The Problem of Dryden's Fables

Abstract

THE MEANDERING TITLE of John Dryden's Fables Ancient and Modem Translated into Versefrom Homer, Ovid, Boccace, and Chaucer with Original Poems reflects the difficulty of formulating even the simplest general statement about the nature of the work. It is not a collection of translations, for it contains original poems; it is not a collection of stories, for much of it is not narrative. Even its fables vary widely in genre and tone -The Cock and the Fox is witty and ironic, Palamon and Arcite is epic, Ceyx and Alcyone tragic, The Flower and the Leaf' didactic. At every turn the collection defeats our efforts to generalize. Nonetheless, a number of recent critics claim to have found system underlying this apparent randomness: Fables provides a complex Christian humanist response to the doubts and conflicts that trouble human experience; or a progression from secular to spiritual, from pagan to Christian ideals; or an equilibrium produced by balanced instances of piety and passion; or a system of self-contradiction that advances subversion as a final value.' These critics dismiss the obvious variety of the collection as a mere surface effect which, once they have conceded its presence, they may safely ignore. No satisfactory account of Fables can, however, afford to deal so lightly with this issue: if we wish to claim that Dryden wrote to construct some unified system, we must first explain why he should have assembled for that purpose so