Talk:John Dryden

Untitled
(Crossposted to anon's talk page.) Hi, 140.180.165.138, I see you added the year 1667 for the Essay of Dramatick Poesie to the text (though you left 1668 in the list of works). 1668 is the year usually given for the first edition of the EDP, do you have other information?--Bishonen | Talk 05:02, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Plutarch
Um, now, my history might be a BIT off, for all I know, but I'm pretty sure John Dryden was not, in fact, written about by Plutarch. On account of Plutarch being a SLIGHTLY earlier figure than Mr. Drydan. So what's with the plutarch thing at the bottom of the page? AndrewLB 06:44, 16 December 2006 (UTC)


 * He was a well-known translator of Plutarch (see the last little box in the Plutarch template). scribblingwoman 12:24, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Poet Laureate
I think that the post Poet Laureat and the dates for which he was poet laureat should be included in the wiki-box at the top. Could anyone add this to all of the poet laureats?Hectorguinness (talk) 14:39, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

John Dryden Public School in Whitby, Ontario
The school in Whitby is probably named after their local politician, profiled at  [] rather than this poet. The link offered in the article goes to a dead URL but the Internet Archive shows that the link mearly listed the name of the school, no attribution. --FrankenD (talk) 02:00, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Date of death
Presumably, in the inset box, you had intended the date of death to be 12 May 1700 New Style or 1 May 1700 Old Style? I cannot figure out a way to make this change myself. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.211.242.114 (talk) 10:45, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

"Nick-named 'Town-Bayes'"
I don't think so. Dryden attracted many, many satirical nicknames, but I haven't heard "Town-Bayes" before. No doubt somebody called him that at some point (the link supposed to demonstrate it doesn't work right for me), but that doesn't mean it deserves a prominent place in the lede. Dryden was, quite famously, satirized as "Bayes" in the Duke of Buckingham's The Rehearsal, but I wouldn't exactly call that usage a "nickname", either. I'm removing the parenthesis. Bishonen | talk 22:30, 31 October 2011 (UTC).


 * The link says "'Bayes' was Buckingham's satiric name for Dryden, which other satirists took up." Marvell described Dryden as the 'Town Bayes' . I guess the question is how widely it was 'taken up'. Span (talk) 03:02, 1 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Right. I'd welcome a fairly full mention of the The Rehearsal thing further down in the article itself, rather than merely in a footnote to the lede. It's both relevant, well-known, and amusing, and mentioning it would give the reader an opportunity to click on the link to our article on the play. But I don't think any of it should go in the lede, which is surely better as it is right now, don't you think? It might not hurt to bulk it up a little per WP:LEDE, strictly from central things that are already in the article, but for my taste it's good now. Crisp and businesslike. Bishonen | talk 08:20, 1 November 2011 (UTC).


 * Sure. I fuller mention of the Marvel/Buckingham business in the body of the article sounds fine. Span (talk) 11:08, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Westminster school
"Having recently been re-founded by Elizabeth I, Westminster..." Considering that Westminster was re-founded in 1560 and Dryden entered it in 1644 (84 years later), this seems a bit far-fetched. Would someone in the know like to change this? Wadh27 (talk) 17:47, 13 May 2017 (UTC)


 * With the encouragement of your comment I have deleted the 'recently'. It may be said the term is relative but it is not usual to describe events that happened decades before someone's lifetime as 'recent'.Cloptonson (talk) 17:32, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

The "no preposition at the end of a sentence" rule
With all due respect to a recent editor of this article - Dryden is indeed famous (or infamous?) as the originator of this rule - unheard of before his time, and very frequently flouted ever since. This is (quite rightly) mentioned in the body of the article - but it really and truly does not belong in the lead, where (in splendid isolation from any real context) it has the effect of painting one of the originators of modern English style as a fussy pedant - whose strictures are more honoured in the breech than the observance. Not fair to either English usage, or Dryden himself. --Soundofmusicals (talk) 01:05, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Criticism of Diction
Dryden was scornfully criticised by Housman in his lecture on poetry. If agreed, I could insert a brief passage. Seadowns (talk) 17:47, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Purcell
Did Dryden collaborate with Purcell, who set some of his works to music? Seadowns (talk) 23:30, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, Purcell set several of Dryden’s poems, as well as King Arthur (1691), which was one of the first English operas, with a libretto written entirely by Dryden. They seem to have known each other quite well; indeed, Dryden wrote a eulogy on Purcell’s death in 1695, called ‘Mark how the lark and linnet sing’, which was set to music by John Blow. Moreover, Dryden claimed, in his foreword to Amphityon, that Purcell, as a composer, was ‘an Englishman equal to the best abroad’. Northerner (talk) 19:01, 30 January 2023 (UTC)