The year 2000 marks the tercentenary of Dryden’s death, and thus potentially the sealing of his status as a poet of old; both our programs, though, are intended as testaments to his perpetual newness. Indeed, we plan to conjure a poet with extraordinary powers of self-renewal—one of the happier corollaries, perhaps, of an imagination forged at a radically contradictory historical moment, or of a poetic voice both mixed and vigorous, authoritative and equivocal. In any case, we take as a compliment Samuel Johnson’s verdict that Dryden was “always another and the same,” and we expect that the papers presented at these conferences will show just how many different Drydens were at work between 1660 and 1700. To explore the innovative Dryden from recent critical perspectives is to chart new directions in Dryden studies. To this end, our first program, The New Dryden: Poetry, Politics, and Society, will be devoted to Dryden’s relationship to the social and political emergencies of post-Commonwealth, late Stuart, and Williamite politics and society. Our second program, An Old Age Is Out: The New Dryden and the Arts of the Restoration (December 1-2, 2000), will place Dryden at the center of various cultural transformations, particularly in the realms of art and music. Treating the poet as shaper, as gauge, and as artifact of a society caught between old monarchy and new empire, ancient models and modern modalities, will allow us to celebrate his exceptional relevance to our own life on the cusp of epochs. For, as Dryden’s Secular Masque of 1700 observes, for us too “an old Age is out,” and as true lovers of Dryden we embrace a “time to begin a new.”
Friday, October 27
10:00 a.m. • workshop
Margery Kingsley, Cameron University
Dryden and the Consumption of History
Leo Braudy, University of Southern California
Dryden, Marvell, and the Designs of Political Poetry
12:00 noon • lunch
1:30 p.m. • workshop
Richard Kroll, University of California, Irvine
The Political Economy of All For Love
David Haley, University of Minnesota
Dryden’s Emergence as Political Satirist
3:30 p.m. • reception
Saturday, October 28
10:00 a.m. • workshop
Sharon Achinstein, University of Maryland
Dryden and Dissent
Michael McKeon, Rutgers University
The Politics of Pastoral Retreat: Dryden’s Poem to His Cousin
12:00 noon • lunch
1:30 p.m. • workshop
Steven Zwicker, Washington University, St. Louis
How Many Religions Did John Dryden Have?
Susan Staves, Brandeis University
Wit, Politics, and Religion: Dryden and Gibbon
Registration Information
Registration deadline: October 20
Please note that space is limited and registration
closes when capacity is reached.
To register, please fill out the form below and
mail it to the Center address.
Registration fees: UC Faculty & staff: $15; students: free of charge; others: $25
Fees cover the cost of lunches and other refreshments.
Address all inquiries to the Center:
Phone: 310-206-8552
E-mail:
Please call a week ahead to arrange for wheelchair access.
Registration Form
The New Dryden: Poetry, Politics and Society
Registration deadline: October 20
Please note that space at the Clark is limited and registration closes when capacity is reached.
Fees: UC Faculty & staff: $15; students: free of charge; others: $25
Fees cover the cost of lunches and other refreshments.
Name ______________________________________________________________________
Address ____________________________________________________________________
Phone number ________________________________________________________________
UC status, UC department _______________________________________________________
Number of persons ____________ Total enclosed ____________
Mail this form and your check (payable to UC Regents) to
Center for 17th- & 18th-Century
Studies
310 Royce Hall, UCLA
Box 951404
Los Angeles, California 90095-1404
Campus Mailcode: 140403