John Dryden Trivia Quiz

Answer: The Restoration Period

John Dryden was born on August 19, 1631 in Northamptonshire, England and attended Westminster School and then Trinity College, Cambridge. The Restoration period is dated starting in 1660, when King Charles II was restored to the throne. The end date is typically given in the mid to late 1680s. Because of John Dryden's great literary influence, this period also came to be known as "The Age of Dryden." Other Restoration poets include John Wilmot, Aphra Behn, and George Etherege.

Answer: Neoclassical

Dryden wrote a wide variety of forms of poetry, including satires, odes, panegyrics, elegies, and prologues. In addition to writing poetry, he wrote plays and literary criticism. Some of his early work was reminiscent of the late metaphysical poets, but Dryden is primarily considered to be a neoclassical poet. Neoclassical poets (including Dryden, Alexander Pope, Oliver Goldsmith, etc.) were known for using more natural language and logic in their works.

Answer: True

John Dryden was appointed by Charles II in 1668 as England's first poet laureate. The poet Ben Jonson had previously received a pension in 1616, but Dryden was the first person to officially hold the office of poet laureate, which is now appointed on the advice of the Prime Minister. Dryden served in the position for twenty years.

Answer: Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift satirically made this proposal in the essay "A Modest Proposal", which he published anonymously in 1729. The essay suggests that the Irish could lessen their plight by selling their own children to be food for the rich. The essay was intended to satirize the mistreatment of the Irish by the British and to mock heartless attitudes toward the Irish poor. Both English satirists can trace their ancestry to a John Dryden of Canons Ashby, who had two sons - one, Nicholas, was Jonathan Swift's great-grandfather while the other, John, was John Dryden's grandfather.

Answer: Oliver Cromwell

During the English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell led the Parliament of England's armies against King Charles I. He then ruled as Lord Protector from 1653 to 1658 as head of a new republican commonwealth. At Cromwell's funeral in 1658, John Dryden processed with the poets Milton and Marvell. His cautious eulogy of Cromwell's death, "Heroic Stanzas," was published in 1659. The poem begins:

"And now 'tis time; for their officious haste
Who would before have borne him to the sky,
Like eager Romans, ere all rites were past,
Did let too soon the sacred eagle fly..."

Answer: Astraea Redux

A panegyric is a type of written verse delivered in high praise of a person (or sometimes a thing). Despite his earlier elegy for Cromwell, Dryden's "Astraea Redux", written in 1660, portrays Charles II as one who restored peace in a time of anarchy. It is subtitled "A Poem on the Happy Restoration and Return of His Sacred Majesty Charles the Second".

Answer: Annus Mirabilis

According to Merriam Webster, the term comes from the New Latin (the form of Latin used since the end of the medieval period) and literally translates to "wonderful year". While the term has since been used by historians to refer to any year with remarkable events, John Dryden's use of it is the first known use on record. The poem refers to the "miracles" of Britain's victory in the St. James's Day Battle of the Second Anglo-Dutch War and the fire of London, which miraculously stopped before it could destroy the entire city. The poem begins:

"IN thriving Arts long time had Holland grown,
Crouching at home, and cruel when abroad:
Scarce leaving us the means to claim our own;
Our King they courted, and our Merchants aw'd..."

Answer: David

Absalom rebelled against his father King David, but when he was killed, David nonetheless wept for him: "And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept: and as he went, thus he said, 'O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom" (2 Samuel 18:33)! Dryden's poem addresses the Exclusion Crisis during the reign of King Charles II when three bills in Parliament sought to exclude the King's brother James from the throne because he was Roman Catholic.

While those bills failed, James would later be deposed in 1688 during the Glorious Revolution.

Answer: few

The poem is written in heroic couplets (two rhyming lines written in iambic pentameter). It has given rise to many popular quotes, including the following:

"Great wits are to madness near allied
And thin partitions do their bounds divide."

"But far more numerous was the herd of such,
Who think too little, and who talk too much."

Answer: Thomas Shadwell

The poem, which is subtitled "A Satyr upon the True-Blew-Protestant Poet, T.S.", is written in a mock-heroic style and depicts Thomas Shadwell as the heir to an entire kingdom of dull poets that include Richard Flecknoe, a poet who was previously satirized by Andrew Marvell.

