Dryden, John - Bessie Proffitt (essay date 1970)
Bessie Proffitt (essay date 1970)
SOURCE: "Political Satire in Dryden's Alexander's Feast," in Texas Studies in Literature and Language, Vol. XI, No. 4, 1970, pp. 1307-16.
[In the following excerpt, Profitt asserts that Alexander's Feast should not be assessed simply for its qualities as a musical ode, but also regarded as a pointed "attack" on King William III]
The contention of this paper is that Alexander's Feast is not only the zenith of the Restoration ode for music but also a well-hidden attack upon William III. If Dryden's ode is an attack upon William, it may be rescued from the accusation of jingling to which such poetry is subject. Mark Van Doren reflects this attitude when he suggests that "perhaps [Alexander's Feast] is only immortal ragtime." If this Cecilian ode is more than "immortal ragtime," it must have a greater unity and depth of meaning than is imparted by its musical subject and undeniably...
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