Alquin blz 12-18 John Dryden and satire

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 6

What about the Puritans?

The Puritans were members of a religious reform movement known as Puritanism that arose within the Church of England in the late 16th century. 

They believed the Church of England was too similar to the Roman Catholic Church and should eliminate ceremonies and practices not rooted in the Bible. 

Today's goal

• You can explain what satire is
• You improve your listening skills

SATIRE
(What springs to mind?)

Satire = 

a form of humour, in which people are mocked and made to look ridiculous. 

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(= also a listening test skill this year!)

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• Grew up as a Puritan
  
• Converted to the Anglican Church when Charles II became king
  
• Married above his social status
  
• Poet Laureate
  
• Wrote poetry and plays (at first comedies, later tragedies)
  
• Converted to Catholicism when James II ascended the throne
  
• Focussed on satirical poetry later in life and became very influential
  

John Dryden 1631 - 1700

What is satire?

• Originates as a literary form (dates back to Ancient Greece)
  
• Exaggerates tendencies 
  
• Aims to make people laugh, but also to let them think
  
• > Form of protest > Humor as a weapon
  
• Seen as an enlightened form of sarcasm
  
• Has many forms: subtle or blatant / serious or silly
  

How does satire work?

• Literal satire: looks/feels/seems realistic, but...
  
• little things are exaggerated to show their ridiculousness

( Fight Club, Married with Children, Luizenmoeder)

• Unrealistic satire: fantastic places + unrealistic settings 
  
• > metaphors for world we live in   (Animal Farm, Gulliver’s Travels, books by Terry Pratchett)
  

Examples of Satire: 

•  Satire

• Absolom represents the Duke of Monmouth, the illegitimite son of Charles II
• Achitophel, a priest who leads Absolom astray, represents the Earl of Shaftesbury
  
• David represents Charles II

• Heroic Couplets

Absolom and Achitophel (1681)

Heroic couplets: 

•  A pair of rhyming lines, ten syllables (usually in iambic pentameter), forming an entity.

• Good night, good night. Parting is such sweet sorrow        That I shall say good night till it be morrow
• Romeo and Juliet

Let's read the passage. 

Pay attention to the 

"da, DUM, da, DUM, da DUM, da DUM, da DUM

Answers to the assignments on Dryden’s Absolom and Achitophel

1. Line 564: chemist, fiddler, statesman and buffoon Line 565: painting, rhyming and drinking
2.  Stiff in opinions (Line 561) that every man, with him, was god or devel (572)
3.  While the lines appear to express appreciation, the final negative words alter the sentiment to one of satire.
4.  Zimri had not noticed that his wasting money and clowning around would make a beggar of him.
5.   Line 577: he laughed himself from court.
6.  He cannot even play the villain well, as he is too foolish and weak.
7.  Precisely the opposite! Achitophel is portrayed as a stupid intriguer in the remainder of the poem.
8.  Lines 577 to 578 explain that he is not even capable of leading a political group; leadership is set aside for others, while he remains a servile follower.
9.  The crucial element is that there is a great deal of humour in Dryden’s satires.

St Cecilia

‘A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day’ 1-15

The poem begins with a reference to the “Heavenly harmony.” According to Dryden, this harmony, supervised by God, lies in the whole universe. The universal frame began with this harmony when “Nature” was nothing but a “heap of jarring atoms.” God bound them in order and formed this earth. By the reference to “Heavenly harmony,” it seems Dryden is alluding to the Newtonian model of the universe.

He personifies nature and says nature could not heave her head higher after its creation. Then suddenly, she heard a “tuneful voice” from heaven. The sound raised her from her immobile state like a dead person.

According to the speaker, this music eventuated the seasonal cycle on earth. Through all the compass of the musical notes, the earth revolved and the “diapason” closed “full in man.” Diapason means a grand swelling burst of harmony. In other words, it means the entire range of something. Here, the reference is made to the complete compass of the heavenly music.

‘A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day’ 16-24

In the second stanza, the poet refers to the power of music. 

He says music can raise and quell extreme passion. 

When Jubal struck the corded shell, his brethren stood around him wondering about his composition. On their faces, there was an awe-inspiring look. It seems to the speaker that they were worshiping that “celestial sound” coming from Jubal’s shell.

A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day’ 25-32

By the line, “Excites us to arms,” Dryden presents the imagery of soldiers getting ready for a battle.

The clangor of the trumpet also imitates the mood of anger. It is often used to give “mortal alarms.” 

While the beating of a “thundering drum” cries and harks the arrival of enemy forces. Hearing the sound, the soldiers cry out, “Charge, charge, ’tis too late to retreat.” 

