To The Memory Of Mr Oldham Summary

Oldie’s verse, rough and unrefined, In comparison o Dryness style begs the question, why did Dryden want to pay tribute to a much younger and less accomplished poet? In the first ten lines of the elegy we can see that Dryden attempts to establish the history between the two. “Too little and too lately known… ,” shows us that the two authors had Just recently met and “Whom began to think to call my own,” tells us that John Dryden had started to take a Liking to John Lolled.

This fact Is elaborated on by the sentence “For sure our souls were near lady: and thing cast in the same poetic mould with mine. ” Dryden says here hat their souls were really close to each other and they were cast from the same poetic mould. It is interesting on Dryness part to say this when their styles were not so similar, Dryden being artistic and flowing and Oldie’s style seemingly coarse and less thought through.

However, we are told that they did know each other in the first ten lines so we must take another route in determining why Dryden wanted to lament Oldie’s passing.

Oldham Paper

In lines nine and ten we see that Dryden may be stating that Lolled was a stepping stone in Dryness studies. “Thus Minus fell upon the lippies place, while his young friend performed and won the race. ” This couplet illuminates Dryness way of thinking. It seems that Dryden learned a little from John Lolled despite his young age, which probably attributes to Dryden liking Lolled, and this spurred Dryden on to new heights, so he relates Oldie’s death to Missus’s fall and Dryden himself is the young friend who wins the race.

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However, this is not to say that Dryden used Lolled in a negative way. In the legend, Minus was winning the race when he slipped in a pool of blood and fell; he then rolled into the path off avail opponent so that his friend could win the race. So, in essence, he is saying that Lolled helped him to achieve greater heights in writing and fame even though Lolled died, or fell. All this probably attributes to the reason for John Dryden to write the tribute to Lolled, however, the elegy does not stop there.

In lines ten through fourteen, Dryden ponders on what older age could have given Lolled In terms of higher thinking and achievement. This part Is sort of a wishful thinking attempt at contemplating what John Lolled would do In older age. Dryden states that age might have given Lolled a refined tongue for his harsh and rugged line. Another answer to the reason Dryden felt Like he owed a tribute to Lolled Is that he may have felt that John Lolled was a man before his time.

In lines nineteen and twenty Dryden writes “Thy generous fruits, though gathered ere their prime still showed a quickness; and maturing time. ” This meaning that the fruits of Oldie’s labor, his poetry and satires, were mature for Lolled. Also, In answer to ten to ten shuttles Dryden en uses ten words allele Ana mould, n s basically comparing himself to Lolled. This is not strange because they have the same birthday, and they both write in satire, Just different styles in satire.

When he writes “One common note on either lyre did strike and knaves and fools we both abhorred alike,” Dryden is comparing both he and Lolled to how musicians are similar when they play the lyre in reference to their poetry. Although, he does criticize Oldie’s verses in that he says “thro the harsh cadence of a rugged line, a noble error, and but seldom made, when poets are by too much force betrayed. He is criticizing Oldie’s work here saying that his errors are noble and that he himself writes satire in better verses.

The piece where he mentions the rugged line probably indicates that Lolled is more preoccupied with the matter that is given rather than the manner in which it is given. This view is expressed more clearly when Dryden writes “But mellows what we write to the dull sweets of rhyme. ” Overall, we see that John Dryden and John Lolled had many things in common. They were both poets, or satirists to be more exact, and they both had the same airhead.

Yet Lolled was substantially less famous than Dryden and had accomplished considerably less than him, so this begs the question why did Dryden feel the necessity to write a tribute to him? As we have seen, Dryden feels that he was connected to Lolled, maybe it is that they were both satirists, maybe it is that Lolled castigated wickedness instead of preaching virtue and Dryden found this appealing. Or maybe, Dryden saw Lolled as an equal, not on a literal level, but on a metaphoric, by this I mean that Lolled wrote satires in a way that was before his mime seeing that he was only 30 at the time of his death.

It is for this reason, I believe, that Dryden feels he must at least recognize the young writer so that people may not forget what could have been had not smallpox prematurely ended Oldie’s life. He equates him with Marcella, the son-in-law of the Emperor Augustus. Marcella died at an early age and he was mourned very heavily by the Roman population, and Dryden uses this to pay tribute to Lolled who will more than likely not be mourned widely by the masses.