Summary British Restorian Literature Period

 

UNIT 4 JOHN DRYDEN

John Dryden was born in the year 1631 to the village rector of Aldwinkle, Northamptonshire, England. He was raised a puritan who by the age of 10 years had read and assimilated as English translation of the works of the Greek historian Polybius.

Dryden began pursuing higher education at Trinity College, Cambridge in the 1655. He was among the most highly educated men of his times and was one of the forerunners of the Augustan age.

Having aligned with the Puritan party, Dryden wrote an elegy entitled Heroic Stanzas on the death of Oliver Cromwell in 1659 and it is these verses that made him famous all over the country.

Dryden knew that plays were the most profitable branch of literature so he wrote them mostly from 1663 to 1681 knowing well that his genius did not lie in drama. During this period, he mostly wrote plays which were mostly coarse as the stage audiences during those times demanded vulgarity and Dryden complied.

His first significant work in criticism was the ‘Essay of Dramatic Poesie’ (1668), which is a discourse on the nature of poetic drama and the respective merits of classical, modern French, Elizabethan and Restoration plays.

The Fables his last work consisted of a collection adopted from the works of Chaucer and Boccaccio. Dryden died in 1700, the year of the publication of his The Fables. He was buried in Westminster Abbey

Saint Cecilia was one such legendary figure from the second century who’s attributed as having established musical traditions as a divine art on earth.

Dryden, in 1687, wrote his ode – A Song for Saint Cecilia’s Day in order to commemorate the sacrifice of the pious Christian figure Saint Cecilia who gave up her life in the year 230 AD, in Rome.

  Dryden was of the belief that this divine music was responsible for the existence of the universe.

 The poet then proceeds to explain what the effects of the musical instrument were on man’s psyche. He says that since the sounds produced by the trumpet and drum are loud and harsh, their notes induce the feelings of anger and fear.

The next musical instrument which the poet describes is the flute, and says that the music of its notes has a captivating and melancholic effects over its listeners.

 The Lyre of Orpheus, the Greek God of music, is yet another musical instrument which Dryden speaks of in the poem.

 In the last stanza of this ode, or the chorus, sounds the ultimate truth that the same music responsible for the creation of the universe could also cause its end.

 

UNIT 5 THOMAS GRAY

· Thomas Gray was born in Cornhill, London, on 26 December 1716. He went to Eton College where his uncle was a teacher. Reminiscing his wonderful days at Eton College, he later wrote Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College.

 · It was in 1742 that he took poetry writing seriously after losing his close friend Stacy James Ruffer. He went to Cambridge and began a self-imposed programme of literary study.

· He was also known to be extremely self-critical and afraid of failures so much so that he published only thirteen poems throughout his lifetime. It is believed that the poet started writing his most popular poem Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard in 1742 soon after the death of his close friend.

· An elegy is a form of a poem which is usually written to mourn the dead or renowned people. It does not tell a story but expresses feelings of sorrow.

· The poem has the characteristics of Augustan as well as Romantic poetry since it was written towards the end of Augustan age, a period which marked the beginning of Romantic period. The poem exhibits balanced phrasing of Augustan age and emotionalism of Romantic era.

 · He also tells the rich that they should not look down upon the modest graves of the ordinary people. He also implies that even though the powerful people have elaborate graves with profuse memorials and inspiring honours but these do not help in bringing them back to life.

 · Gray then wonders about the hidden talents and intellectual abilities of the common people. He states that they might have become powerful people or great poets but there was no one to patronize them.

 · The poet compares common people to pearls and gems that lay deep down in the oceans and are unseen. He also compares them to flowers in jungles which fade away unnoticed.

· The poet is happy about the fact that villagers are away from the hustle and bustle of city life where people cherish high ambitions and spend their lives hankering for prosperity, power and fame. He is happy that villagers are able to spend a peaceful life.

 · Now, the poet wonders about his own death. He wonders what would happen if his loved ones inquire about him from the villagers after he dies. The elegy ends on a note of contentment.

 

 

 

 

UNIT 6 WILLIAM COLLINS

· William Collins was a well-known eighteenth century English poet from England.

· The lyrical odes written by him indicate a major turning away from the Augustan poetry of Alexander Pope’s generation and moving towards the Romantic era that was to follow soon.

· Collins was born on 25 December 1721 in Chichester, England. His father was a hat maker who had previously remained a mayor of the town.

· The year 1747 witnessed the publishing of his work Odes on Several Descriptive and Allegorical Subjects.

· His only other poems were the ode written on Thomson’s death (1749) and Ode on the popular superstitions of the Highlands of Scotland, which were found out in an incomplete state after his death.

· After his death, John Langhorne, British translator, poet and priest, published his poems in a collected edition which gradually gained more recognition, although never without criticism.

· Ode to Evening appeared in Odes on Several Descriptive and Allegorical Subjects (1747).

 · In Ode to Evening, the poet is seen at his best. The personification of the ‘evening’ makes it a masterwork creation of Collins.

 · The poem starts with an invocation to the spirit of the evening to teach the poet to sing a soft strain to it. She is not just a part of dead nature.

 · His song should be as soft as the murmur of the streams or the dying winds. The poet says that barring the cry of the bat and the beetle, there is complete calm all around in the evening.

· The poem ends with the poet’s conviction that the evening shall continue to inspire fancy (poets), friendship (friends), science (men of learning) and smiling peace (lovers of peace) throughout the seasons of the year.

 · The lyric stanza, without rhyme, was first introduced by Milton, in his stiff, obscure translation of the 5th ode of the first book of Horace.

· Collins is best known by his Ode on the Passions, but incomparably his finest and most distinctive work is the Ode to Evening.

· Keats in the Ode to Autumn has followed Collins in the general setting and some details of his poem.