''Fables, Ancient and Modern'' is a collection of translations of classical and medieval poetry by
John Dryden
John Dryden (; – ) was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who in 1668 was appointed England's first Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, Poet Laureate.
He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration (En ...
interspersed with some of his own works. Published in March 1700, it was his last and one of his greatest works. Dryden died two months later.
[The Preface to the Fables - Page v volume of miscellanies entitled Fables, consisting chiefly of translations from Chaucer, Ovid, and Boccaccio, with a poetical epistle to his cousin, John Dryden, and the second Ode on St Cecilia's Day, better known as Alexanders Feast. It is dedicated in a prose epistle to the Duke of Ormond, and contains a verse dedication of Palamon and Arcite to the Duchess of Ormond.]
Background
After the deposition of his patron
James II in 1688, Dryden turned to translation to provide himself with a steady income. Dryden’s education at the
Westminster School
Westminster School is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school in Westminster, London, England, in the precincts of Westminster Abbey. It descends from a charity school founded by Westminster Benedictines before the Norman Conquest, as do ...
had provided him with an excellent grounding in translation, which was a conventional exercise at the time.
''Fables, Ancient and Modern'' contains translations of the First Book of
Homer's ''
Iliad
The ''Iliad'' (; , ; ) is one of two major Ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Odyssey'', the poem is divided into 24 books and ...
'', eight selections from
Ovid's ''
Metamorphoses
The ''Metamorphoses'' (, , ) is a Latin Narrative poetry, narrative poem from 8 Common Era, CE by the Ancient Rome, Roman poet Ovid. It is considered his ''Masterpiece, magnum opus''. The poem chronicles the history of the world from its Cre ...
'', three of
Geoffrey Chaucer’s ''
Canterbury Tales
''The Canterbury Tales'' () is a collection of 24 stories written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. The book presents the tales, which are mostly written in verse (poetry), verse, as part of a fictional storytellin ...
'' (and an imitation from the Prologue on "The Character of a Good Parson"), the later medieval poem ''
The Flower and the Leaf,'' which he thought was by Chaucer, and three stories from
Boccaccio
Giovanni Boccaccio ( , ; ; 16 June 1313 – 21 December 1375) was an Italian writer, poet, correspondent of Petrarch, and an important Renaissance humanist. Born in the town of Certaldo, he became so well known as a writer that he was s ...
. The volume also contains a number of Dryden's own works, including "Alexander’s Feast" and an impressive preface in which he lauds Chaucer, calling him “the Father of English poetry”. All the translations are in his characteristic
heroic couplet
A heroic couplet is a traditional form for English poetry, commonly used in epic and narrative poetry, and consisting of a rhyming pair of lines in iambic pentameter. Use of the heroic couplet was pioneered by Geoffrey Chaucer in the '' Legen ...
, which uses alexandrines and triplets to vary the movement.
Dryden aimed to increase the English people’s literary reputation by appropriating the greatest traditions in literature and developing them into new genres.
An interesting feature of the preface is that Dryden did not understand Chaucer's
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman Conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English pe ...
prosody and dismissed his versification as irregular, because Middle English pronunciation was not properly understood at the time. In fact, since Dryden was working with
Thomas Speght's extremely corrupt edition of Chaucer (printed overleaf from the translations in the California edition), and "The Flower and the Leaf" is prosodically unlike the poems by Chaucer, he couldn't possibly have scanned Chaucer even if he had assigned the correct Middle English values.
Reception
The English public were eager recipients of his translations, and saw them as connecting English literature with the great works of the past. The Fables were greatly admired throughout the 18th century, and their form and versification were imitated by
John Keats
John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tub ...
in "
Lamia."
References
Further reading
*
External links
Jena Trammell, Anderson College, ''Fables Ancient and Modern'' in ''The Literary Encyclopedia''.
1700 poetry books
1700 in England
English poetry anthologies
Poetry by John Dryden
Works based on the Iliad
Works based on Metamorphoses
Works based on The Canterbury Tales
Adaptations of works by Giovanni Boccaccio
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