If the prospect of delight be wanting (which alone justifies the perusal
of poetry) we may let the reputation of Dryden sleep in the manuals of
literature. To those who are genuinely insensible of his genius (and
these are probably the majority of living readers of poetry) we can only
oppose illustrations of the following proposition: that their
insensibility does not merely signify indifference to satire and wit,
but lack of perception of qualities not confined to satire and wit and
present in the work of other poets whom these persons feel that they
understand. To those whose taste in poetry is formed entirely upon the
English poetry of the nineteenth-century--to the majority--it is
difficult to explain or excuse Dryden: the twentieth century is still
the nineteenth, although it may in time acquire its own character. The
nineteenth century had, like every other, limited tastes and peculiar
fashions; and, like every other, it was unaware of its own limitations.
Its tastes and fashions had no place for Dryden; yet Dryden is one of
the tests of a catholic appreciation of poetry.
He is a successor of Jonson, and therefore the descendant of Marlowe; he
is the ancestor of nearly all that is best in the poetry of the
eighteenth century. Once we have mastered Dryden--and by mastery is
meant a full and essential enjoyment, not the enjoyment of a private
whimsical fashion--we can extract whatever enjoyment and edification
there is in his contemporaries--Oldham, Denham, or the less remunerative
Waller; and still more his successors--not only Pope, but Phillips,
Churchill, Gray, Johnson, Cowper, Goldsmith. His inspiration is
prolonged in Crabbe and Byron; it even extends, as Mr. van Doren
cleverly points out, to Poe. Even the poets responsible for the revolt
were well acquainted with him: Wordsworth knew his work, and Keats
invoked his aid. We cannot fully enjoy or rightly estimate a hundred
years of English poetry unless we fully enjoy Dryden; and to enjoy
Dryden means to pass beyond the limitations of the nineteenth century
into a new freedom.
All, all of a piece throughout!
Thy Chase had a Beast in View;
Thy Wars brought nothing about;
Thy Lovers were all untrue.
'Tis well an Old Age is out,
And time to begin a New.
* * * *
The world's great age begins anew,
The golden years return,
The earth doth like a snake renew
Her winter weeds outworn:
Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam
Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.
The first of these passages is by Dryden, the second by Shelley; the
second is found in the "Oxford Book of English Verse," the first is not;
yet we might defy anyone to show that the second is superior on
intrinsically poetic merit. It is easy to see why the second should
appeal more readily to the nineteenth, and what is left of the
nineteenth under the name of the twentieth, century. It is not so easy
to see propriety in an image which divests a snake of "winter weeds";
and this is a sort of blemish which would have been noticed more quickly
by a contemporary of Dryden than by a contemporary of Shelley.
These reflections are occasioned by an admirable book on Dryden which
has appeared at this very turn of time, when taste is becoming perhaps
more fluid and ready for a new mould.[1] It is a book which every
practitioner of English verse should study. The consideration is so
thorough, the matter so compact, the appreciation so just, temperate,
and enthusiastic, and supplied with such copious and well-chosen
extracts from the poetry, the suggestion of astutely placed facts leads
our thought so far, that there only remain to mention, as defects which
do not detract from its value, two omissions: the prose is not dealt
with, and the plays are somewhat slighted. What is especially impressive
is the exhibition of the very wide range of Dryden's work, shown by the
quotations of every species. Everyone knows "MacFlecknoe," and parts of
"Absalom and Achitophel"; in consequence, Dryden has sunk by the persons
he has elevated to distinction--Shadwell of Settle, Shaftesbury and
Buckingham. Dryden was much more than a satirist; to dispose of him as a
satirist is to place an obstacle in the way of our understanding. At all
events, we must satisfy ourselves of our definition of the term satire;
we must not allow our familiarity with the word to blind us to
differences and refinements; we must not assume that satire is a fixed
type, and fixed to the prosaic, suited only to prose; we must
acknowledge that satire is not the same thing in the hands of two
different writers of genius. The connotations of "satire" and of "wit,"
in short, may be only prejudices of nineteenth-century taste. Perhaps,
we think, after reading Mr. van Doren's book, a juster view of Dryden
may be given by beginning with some other portion of his work than his
celebrated satires; but even here there is much more present, and much
more that is poetry, than is usually supposed.
The piece of Dryden's which is the most fun, which is the most sustained
display of surprise after surprise of wit from line to line, is
"MacFlecknoe." Dryden's method here is something very near to parody; he
applies vocabulary, images, and ceremony which arouse epic associations
of grandeur, to make an enemy helplessly ridiculous. But the effect,
though disastrous for the enemy, is very different from that of the
humour which merely belittles, such as the satire of Mark Twain. Dryden
continually enhances: he makes his object great, in a way contrary to
expectation; and the total effect is due to the transformation of the
ridiculous into poetry. As an example may be taken a fine passage
plagiarized from Cowley, from lines which Dryden must have marked well,
for he quotes them directly in one of his prefaces. Here is Cowley:--
Where their vast courts the mother-waters keep,
And undisturbed by moons in silence sleep. . . .
Beneath the dens where unfledged tempests lie,
And infant winds their tender voices try.