The Works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 04

Dryden, John, 1631-1700Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.8
Word count
648K words
Chapters
65

Tags

English Originals Drama TheoryLiterary CriticismSatirical StyleSeventeenth CenturyBritish Literature

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 04Author: Dryden, John, 1631-1700,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Mar 13, 2005

Editor's review

This is a public-domain electronic edition of Volume 04 of the eighteen-volume Works of John Dryden, a primary source for the study of seventeenth-century English literature and drama. For Chinese readers, it is better suited as a research tool than as casual reading: the text preserves the original form and includes poems, plays, or prose works, allowing direct contact with the rhetoric and argumentative style of Restoration English. Its reading value lies in presenting Dryden's writing as Poet Laureate and the context in which literary, political, and religious controversies intertwined. Because it is an original English text without modern annotation, it is difficult for general readers to read alone; use alongside a literary history textbook or introductory guide. The electronic edition is easy to obtain and suitable for close reading, citation checking, and textual comparison, and can serve as supplementary material for the seventeenth-century portion of university English literature courses.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. First read the chapter on Dryden and the Restoration in a history of English literature, then approach the original text.
  2. Read by genre in stages: begin with shorter poems, then move on to longer plays or prose.
  3. Mark unfamiliar allusions and political names as you read, and check the background in a focused way.
  4. Read alongside other Restoration writers to observe differences in style and argument.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

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FAQ

Does this book have a Chinese translation or modern annotation? According to the information, this is an English public-domain e-book released by Project Gutenberg; no Chinese translation or modern annotation is mentioned. Readers need English reading ability and should look up historical background and allusions themselves.
What does Volume 04 roughly contain? The information only states that this is Volume 04 of the eighteen-volume Works of Dryden and does not list specific contents. Check the e-book's table of contents first before deciding which pieces to read closely; do not assume the volume contains only one type of writing.
How should general readers approach Dryden? Begin with an overview of Dryden in a literary history to understand the basic background of Restoration drama, poetry, and political satire, then try shorter pieces in this volume. If the original is difficult, use a reliable Chinese guide or selected edition for support.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Dryden, John, 1631-1700 Author

John Dryden (1631-1700) is a major figure in English literary history, whose work spans poetry, drama and literary criticism. This library holds twenty-one of his works, mostly volumes of the eighteen-volume Works of John Dryden and the first two volumes of The Poetical Works, together with the tragedy All for Love; or, The World Well Lost. These texts show him writing heroic tragedy and comedy as well as poetry and translation, in a style marked by balance, clarity and vigour, often using the heroic couplet for serious themes. Because public information is limited, the details of his life cannot be firmly established, yet the surviving works sufficiently show his central place in Restoration letters and his lasting influence on the language and versification of later English poetry.