Dryden: The Poetics of Translation

Toby Rupert was a librarian living in Toronto.

The point of this book is that the collection of translations that Dryden produced or contributed to is a unified work of literature, not just miscellaneous translations. Through his selection of passages, through his use of language, and through changes and new emphases in the passages he translated, Dryden could express his personality and convictions. In this book the late Judith Sloman was concerned in part with the connection between personality and art and in part with the political, religious, and literary context in which Dryden worked. Although Fables Ancient and Modern receives the most emphasis, Ovid’s Epistles, Miscellany Poems, Sylvae, Examen Poeticum, and the Aeneis are also examined in some detail.

Sloman, with the assistance of McWhir, who prepared the book after Sloman’s death, tries to show that Fables Ancient and Modern is thus not a unique entity in Dryden’s canon but the conclusion of a pattern that can be traced through his entire career as translator and poet.