In this way, the third stanza revolves around the musical instruments. Their sounds heighten the mood of the poem.

A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day’ 33-36

The fourth stanza of ‘A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day’ zooms in to the sound of the flute. 

The soft sound of the flute appears to be imitating a complaining voice. In the dying notes of it, the listeners can imagine the woes of hopeless lovers. According to the speaker, their dirge is whispered by the “warbling lute.” 

A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day’ 37-41

Hearing the sound of the flute, the “sharp violins” proclaim their jealous pangs. It seems to the speaker the violin is desperate to express the player’s fury and frantic indignation. 

When the speaker hears its sound, the sound reflects the musician’s depth of pain and height of passion for the fair, disdainful dame. 

A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day’ 42-47

 In this stanza, the focus is on St. Cecilia’s musical instrument, the organ.

According to him, the human voice cannot reach the height of the sacred organ’s praise. None can teach this art to a human being unless the user has some divine inspiration or a heavenly spirit. The reference is to Saint Cecilia who was inspired by heaven.

Her notes inspired holy love in humans. Not only that, her composition rose higher to heaven and mended the choirs above. In this way, Dryden refers to the healing and constructive qualities of music, especially of Cecilia’s music.

A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day’ 48-54

Orpheus: a musician, poet, and prophet in Greek mythology. He could play the lute in such a manner that made the savage race of Greece obey and respect him. His music could inspire not only humans, but nature also responds to it. The trees got uprooted from their place. According to Dryden, he was the “Sequacious of the lyre.” It means that he perfected the lyre.

Cecilia raised the wonder higher than Orpheus. When she gave her vocal breath to her organ, it reached heaven. An angel heard her music and he straightly appeared, mistaking earth for heaven. Such was the magnificence of Cecilia’s composition.

The last section titled the “Grand Chorus” was meant for sung by all the singers. Dryden says from the power of Cecilia’s sacred lays the spheres began to move. Her music had the power to infuse life into all the inanimate objects. Hearing her organ, they came into life and sang the great creator’s praise. They sang for all the blessed angels residing in heaven.

When the last and dreadful hour (a metaphorical reference to death) came, the crumbling pageant shall devour the creation. The trumpet shall be heard in heaven. Those who have died will come to life and the living die. Along with that, her music will untune the sky. 

Music which created this universe, has the power of destroying it too. In the scheme of creation, this universe is merely a passing shadow. Music will one day end this passing shadow, this pageant. This is the reason that at the end of the poem, the poet calls the universe as the crumbling pageant. This would happen on the day of final judgment or the Doom’s day.

It is written in the Bible that Angel Gabriel, will appear with his trumpet on the final day of judgment and blow his trumpet. Gabriel conveys his message through his music that all living beings shall die and that the dead shall come out of their graves and stand before God, who will pronounce his judgment according to the record of good and bad deeds performed by each one of us during our life time.

Answers to the assignments on Dryden’s Ode to St Cecilia’s Day

• 1a Irregular b Irregular c Irregular
  
• 2 The creation of the world
  
• 3 lines 8 and 9, when all the elements (line 8) fall into place.
  
• 4 He had stretched strings over a shell, and discovered that he could make exquisite sounds by striking them.
  
• 5 Celestial (line 20) and God (line 21)
  
• 6 Rather comical: they considered the sounds so beautiful, that they thought something divine must have been concealed in the shell.
  
• 7 Zither (Een citer, zither is een snaarinstrument dat voornamelijk bestaat uit een klankbodem (boog, buis, plank, frame) die bespannen is met een of meer snaren.
• 8a Trumpet and drums
  
• b War
  
• 9 The word imitates the sound that the instrument makes
  
• 10 Flute, lute and violin
  

• 11 They are all connected to love, generally in a negative sense: desperate love, jealousy, despair.
  
• 12 The organ inspires divine emotions, which surpass worldly feelings. In fact, this stanza goes so far as to claim that the organ would improve the quality of the heavenly choir!
  
• 13 The wild animals
  
• 14 The story of Orpheus (that he could even make trees walk) is surpassed by that of Cecilia, whose glorious voice could even persuade the divine angels that they were in heaven.
  
• 15 The problem is that the word organ has two meanings, namely a musical instrument and means of communicating. And it might mean either in this particular line. While Dryden may be referring to the musical instrument, he already did so in the previous stanza. He may therefore also be referring to her human voice.
  
• 16 The end of the world. The day of reckoning.
  
• 17 Music heralds (aankondigen) the apocalypse.(een situatie te beschrijven waarin de wereld lijkt onder te gaan.)