John Dryden

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to the Church of England all his life until converting to Catholicism due to the change of the throne. He was baptized at All Saints Church in Aldwinule, Northamptonshire ten days after his birth (Hopkins 75). Dryden, growing into a young man, began his education in his hometown. There he took the basic classes. He furthered his education at Westminister School in London. Here, he attended school for about twelve hours a day, beginning and ending at six. At Westminister he studied history, geography, and study of the Scripture, plus all the basics. After Westminister he Cunningham 2 attended Cambridge University (Hopkins 14). While attending Cambridge University, he excelled to the top of his class and was a standout student. was the greatest and most represented English man of letters of the last quarter of the seventeenth century. From the death of Milton in 1674 to his own in 1700, no other writer can compare with him in versatility and power (Sherwood 39). He was in fact a ...

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father in death only three years later in April of 1700. His wife, the "Widow of a poet," died shortly after his death in the summer of 1714 at the age of 78 (Bredvold 314). Dryden certainly attained his goal of popularity especially after his death. He became this Cunningham 3 through his "achievements in verse translations, the first English author to depend for a livelihood directly on the reading public and opening the future of profitable careers for great novelists during the next two centuries" (Frost 17). The Restoration period was a time of great literature and outstanding writers, but, with all the talent in this century, there were also many problems. The Restoration was an ...

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