The Poems of John Dryden

JOHN DRYDEN. The Poems of John Dryden, ed. Paul Hammond. Vol. I: 1649-1681 and Vol. II: 1682-1685. London: Longman, 1995; Pp. xlvii + 551; xxvi + 447. $251.25 (the set).

This new four-volume edition of Dryden's poems begins to appear just as the California Dryden is, finally, heading toward a close (one volume to go). Those of us who have relied upon that magisterial set, twenty heavy, expensive volumes, will be grateful to have a manageable four-volume edition of the poems, especially since the scholarly commentary appears as headnotes and footnotes, not as textual apparatus inconveniently located at the end of the volumes.

Unlike the California Dryden, designed for the scholar, the Longman Dryden keeps the student in mind, glossing such words as "want" ("lack"), "prevent" ("come before"), "prove" ("test"), "zeal" ("a quality associated with extreme Protestants"). There is also something in Mr. Hammond's tone that is refreshingly direct. When the California editors find themselves glossing the indelicate, they tend to rely on gentlemanly circumlocutions under the mistaken impression that these will pass for wit. Thus, "well-hung" modifying Balaam in "Absalom and Achitophel" receives the gloss "glib, fluent," followed by mention of a coarser meaning, illustrated by a couplet referring to Priapus-Balaam from another poem. Mr. Hammond, by contrast, explains that well-hung means "with large genitals," which he follows with an account of whether or not the Earl of Huntingdon...