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The ''Threnodia Augustalis'' is a 517-line occasional poem written by John Dryden to commemorate the death of Charles II in February 1685. The poem was "rushed into print" within a month.〔David Hopkins, "Editing, Authenticity, and Translation: Re-Presenting Dryden's Poetry in 2000," in ''John Dryden: Tercentenary Essays'' (Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 342.〕 The title is a reference to the classical threnody, a poem of mourning, and to Charles as a "new Augustus"〔George Sherburne and Donald F. Bond, "The Spirit of the Restoration" in ''Literary History of England: The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century'' (Routledge, 2004, reprinted from the second edition of 1967), p. 699.〕 (see Augustan literature). It is subtitled "A Funeral-Pindarique Poem Sacred to the Happy Memory of King Charles II," and is one of several poems on the subject published at the time (see 1685 in poetry).〔Cox, Michael, editor, ''The Concise Oxford Chronology of English Literature'', Oxford University Press, 2004, ISBN 0-19-860634-6 〕 Although not one of Dryden's better-known works, the ''Threnodia'' is cited twice in ''The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations'',〔''The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations'' (Oxford University Press, 1999, corrected edition 2001), p. 282.〕 for "Mute and magnificent, without a tear" (stanza 2), and a couplet expressing nationalist sentiment (stanza 10): :''Freedom which in no other land will thrive,'' :''Freedom an English subject's sole prerogative.'' The ''Threnodia'' is marked by "the stately enthusiasm of the time,"〔Sherburne and Bond, "The Spirit of the Restoration," p. 699.〕 but also lends itself to charges of bathos.〔A.W. Ward, "Dryden," in ''Cambridge History of English Literature'' (Cambridge University Press, 1968, reprinted from the first edition of 1911), p. 44.〕 The English critic George Saintsbury noted that the poem "is not exempt from the faults of its kind; but it has merits which for that kind are decidedly unusual," and singles out a stanza that "adroitly at once praises and satirizes Charles's patronage of literary men" for its quality.〔George Saintsbury, ''Dryden'' (Harper: New York and London, 1902), p. 94 (online. )〕 As indicated by its subtitle, the poem exhibits metrical complexities in imitation of a pindaric ode, that is, the structurally intricate poetry of the Greek lyric poet Pindar. The stanzas are irregular, and both line length and the rhyming pattern vary. Early editions misunderstood the pindaric vagaries of the ''Threnodia'' and are sometimes erratic in using indentation to indicate metrical units.〔Hopkins, "Editing, Authenticity, and Translation," pp. 343–344.〕 In its first year alone, the poem went through three London editions and one Dublin edition.〔Paul Hammond, ''The Making of Restoration Poetry'' (D.S. Brewer, 2006), p. 150.〕 ==References== 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Threnodia Augustalis」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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