An Annotated Bibliography of John DrydenAn Annotated Bibliography of John Dryden: Texts and Studies, 1949-1973. John A. Zamonski

Abstract

Despite the scholarly attention which John has received during the last twenty-five years, no thorough bibliography of studies has appeared since Samuel Holt Monk's classic John Dryden: A List of Critical Studies Published from 1895 to 1948 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1950)2 and its supplement by W. R. Keast (Modern Philology 48 [1951]: 205-10). It is John A. Zamonski's intention to fill this gap. He 979 studies published between 1949 and 1973 and includes brief annotations along with reference to selected reviews of many of the book-length entries. According to Zamonski's preface, the bibliography chronicles a generation of work and is intended for all those from scholar to casual student interested in Dryden (p. ix). The compilation is admittedly based on the annual bibliographies of the Modern Humanities Research Association, the Modern Language Association, and Philological Quarterly, as well as on lists in publications of more limited scopes (p. x), rather than on firsthand search. Thus, while it is quite thorough, the book nevertheless omits a number of relevant studies-perhaps because they escaped notice in the published bibliographies upon which Zamonski relies. The headings under which Zamonski arranges his entries could hardly have been more specific. The major topics (Canon and Bibliography, Biography, Comprehensive or Miscellaneous Studies, Prose, Poetry, and Translations) are each divided into subtopics that are, whenever possible, specific enough to treat individual works. The Drama category, for instance, includes subsections on Comprehensive and Miscellaneous Subjects, Prologues and Epilogues, Comedies, Heroic Drama, Operas, Tragedies, and Specific Dramas, by title. The other main headings are similarly subdivided. This arrangement, which admittedly conveys judgments (p. ix), and more than once produces divisions consisting of only one entry, is the chief beauty of the book, since it makes a topic index unnecessary-that is, if the reader is sufficiently versed in studies to recognize the import of some of the section headings. The book's thoroughness and efficient categorization aside, it is perhaps more useful for the undergraduate or beginning graduate student than for the scholar to whom Zamonski also addresses it. Those who might be interested in using this bibliography for serious, advanced scholarship must be gifted with alertness, stamina, and patience, for they will encounter an inordinate number of errors, an inadequate system of cross-referencing, and an index of Authors, Editors, and Reviewers that is frustratingly inaccurate and incomplete. A few annoying errors that should have been caught in proofreading include