|
|
Article: A FIRST-RATE BIOGRAPHY OF JOHN DRYDEN
- Article from:
- The Boston Globe (Boston, MA)
- Article date:
- December 23, 1987
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 1987 The Boston Globe. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
|
JOHN DRYDEN AND HIS WORLD, by James Anderson Winn. Yale
University Press. 650 pp. $29.95. Illustrated.
James Winn's first - ate biography of John Dryden reminds us
that in 17th- century England poetry was a public act. When poets
took off the gloves -- as Dryden does in "Mac Flecknoe," the
hilarious mock-heroic epic that trashes Thomas Shadwell for his
corpulence, dullness and opium addiction -- slander reigned
supreme. The politics of publication involved personal survival,
the laureate was a focus of envy, and rivals and enemies lampooned
every literary lion.
Thus Dryden from his own era onward has been treated as an
opportunist who trimmed his principles to the prevailing ...