Wednesday, October 5, 2011

What qualities of Augustan poetry does the elegy "To The Memory of Mr Oldham" by Dryden display?

John Dryden's [1631-1700] elegy "To the Memory of
Mr.Oldham" was published in the year 1684. It is a sober tribute combining praise of
John Oldham's [1653-1683] poetic achievements with a lament for his premature
death.


The most obvious qualities of Augustan poetry which
are evident in the elegy are as follows:


1.
The elegy has been written in heroic couplets.
A heroic couplet is a pair
of rhyming iambic pentameter lines:


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One common note on either lyre did
strike,


And knaves and fools we both abhorr'd
alike:



The lines are
end-stopped; that is to say, the meaning does not run on into the nest line or the next
couplet. One couplet forms a complete logical whole. The heroic couplet became the
standard line of verse during the neo-classical age and its popularity reached its peak
at the time of Alexander Pope.


2. Classical
allusions.
The neo-classical age is also known as the Augustan Age
because the English poets looked for inspiration and guidance to the poets of the
ancient Augustan period who lived and wrote during the reign of Emperor Augustus (27
B.C.- 14 A.D.) namely, Virgil, Horace and Ovid. For instance Dryden to highlight the
fact that Oldham became more famous earlier than himself alludes to an incident in Book
V of Virgil's "Aeneid" involving Nisus and Euryalus:


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Thus Nisus fell upon the slippery
place,


While his young friend perform'd and won the
race.



3. The
neo-classical poets always privileged reason and intellect over feeling and emotion.
Since Dryden was writing an elegy to mourn the death of his friend we
would expect him express sorrow and grief at the premature death of Oldham. On the
contrary, his elegy is a restrained and careful assessment of Oldham's poetic merits and
his unfulfilled potential with just a hint of regret at his passing away at such an
early age:



O
early ripe! to thy abundant store


What could advancing age
have added more?


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