Dryden's Palamon and Arcite

Name: Dryden's Palamon and Arcite
Author: Dryden, John

Dryden, John

Chaucer, Geoffrey, -1400. Knight's tale -- Adaptations; English poetry -- Early modern, 1500-1700

There are a few poets in our literature who are better than Dryden;
there are a great many who are worse; but there has been none who worked
more constantly and more conscientiously for its improvement. Mr.
Saintsbury has admirably summarized the situation: "He is not our
greatest poet; far from it. But there is one point in which the
superlative may safely be applied to him. Considering what he started
with, what he accomplished, and what advantages he left to his
successors, he must be pronounced, without exception, the greatest
craftsman in English Letters."




REFERENCES FOR FURTHER STUDY


HISTORY: Green, _History of the English People_, vols. iii, iv;
Knight, _Popular History of England_, vols. iii, iv, v; Gardiner,
_The First Two Stuarts, and the Puritan Revolution_; Hale, _Fall
of the Stuarts, and Western Europe_; Green, _Short History of
the English People_; Ransome, _A Short History of England_;
Montgomery, _English History_.

BIOGRAPHY: Lives of Dryden in the editions of his Works by Scott,
Malone, Christie; Johnson, _Dryden (Lives of the Poets)_;
Saintsbury, _Dryden (English Men of Letters)_.

CRITICISM: Mitchell, _English Lands, Letters, and Kings
(Elizabeth to Anne)_; Gosse, _From Shakespeare to Pope_;
Lowell, _Dryden (Among my Books)_; Garnett, _The Age of Dryden_;
Masson, _Dryden and the Literature of the Restoration
(Three Devils)_; Hamilton, _The Poets Laureate of England_;
Hazlitt, _On Dryden and Pope_.

ROMANCE: Scott, _Woodstock, Peveril of the Peak_; Defoe,
_The Plague in London_.

MYTHOLOGY: Bulfinch, _Age of Fable_; Gayley, _Classic Myths
in English Literature_; Smith, _Classical Dictionary_.


CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.

  Dryden's Life.         History.           English Literature.
 1631, Born Aug. 9th.                          1631, Herbert, Temple.

                                               1632, Milton, L'Allegro
                                                    and II Penseroso.

                            1633. Birth of Prince James.
                                               1633, Massinger, New Way
                                                     to Pay Old Debts.
                                                   Ford, Broken Heart.
                                                 Prynne, Histrio-mastix

                            1634. First Ship-money Writ.
                            1634, Fletcher, Purple Island.
                                          Cowley, Poetical Blossoms.
                                                     Milton, Comus.

                            1635. Second Ship-money Writ.
                            1635, Quarles, Emblems.

                                               1636, Sandys,
                                                 Paraphrase of the
                                                      Psalms.

                            1637, Riot in Edinburgh.
                                                 1637, Milton, Lycidas.

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Dryden's Palamon and Arcite

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