Dryden, Absalom &
Achitophel
1680-81
The Exclusion Crisis
(& the Popish Plot)
1
ALLEGORY: a solution to
various expressive problems
 BUNYAN - Political disengagement & a
dissenter’s commentary
 Bunyan faces the conceptual
impossibility of conveying directly
a spiritual transformation--a
transformation by definition “beyond
words”
 Allegory embodies what is not body.
 DRYDEN - Political engagement & an
insider’s commentary
 Dryden deals with the political
inadvisability and the psychological
ineffectiveness of direct statement. 2
Players: David =
Charles II
Absalom = James
Scott, Duke of
Monmouth
Michal =Katherine of
Braganza
Bathsheba =
Duchess of
Portsmouth
Monmouth’s
Mother = Lucy
Walter(s)
http://www.npg.org.uk/2563.htm;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:James_Scott.jpg
http://www.portcities.org.uk/london/server/show/conMediaFile.4728/King-Charles-II(163085).html http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Louise_de_K%C3%A9rouail
More players
Achitophel = Anthony
Ashley Cooper, 1st
Earl of Shaftesbury
Corah = Titus Oates
Pharaoh = Louis XIV
Agag = Sir Edmund
Godfrey
Review the players
 Absalom:
James Scott, Duke of Monmouth
and Buccleugh (1649-1685), son of Charles
II & Lucy Walters
 Achitophel:
Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl
of Shaftesbury (1621-1683)
 David & Israel’s Monarch:
(1630-1685)
Charles II
 Michal:
Catherine of Braganza (16381705), Queen
 Bathsheba:
Duchess of Portsmouth (16491734), Charles II's mistress.
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More players
 Israel: England Egypt: France
 Jerusalem & Sion: London
 The Jews: the English
 “the chosen people”: Protestants
 Hebrew Priests: Church of England
(Anglican) clergy
 Jewish Rabbins: Church of England
priests
 Levites: The Presbyterian ministers
displaced by the Act of Uniformity.
Aaron's Race, the Clergy
6
 Solymaean Rout: London mob.
And more players
 Saul: Oliver Cromwell
 Ishbosheth, Richard Cromwell (1626-
1712)
 Gath:
Brussels, where Charles was
in exile after period in France
 Hebron: Scotland (where Charles was
crowned on Jan. 1, 1651)
 Ethnic Plot:
Popish Plot
 “his Progress”: Monmouth’s journey,
beginning July 26, 1680
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Background: The Exclusion Crisis
 The problem of succession
 Exclusion Bill: a bill to exclude
James, Charles II’s brother, from
succession.
 See notes in our course booklet.
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The political problem
 Charles has no legitimate
children.
How do Dryden’s opening lines
start to address the problem?
 Charles’s sexual promiscuity:
many heirs but not one heir
 Look closely at lines 1-18.
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From the end rhymes of the first 18 lines, what can
you guess about the problem the poem presents?
 begin,
 wear;
 sin;
 care:
 kind,
 bore
 confin'd:
 before.
 deni'd
 ascend,
 bride;
 attend.
 heart,
 none
 impart
 Absalom:
 command
 land.
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The poem’s strategy
 To link Charles II to David
 To link Monmouth to Absalom, David’s
much loved but rebellious son
 To recall the Civil War and
associate the supporters of
exclusion with it
 To persuade readers that Charles
II’s political opponents threaten
the stability of the restoration.
Those who aim to alter the
succession aim to erode monarchy.

See lines 69-74.
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Solution
Dryden relies on his allegory to build up the association
between Charles and David and create a sense of
sexual blessing.
The art of the subordinate clause: The first ten lines are
one sentence, its temporal clauses focusing attention
on the history of David.
 In pious times
 Before
 When
 Ere
 When
 Then
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Getting a little help from alliteration
 man
on many
 one to one
confined
multiplied
cursedly
 The poem makes Charles’s extensive
sexual activity a virtue rather than a state
problem. The queen is “a soil ungrateful
to the tiller’s care” (12).
