Dryden's Final Poetic Mode : : The Fables / / Cedric D. Reverand II.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Penn eBook Package Archive 1898-1999 (pre Pub)
• VerfasserIn: Reverand II, Cedric D.,
• Place / Publishing House: Philadelphia : : University of Pennsylvania Press, , [2016]; ©1988
• Year of Publication: 2016
• Edition: Reprint 2016
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (242 p.)

In Dryden's Final Poetic Mode, Reverend focuses on Dryden's characteristic concerns--love and war, power and kingship, the Christian ideal--tracing how Dryden assembles informing ideals and yet dissolves them as well. By examining Dryden's treatment of familiar issues, Reverand demonstrates that this final poetic mode is not discontinuous with the earlier poetry but is a further development, a reevaluation of the principles that sustained the poet throughout his career. "Fables" expresses Dryden's personal experience dealing with a changed and changing world. With the values he cherished crumbling, he is trapped into trying to reconcile the irreconcilable. His book reveals the fragility of various systems of value and the futility of discovering abiding ideals in a universe of perpetual flux, but it also reveals a poet who actively pursues meaning rather than surrendering to despair. It is the attempt to accommodate to a changing, subversive world that Reverand asserts is the impulse behind "Fables" and the central issue of Dryden's life in the 1690s.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR FABLES -- FREQUENTLY USED ABBREVIATIONS -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- Chapter One. DRYDEN’S MOST MEMORABLE AND LEAST REMEMBERED WORK -- Chapter Two. THE ANTI-HEROIC FABLES -- Chapter Three. PARTIAL IDEALS -- Chapter Four. THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL -- Chapter Five. TURNING POINTS -- Chapter Six. PHILOSOPHIES OF CHANGE -- Chapter Seven. THE OLD POET AND THE NEW POETIC MODE -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- INDEX