Approaches to Teaching the Works of John Dryden

Abstract

Jayne Lewis and Lisa Zunshine, eds. Approaches to Teaching the Works of John Dryden. New York: Modern Language Association, 2013. x + 197 pp. $19.75 USD (paperback). ISBN 9781603291262.In a fitting tribute to the range and variety of John Dryden (1631-1700), this volume offers twenty-one short essays by scholars who regularly present his works to undergraduates. Eight of these pieces address the poetry, nine the drama, and four the "prose and translation." In an opening section on "Materials," the editors lament the "scarcity of affordable and fully representative editions of [Dryden's] poetry" and complain that "all the standard literature anthologies ... neglect the drama in favor of the poetry and criticism" (3-4). These are not small matters. The latest edition of the Norton Anthology, still the most commonly used textbook for survey courses in English literature, includes only four complete poems by Dryden, along with pathetic snippets from the criticism and not a single play. As contributors to this volume frequently note, we all make do with photocopied texts, but it is scandalous that there is no affordable paperback offering a fuller sampling of this great writers work. Nor is the Internet, despite its multiplication of resources, a substitute for a comprehensive textbook; this very volumes section on "online resources" is marred by unfortunate errors that may stem from the absence of fact-checking on the Internet. The editors inform us that "Purcell's setting of A Song for Saint Cecilia's Day' [is] widely available on CD and You Tube" and refer to the "many available recordings of Purcell's setting of Alexanders Feast" (8-9). Neither of these items has ever existed. Although Purcell set inferior St. Cecilia poems by Thomas Shadwell and Christopher Fishbourne, he did not write music for Dryden's "Song for Saint Cecilia's Day, 1687," which was set by Giovanni Battista Draghi, whose version survives in at least five manuscripts. The music has been splendidly edited by Bryan White [ "From Harmony, from Heav'nly Harmony" (Novello, 2010)] and intelligently recorded by Peter Holman [Hyperion CDH55257]. Purcell could not possibly have set Alexanders Feast (1697), as he died in 1695; the original setting, sadly lost, was by Jeremiah Clarke. Happily, the section on "Background Materials and Criticism" and the list of "Further Reading Recommendations" are more accurate and helpful. A survey designed to find out what works by Dryden the contributors and a few others teach, with results reported here, gives a useful snapshot of current pedagogical practice, richly supplemented by the essays that follow.The section on Dryden's poetry begins with a bracing and original essay on Religio Laid by Anna Battigelli, who argues that "the poem's forceful dialogic presentation of competing arguments works against... a fixed interpretation. In particular, its attention to outlawed Catholic arguments functions as a kind of Trojan horse, injecting forbidden arguments into the public sphere, thereby allowing a fuller consideration of the problem of determining the rule of faith" (31). Particularly useful here are six questions to be posed to students, who will be, as Battigelli notes, "no more apt than scholars to agree on answers" (35). The next three essays concern Dryden's elegies for the younger poets John Oldham and Anne Killigrew, poems now frequently taught, according to the survey. Cedric Reverand II recommends approaching both these works by using Milton's "Lycidas" as an example of a more "standard" elegy by one poet for another, in the hope of alerting students to some of the stranger features of Dryden's practice. He hopes that students who have read Milton's elegy will respond to the "gloomy Night" at the end of the Oldham poem by realizing that "something is wrong: no heaven, no afterlife, no daystar rising. Dryden is supposed to say, 'You died, but your fame will live on'; instead, he says, 'You won some fame, but you're dead'" (38). …