John Dryden, one of the great literary figures of the late seventeenth century, navigated the dangers of a culture beset, like our own, by powerful tensions in both private and public life. This Companion casts new light on the poet laureate's work and life. The essays, all newly commissioned, introduce readers to the different facets of his work as well as the full array of challenges it presents. Dryden is examined as a poet, as the father of a new kind of theatre, as a contemporary commentator on notions of empire, and as a man intimate with the dangers and opportunities of aristocratic patronage as well as the emerging market for literary gossip, slander, and polemic. The volume includes a chronology and a guide to further reading.--From publisher's description.