Selected Poems

A new and comprehensive selection of Dryden's poetry, revealing him as a master of theatricality, ventriloquism, and unmistakable originality.

In his lifetime, John Dryden gained fame at the cost first of gossip and scandal and then of suspicion and scorn. He wrote to order, currying favor with the Crown and repeatedly savaging its enemies. Yet the finest works of his political and spiritual imagination- "Absalom and Achitophel" and "The Hind and the Panther"-develop the themes of envy, amb...