Dryden's "Most Barren Period" -- and Milton

Abstract

FE view state of John Dryden's career in I 674, prospect is dismal. His last productions, in I672 and I673, had been his two worst plays, The Assignation and Amboyna; after two years of what Noyes called the most barren period in his long literary career' he was engaged in seemingly graceless task of putting Paradise Lost into couplets. The resulting work, finally published in I677 after wide circulation in manuscript copies, was entitled The State of Innocence and Fall of Man, an Opera, Written in Heroic Verse. Contemporary ridicule of this tagging was expressed by Andrew Marvell in prefatory poem added in second edition (1674) of Milton's epic. At present day disapproval still lingers, even in good-natured comment of late Edward N. Hooker: . Dryden had committed an act of-well, I will let you name crime2 Morris Freedman has ably summarized opinion asserting or denying Dryden's criminality and has concluded that his motive was, in large part, see how same matter looked side by side in two forms of blank verse and heroic couplet.3 I should like to carry question a step or two further and to judge Dryden's intentions by his activities immediately after as well as before The State of Innocence. This inquiry shows that interweaving and internal reinforcement of sound, more than concern to justify rhyme, was Dryden's main interest in what proved to be a technical experiment of first importance for development of his poetic style. Let us dispose of motive that most naturally suggests itself today: Dryden could not have expected to traffic upon fame of Paradise Lost, which in seven years had not gone into a second edition; if anything, notoriety (in manuscript) of his rhymed