Dryden, John

John Dryden With wig at the National Portrait Gallery

John Dryden Without wig

❝
We first make our habits, & then our habits make us.
❞

John Dryden was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who was made England’s first Poet Laureate in 1668.

♟ | 19^th August, 1631, Aldwincle, England.
☠ | 12^th May, 1700, London, England.

Dryden is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as ‘the Age of Dryden.’

❝
All human things are subject to decay, And, when fate summons, monarchs must obey.
❞

And now, a poem:

Love

❝
Love is that madness which all lovers have;
But yet ’tis sweet and pleasing so to rave:
‘Tis an enchantment, where the reason’s bound;
But paradise is in the enchanted ground;
A palace, void of envy, cares and strife,
Where gentle hours delude so much of life.
To take those charms away, and set me free,
Is but to send me into misery;
And prudence, of whose cure so much you boast,
Restores those pains which that sweet folly lost.
❞
— John Dryden

All for Love

All For Love

“All for Love” (or, “the World Well Lost”) is a 1677 heroic drama which now stands as Dryden’s best-known and most performed play. It is a tragedy written in blank verse and was an acknowledged imitation of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. It focuses on the last hours of the lives of its hero and heroine.