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    Albion and Albanius: An Opera
    Albion and Albanius: An Opera
    Albion and Albanius: An Opera
    Ebook89 pages1 hour

    Albion and Albanius: An Opera

    By John Dryden

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    About this ebook

    John Dryden was born on August 9th, 1631 in the village rectory of Aldwincle near Thrapston in Northamptonshire. As a boy Dryden lived in the nearby village of Titchmarsh, Northamptonshire. In 1644 he was sent to Westminster School as a King's Scholar. Dryden obtained his BA in 1654, graduating top of the list for Trinity College, Cambridge that year. Returning to London during The Protectorate, Dryden now obtained work with Cromwell's Secretary of State, John Thurloe. At Cromwell's funeral on 23 November 1658 Dryden was in the company of the Puritan poets John Milton and Andrew Marvell. The setting was to be a sea change in English history. From Republic to Monarchy and from one set of lauded poets to what would soon become the Age of Dryden. The start began later that year when Dryden published the first of his great poems, Heroic Stanzas (1658), a eulogy on Cromwell's death. With the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660 Dryden celebrated in verse with Astraea Redux, an authentic royalist panegyric. With the re-opening of the theatres after the Puritan ban, Dryden began to also write plays. His first play, The Wild Gallant, appeared in 1663 but was not successful. From 1668 on he was contracted to produce three plays a year for the King's Company, in which he became a shareholder. During the 1660s and '70s, theatrical writing was his main source of income. In 1667, he published Annus Mirabilis, a lengthy historical poem which described the English defeat of the Dutch naval fleet and the Great Fire of London in 1666. It established him as the pre-eminent poet of his generation, and was crucial in his attaining the posts of Poet Laureate (1668) and then historiographer royal (1670). This was truly the Age of Dryden, he was the foremost English Literary figure in Poetry, Plays, translations and other forms. In 1694 he began work on what would be his most ambitious and defining work as translator, The Works of Virgil (1697), which was published by subscription. It was a national event. John Dryden died on May 12th, 1700, and was initially buried in St. Anne's cemetery in Soho, before being exhumed and reburied in Westminster Abbey ten days later.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherStage Door
    Release dateDec 1, 2016
    ISBN9781787378063
    Albion and Albanius: An Opera
    Author

    John Dryden

    John Dryden was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who was made England's first Poet Laureate in 1668.  Vinton A. Dearing is Professor of English, University of California, Los Angeles.

    Read more from John Dryden

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      Book preview

      Albion and Albanius - John Dryden

      Albion and Albanius by John Dryden

      AN OPERA

      Discite justitiam, moniti, et non temnere divos.

      VIRG.

      John Dryden was born on August 9th, 1631 in the village rectory of Aldwincle near Thrapston in Northamptonshire. As a boy Dryden lived in the nearby village of Titchmarsh, Northamptonshire. In 1644 he was sent to Westminster School as a King's Scholar.

      Dryden obtained his BA in 1654, graduating top of the list for Trinity College, Cambridge that year.

      Returning to London during The Protectorate, Dryden now obtained work with Cromwell's Secretary of State, John Thurloe.

       At Cromwell's funeral on 23 November 1658 Dryden was in the company of the Puritan poets John Milton and Andrew Marvell.  The setting was to be a sea change in English history. From Republic to Monarchy and from one set of lauded poets to what would soon become the Age of Dryden.

      The start began later that year when Dryden published the first of his great poems, Heroic Stanzas (1658), a eulogy on Cromwell's death.

      With the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660 Dryden celebrated in verse with Astraea Redux, an authentic royalist panegyric.

       With the re-opening of the theatres after the Puritan ban, Dryden began to also write plays. His first play, The Wild Gallant, appeared in 1663 but was not successful. From 1668 on he was contracted to produce three plays a year for the King's Company, in which he became a shareholder. During the 1660s and '70s, theatrical writing was his main source of income.

      In 1667, he published Annus Mirabilis, a lengthy historical poem which described the English defeat of the Dutch naval fleet and the Great Fire of London in 1666. It established him as the pre-eminent poet of his generation, and was crucial in his attaining the posts of Poet Laureate (1668) and then historiographer royal (1670).

      This was truly the Age of Dryden, he was the foremost English Literary figure in Poetry, Plays, translations and other forms.

      In 1694 he began work on what would be his most ambitious and defining work as translator, The Works of Virgil (1697), which was published by subscription. It was a national event.

      John Dryden died on May 12th, 1700, and was initially buried in St. Anne's cemetery in Soho, before being exhumed and reburied in Westminster Abbey ten days later.

      Index of Contents

      ALBION AND ALBANIUS. AN INTRODUCTION.

      THE PREFACE

      POSTSCRIPT

      PROLOGUE

      DRAMATIS PERSONAE

      THE FRONTISPIECE

      ALBION AND ALBANIUS. AN OPERA

      DECORATIONS OF THE STAGE IN THE FIRST ACT

      ACT I

      ACT II - The Scene is a Poetical Hell. The Change is Total

      ACT III

      EPILOGUE

      John Dryden – A Short Biography

      John Dryden – A Concise Bibliography

      ALBION AND ALBANIUS. AN INTRODUCTION.

      This opera, like the play which precedes it, had an avowed political object. It was intended to celebrate the victory of the crown over its opponents, or, as our author would have expressed it, of loyalty over sedition and insurrection. The events, which followed the Restoration, are rapidly, but obviously and distinctly, traced down to the death of Charles, and the quiet accession of his brother, who, after all the storms which had threatened to blast his prospects, found himself enabled to mount the throne, with ease sufficient to encourage him to the measures which precipitated him from that elevation. The leading incidents of the busy and intriguing reign of Charles II. are successively introduced in the following order. The city of London is discovered occupied by the republicans and fanatics, depicted under the allegorical personages Democracy and Zeal. General Monk, as Archon, charms the factions to sleep, and the Restoration is emblematized by the arrival of Charles, and the Duke of York, under the names of Albion and Albanius. The second act opens with a council of the fiends, where the popish plot is hatched, and Democracy and Zeal are dismissed, to propagate it upon earth, with Oates, the famous witness, in their train. The next entry presents Augusta, or London, stung by a snake, to intimate the revival of the popular faction in the metropolis. Democracy and Zeal, under the disguise of Patriotism and Religion, insinuate themselves into the confidence of the city, and are supposed to foment the parliamentary opposition, which, ending on the bill of exclusion, rendered it necessary, that the Duke of York should leave the kingdom. We have then, in allegorical representation, the internal feuds of the parties, which, from different causes, opposed the crown. The adherents of Monmouth, and the favourers of republican tenets, are represented as disputing with each other, until the latter, by the flight of Shaftesbury, obtains a final ascendancy. In the mean while, Charles, or Albion, has recourse to the advice of Proteus; under which emblem an evil minded whig might suppose Halifax, and the party of Trimmers, to be represented; actuated by whose versatile, and time-serving politics, Charles gave way to each wave, but remained buoyant amid the tempest. The Rye-house plot is then presented in allegory,—an unfit subject for exultation, since the dark intrigues of the interior conspirators were made the instruments of the fall of Sidney and Russell. The return of the Duke of York, with his beautiful princess, and the rejoicings which were supposed to take place, in heaven and earth, upon

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