Dryden levels insult after insult at Shadwell, such as this one:

"Thoughtless as monarch oaks, that shade the plain,
And, spread in solemn state, supinely reign.
Heywood and Shirley were but types of thee,
Thou last great prophet of tautology:"

Answer: Deists

"Religio Laici", subtitled "A Layman's Faith" and published in 1682, represents John Dryden's apology for Christianity and argument against Deism. The deists of Dryden's time believed that knowledge of God could be obtained through observation of the natural world and reason. They rejected the idea of divine revelation, but believed God created the universe and was worthy of prayer and praise and that this understanding could be arrived at through reason alone. Dryden rejects this notion:

"These truths are not the product of thy mind,
But dropt from Heaven, and of a nobler kind.
Reveal'd religion first inform'd thy sight,
And reason saw not, till faith sprung the light."

Answer: Threnodia Augustalis

Charles II died in February of 1685 and Dryden wrote this 517-line poem to commemorate him. The term "threnody" comes from the Greek words for "wailing" and "ode" is used to refer to a song or poem of mourning. The poem begins:

"THUS long my Grief has kept me dumb:
Sure there's a Lethargy in mighty Woe,
Tears stand congeal'd, and cannot flow;
And the sad Soul retires into her inmost Room..."

Answer: Roman Catholicism

Dryden converted to Roman Catholicism about the same time James II, who was Roman Catholic, ascended to the throne. Some have argued that his conversion was a matter of political convenience, while others take his masterpiece "The Hind and the Panther" as evidence of his sincere arrival at his new position. He remained a Catholic for the rest of his life. The poem is written in heroic couplets, contains three parts, and begins:

"A milk white Hind, immortal and unchang'd,
Fed on the lawns and in the forest rang'd;
Without unspotted, innocent within,
She fear'd no danger, for she knew no sin."

Answer: John Milton

These verse of Dryden's were printed under the portrait of John Milton in
Tonson's 1688 edition of Milton's epic poem about the fall of man: "Paradise Lost." This little poem of Dryden's is often given the title "Epigram on Milton". Milton died in 1674.

Answer: Cecilia

"At last, divine Cecilia came,
Inventress of the vocal frame;
The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store,
Enlarg'd the former narrow bounds,
And added length to solemn sounds,
With nature's mother wit, and arts unknown before.
Let old Timotheus yield the prize,
Or both divide the crown:
He rais'd a mortal to the skies;
She drew an angel down."

Regarded as the patron saint of musicians, St. Cecilia is traditionally credited with creating the organ. Dryden's poem, an ode, was published in 1697.

Answer: Oedipus Rex

"The Frogs" was written by Aristophanes, "Prometheus Bound" by Aeschylus, and "Medea" by Euripides. "Oedipus: A Tragedy" was a heroic drama published in 1679 and a major success on the Restoration stage.

Answer: Antony and Cleopatra

Subtitled "The World Well Lost", this heroic drama was inspired by Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra" and written in blank verse. It was first performed in 1677 and then performed over 120 times by the end of the 18th century. It takes place entirely in Alexandria and concentrates on the couple's doomed relationship.

Answer: An Evening's Love

"The Importance of Being Earnest" is by Oscar Wilde and a "Streetcar Named Desire" is by Tennessee Williams. Dryden wrote an adaptation of Shakespeare's "The Tempest" in 1667, but it was "An Evening's Love" that Samuel Pepy's watched - and disapproved of - on June 20, 1668.

A prose comedy, the play involves two English gentlemen and their servant who fall for two Spanish women and their servant on the eve of Lent.

Answer: John Oldham

The poem, titled "To the Memory of Mr. Oldham" and written in 1684, begins:

"Farewell, too little, and too lately known,
Whom I began to think and call my own:
For sure our souls were near allied, and thine
Cast in the same poetic mold with mine."

John Oldham died at the age of 30. He wrote "Satire Upon a Woman Who by Her Falsehood and Scorn Was the Death of My Friend" (1678) and "A Satire against Virtue" (1679).

Answer: Fables, Ancient and Modern

John Dryden interspersed some of his own works among the translations. The collection was published in March of 1700. Dryden died on May 12, 1700 at the age of 68, in London, England.