the royalist sister of Sir Robert Howard, and the couple had three sons, one of whom, Erasmus Henry, became a Roman Catholic priest. His works contain both outbursts against the married state and celebrations of it, leaving the intimate details of his domestic life largely unknown. He was a second cousin once removed of Jonathan Swift, a connection linking two of the era's most formidable satirists. Romantic-era writer Sir Walter Scott later bestowed the nickname "Glorious John," a title capturing the sheer scale of Dryden's literary dominance.