How Selected Poems drew on The Iliad
A documented line of influence: John Dryden demonstrably engaged Homer’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
The Iliad
Homer · c. 750 BCE
Ancient GreeceThe influenced
Selected Poems
John Dryden · 1697
PoetsRelevance
7/10
On Selected Poems’s page
- Dryden's Homer translations bring the Iliad into English heroic couplets — the first book in full, plus Hector's last parting from Andromache
- To render Homer is to take the measure of the source; reading the original Greek epic first shows you what Dryden was wrestling into rhyme
- He set his Homer beside his Virgil, claiming the whole epic lineage for English verse
On The Iliad’s page
- Dryden Englished Homer the way he'd Englished Virgil — measuring his own verse against the founding epic poet
- He translated Hector and Andromache's parting from Iliad Book VI, then the entirety of Book I
- The first book of the Iliad in heroic couplets is Dryden taking the measure of where Western poetry began