The ''Threnodia Augustalis'' is a 517-line
occasional poem written by
John Dryden
''
John Dryden (; – ) was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who in 1668 was appointed England's first Poet Laureate.
He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the per ...
to commemorate the death of
Charles II in February 1685. The poem was "rushed into print" within a month. The title is a reference to the classical
threnody, a poem of mourning, and to Charles as a "new
Augustus
Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pr ...
" (see
Augustan literature
Augustan literature (sometimes referred to misleadingly as Georgian literature) is a style of British literature produced during the reigns of Queen Anne, King George I, and George II in the first half of the 18th century and ending in the 17 ...
). It is subtitled "A Funeral-Pindarique Poem Sacred to the Happy Memory of King Charles II," and is one of several poems on the subject published at the time (see
1685 in poetry
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature (for instance, Irish or France).
Events
Works published
Colonial America
* Cotton Mather, ''An Elegy'' ..''on Nathanael Collins'', English Colonial Am ...
).
Although not one of Dryden's better-known works, the ''Threnodia'' is cited twice in ''The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations'', for "Mute and magnificent, without a tear" (stanza 2), and a couplet expressing
nationalist
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: Th ...
sentiment (stanza 10):
The ''Threnodia'' is marked by "the stately enthusiasm of the time," but also lends itself to charges of
bathos
Bathos ( ;''Oxford English Dictionary'', 1st ed. "bathos, ''n.'' Oxford University Press (Oxford), 1885. grc-gre, , "depth") is a literary term, first used in this sense in Alexander Pope's 1727 essay " Peri Bathous", to describe an ...
. The English critic
George Saintsbury noted that the poem "is not exempt from the faults of its kind; but it has merits which for that kind are decidedly unusual," and singles out a stanza that "adroitly at once praises and satirizes Charles's patronage of literary men" for its quality.
As indicated by its subtitle, the poem exhibits metrical complexities in imitation of a pindaric
ode
An ode (from grc, ᾠδή, ōdḗ) is a type of lyric poetry. Odes are elaborately structured poems praising or glorifying an event or individual, describing nature intellectually as well as emotionally. A classic ode is structured in three majo ...
, that is, the structurally intricate poetry of the
Greek lyric
Greek lyric is the body of lyric poetry written in dialects of Ancient Greek.
It is primarily associated with the early 7th to the early 5th centuries BC, sometimes called the "Lyric Age of Greece", but continued to be written into the Hellenisti ...
poet
Pindar
Pindar (; grc-gre, Πίνδαρος , ; la, Pindarus; ) was an Ancient Greek lyric poet from Thebes. Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian wrote, "Of the nine lyric poets, Pindar ...
. The stanzas are irregular, and both line length and the rhyming pattern vary. Early editions misunderstood the pindaric vagaries of the ''Threnodia'' and are sometimes erratic in using indentation to indicate metrical units. In its first year alone, the poem went through three London editions and one Dublin edition.
[Paul Hammond, ''The Making of Restoration Poetry'' (D.S. Brewer, 2006), p. 150.]
References
External links
''Threnodia Augustalis''in ''The poetical works of John Dryden, with memoir and introduction to poems'' (ca. 1895), New York : T.Y. Crowell & Co., pp. 181–198
{{John Dryden
Poetry by John Dryden
Occasional poetry