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Dryden Rules

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From: The Hudson Review
Date: 20060101
Author:Pritchard, William H

Waller was smooth; but Dryden taught to join

The varying verse, the full resounding line,

The long majestick march, and energy divine.

-Pope, "Epistle to Augustus"

Writing to Philip Larkin more than sixty years ago, Kingsley Amis delivered one of his frequent critiques of English poets, this one on John Dryden:

I have stopped reading Dryden. He is very like Chaucer, isn't he? I mean, however hard you try, you cannot see what people mean who admired them. Now, I see what people mean (though I don't agree with them) who like Donne or Pope or Wordsworth, or Keats, or even Milton, but I cannot ...

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