Plan of the lecture english literature of the XVII century

Criticism 
John Dryden’s plays include prologues, prefaces, and dedications in which 
he analyses the works of John Fletcher, Francis Beaumont, Ben Jonson, 
Shakespeare, and even himself while discussing the English theater, the 
difficulties of representing life on the stage, and the merits and drawbacks of 
rhyme. In so doing, Dryden began the English tradition of practical criticism. 
While critics of his time were preoccupied with issues of morality, 
immorality, and uplifting the reader or audience, Dryden wrote objectively and 
systematically about the literature itself. Through a natural, conversational prose 
style, he discussed works in the context of literary tradition, generic form, 
technical innovation, and effectiveness of presentation, all of which became the 
standard for literary critical investigations. 
In Dryden’s satirical and didactic poems, he created the extended form of 
objective analysis that has come to characterize most modern criticism. In his 
satire, he displayed an irrepressible wit and forceful line of argument that later 
satirists adopted as their model. Samuel Johnson, who first called Dryden the 
father of English criticism, considered him the English poet who crystallized the 
potential for beauty and majesty in the English language: According to Johnson, 
‘‘[Dryden] found it brick, and he left it marble.’’ 
 
THE DESCRIPTION OF SOCIAL EVENTS IN THE POEM ''ANNUS 
MIRABILIS'' 
 
Annus Mirabilis
is a poem written by John Dryden published in 1667. It 
commemorated 1665–1666, the "year of miracles" of London. Despite the poem's 
name, the year had been one of great tragedy, including the Great Fire of London. 
Johnson writes that Dryden uses the term "year of miracles" for this period of time 

---

KHILOLA RAKHIMOVA, senior teacher, URSU 
19 
to suggest that events could have been worse.[1] Dryden wrote the poem while at 
Charlton in Wiltshire, where he went to escape one of the great events of the year: 
the Great Plague of London. 
The title of Dryden's poem, used without capitalisation, annus mirabilis, 
derives its meaning from its Latin origins and describes a year of particularly 
notable events. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, Dryden's use of the 
term for the title of his poem constitutes the first known written use of the phrase 
in an English text.[2] The first event of the miraculous year was the Battle of 
Lowestoft fought by English and Dutch ships in 1665. The second was the Four 
Days Battle of June 1666, and finally the victory of the St. James's Day Battle a 
month later. The second part of the poem deals with the Great Fire of London that 
ran from September 2–7, 1666. The miracle of the Fire was that London was 
saved, that the fire was stopped, and that the great king (Charles II) would rebuild, 
for he already announced his plans to improve the streets of London and to begin 
great projects. Dryden's view is that these disasters were all averted, that God had 
saved England from destruction, and that God had performed miracles for 
England. 
The poem contains 1216 lines of verse, arranged in 304 quatrains. Each line 
consists of ten syllables, and each quatrain follows an ABAB rhyme scheme, a 
pattern referred to as adecasyllabic quatrain. Rather than write in the heroic 
couplets found in his earlier works, Dryden used the decasyllabic quatrain 
exemplified in Sir John Davies' poem Nosce Teipsum in 1599. The style was 
revived by William Davenant in his poem Gondibert, which was published in 1651 
and influenced Dryden's composition of Annus Mirabilis.[3] This particular style 
dictates that each quatrain should contain a full stop, which A.W. Ward believes 
causes the verse to become "prosy".