The art of rank: a revaluation of John Dryden's satires

Abstract

The three major satires by the seventeenth-century poet John Dryden are reassessed for their mutual similarities to literature with burlesque elements. Focusing on his greatest satire, "Absalom and Achitophel ," this study shows Dryden's political, intellectual, and literary appropriateness for incorporating in the poem sexual and scatological imagery which is hidden by syntactical ambiguity. Dryden's satiric style is unified by this burlesque and ambiguity, and thus, the conservative appearance of "Absalom and Achitophel" is shown as hiding its true kinship with the vulgar comedy of "Mac Flecknoe" and the savage satire of "The Medall."

Dryden's covert analogy in "Absalom and Achitophel" is revealed as equating King Charles II's physical body with the "Body Politique" of his politically troubled State, and Dryden's own analogy between himself and the physician/ satirist thus leads to his prescription of a purge to restore the State's good health. This burlesque image is in keeping with the traditional elements of satire, the intellectual and social environment of Restoration England, and also the conservative ideology of Dryden, for his purge metaphor constitutes a defense of the King's control, despite the burlesque elements. Furthermore, despite the iconoclastic appearance of this reading, Dryden scholarship supports it in many ways, especially recent criticism on Dryden's ambiguity, for which this study is a comprehensive test case.