Jenn Park
Ian Newman
Excerpt from Dryden's "London After the Great Fire" written in 1666.
Correlated with Dryden's Annus Mirabilis
Throughout the poem, description of a beautiful London is at hand.
With the Great Fire of London in 1666, majority of the city is burned down, left as nothing but rubble and stones.
Poem is Dryden's patriotic call to rebuild the city from its ashes touching upon commentary of the great city of Rome.
Rising from the ashes like a phoenix (visual imagery. correlated with mythical significance of phoenix, the most beautiful bird in existence, that is supposedly resurrected from worthless mere ashes.
"More great than human, now, and more August, / New deified she from her fires does rise." John Dryden even imbues the fire with the characteristics of some sort of redemptive act.
Ultimately stating that London shall achieve a sort of salvation and grow greater with the expectation that the world is going to change for the better. London will be the predominant force to lead it.
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2 comments:
The city of London is being compared to the country of Mexico. London might as well be a modern day city-state. The potential of the city is the "mold" that Dryden speaks of and it is absolutely devoid of silver and gold when natural resources come to mind. The lands that are explored by the British are not considered to be rich, but incompetent of managing their own resources. The gold and the silver did not give the Indies their name, the British gave significance to their name based on how the uncolonized inhabitants can be exploited.
***The original post was made by Jessica Kellogg***
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