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10. John Dryden, Fables Ancient and Modern; Translated into Verse, From Homer, Ovid, Boccace & Chaucer (London, 1700).
Requested on: 7 and 13 July, and 5 and 15 November 1866.
In this book, the English poet John Dryden (1631-1700) reproduced excerpts from the works of Homer, Ovid and Boccaccio: the greatest poets respectively of the Greek, Latin and Italian languages. However, Dryden reserved his greatest praise for the Englishman Geoffrey Chaucer (d.1400).
Dryden proclaimed his admiration for Chaucer in stark terms: ‘no Man ever had, or can have, a greater Veneration for Chaucer, than myself. I have translated some part of his Works [from medieval English], only that I might perpetuate his Memory’. In drawing attention to Chaucer’s influence upon Edmund Spenser and John Milton, Dryden praised the genius of English poetry.
At the time of his death in 1912, Stoker owned a volume which contained 11 original Dryden plays published between 1677 and 1691.
Citation:
10. John Dryden, Fables Ancient and Modern; Translated into Verse, From Homer, Ovid, Boccace & Chaucer (London, 1700).,
Marsh's Library Exhibits,
accessed April 29, 2024,
https://www.marshlibrary.ie/digi/items/show/499