Dryden defined himself as a writer in relation to other writers, and in doing so was something of a pioneer professional man of letters. This book looks at Dryden's literary relationships with Ben Jonson and with French authors (notably Corneille); at issues raised by the work thought to be his greatest by Romantic and contemporary readers, Fables Ancient and Modern; and at Samuel Johnson's Life of Dryden. This book has implications for questions of literary reception, influence and intertextuality, as well as for the reputation and context of Dryden himself.

Dryden's writings are studded with names, conspicuously those of his literary predecessors and contemporaries. He defined himself as a writer in relation to other writers, and in doing so was something of a pioneer professional man of letters: poet, playwright, critic, prose stylist, England's foremost verse translator, the first literary historian to provide a conception of periods, and what would now be termed a comparatist. This 1993 book looks at Dryden's literary relationships with Ben Jonson and with French authors (notably Corneille), at issues raised by the work thought to be his greatest by Romantic and contemporary readers, Fables Ancient and Modern; and at Samuel Johnson's definition of Dryden, whose biography in Johnson's Lives was the author's favourite. The book has implications for questions of literary reception, influence and intertextuality, as well as for the reputation and context of Dryden himself.

The poetry written by the Japanese imperial court between A.D. 550 and 1350 is one of the great literatures of the world. The present volume, an introduction to that literature, is at once a condensation, a reorganization, and an extension (to A.D. 1500) of Japanese Court Poetry (1961), by the author and Robert H. Brower, the standard treatment of the subject is in English. The book's five central chapters are devoted to the major court poets and their work; other chapters deal with the forms, assumptions, and themes of court poetry. The author's emphasis throughout is on the human and cultural values of this poetic tradition. Over 150 poems are included in both transliteration and translation. Many of the translations are joint efforts with Professor Bower; others are new translations by the author. The approach to the poems is essentially critical, and draws on the findings of recent Japanese scholarship.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1972.

This volume contains the poems of Dryden extending from1685 to 1692. Along with the poems of Dryden and associated extensive commentaries and textual notes from the editors, this volume contains the dramatic prologues and epilogues Dryden wrote for the plays of other writers from this period of time.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1972.

Travel is one of literature's great metaphors for life; to investigate the properties of travel writing in different cultures affords a particular opportunity for intercultural comparison. In Naming Properties, Earl Miner examines closely four travel accounts: in Japanese, Basho's great Narrow Road through the Provinces, and, as control, the nonliterary account of his friend Sora; in English, Johnson's Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and Boswell's manuscript version, his unbowdlerized Journal. The works were carefully chosen to provide a maximum of literary evidence. The focus of Miner's comparison is on the practical and philosophical implications of naming. Because comparison can reveal parochialism, currently familiar and unexamined Western conceptions are put in question on such issues as identification (what is a name, what is identity in different cultures?); reference (why name a child or river if they do not exist?); intention (how can we refer without intending to?); and fact and fiction (do names differ in fiction and in fact? What of a factual or historical character in a fiction like the novel? or a legal fiction in daily life?). In addition to examining the travel accounts, Miner considers the philosophical issues of naming in a range of other texts, from the Bible, Plato, Thucydides, Confucius, and earliest Japanese writing to current Western philosophers such as Kripke, Donnellan, and Nelson. This book will interest scholars in eighteenth-century English and pre-modern Japanese literature; comparative literature; intercultural study; and naming (onomastics). Earl Miner is Townsend Martin Class of 1917, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Princeton University.

Volume XV contains three of Dryden's Plays, along with accompanying scholarly appartus: Albion and Albanius, Don Sebastian, and Amphitryon.