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Sexual energy underlies politics.
 What does “Scatter'd his Maker's image
through the land” mean?
 Absalom’s conception seems to have been
inspired by a “diviner lust/greater
gust.”
 Contrast:
Achitophel’s cramped
conceptions define him.

169 And all to leave, what with
his toil he won
170 To that unfeather'd, two-legg'd
thing, a son:
14
171 Got, while his soul did
huddled notions try;
Further scrutiny of Dryden’s
link between sexual and
political activity
 Dryden fuses sexual and political
corruption.
 169 And all to leave, what with his toil he won
170 To that unfeather'd, two-legg'd thing, a
son:
171 Got, while his soul did huddled notions
try;
172 And born a shapeless lump, like anarchy.
 Note also the poem’s use of the term
debauched:
“debauch'd with ease”(47); “debauch'd with
praise” (312).
 The OED for definition of debauch:
15
But the problem of succession is not
solved by prolific sexual activity:
“No true succession”(l. 16)
 The problem of succession
 Highlighted
in the opening
lines
 Obscured
by the poem’s
effort to make Charles’s
extensive sexual activity a
sign of blessing and
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Achitophel: satiric portrait (l. 150 ff.)
 A portrait of excess and deformity
 Achitophel is a Satan figure and a master
rhetorician.
 Achitophel is greatness deformed, an epic
figure fallen to satiric status.
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What is worth noticing here?
Rhymes. Alliteration, Metaphors
150 Of these the false Achitophel was first:
151 A name to all succeeding ages curst.
152 For close designs, and crooked counsels fit;
153 Sagacious, bold and turbulent of wit:
154 Restless, unfixt in principles and place;
155 In pow'r unpleas'd, impatient of disgrace.
156 A fiery soul, which working out its way,
157 Fretted the pigmy-body to decay:
158 And o'er inform'd the tenement of clay.
159 A daring pilot in extremity;
160 Pleas'd with the danger, when the waves went high
161 He sought the storms; but for a calm unfit,
162 Would steer too nigh the sands, to boast his wit.
163 Great wits are sure to madness near alli'd;
164 And thin partitions do their bounds divide:
18
Achitophel as Satan: the
temptations of Absalom
 Auspicious Prince! (230)
 Their [thy longing country’s] second Moses (234)
 Thee, Saviour, thee, the nation's vows confess (240)
 How long wilt thou the general joy detain;
Starve, and defraud the people of thy reign? (244-5)
 Believe me, royal youth, thy fruit must be,
Or gather'd ripe, or rot upon the tree (250-1).
 Had thus Old David, from whose loins you spring,
Not dar'd, when fortune call'd him, to be king (262-3).
 What strength can he to your designs oppose,
Naked of friends and round beset with foes? (279-80).
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Temptation (cont.)
 Unwarily was led from virtue’s ways;
Made drunk with honour, and debauch'd
with praise.
Half loath, and half consenting to the
ill,
(For loyal blood within him struggled
still)
He thus repli'd.--And what pretence have
I
To take up arms for public liberty?
My Father governs with unquestion'd
right;
The Faith's defender, and mankind's
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delight:
The Popish Plot exacerbated the problem of succession.
Dryden’s view of the plot:
108 From hence began that plot, the nation's curse,
109 Bad in itself, but represented worse.
110 Rais'd in extremes, and in extremes decri'd;
111 With oaths affirm'd, with dying vows deni'd.
112 Not weigh'd, or winnow'd by the multitude;
113 But swallow'd in the mass, unchew'd and crude.
Dryden’s treatment of the plot: fever in the body politic
136 For, as when raging fevers boil the blood,
137 The standing lake soon floats into a flood;
138 And ev'ry hostile humour, which before
139 Slept quiet in its channels, bubbles o'er:
140 So, several factions from this first ferment,
141 Work up to foam, and threat the government.
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