The greatest poet of the Restoration era was undoubtedly John Dryden; so much so that in literary history the period between the Restoration and the turn of the eighteenth century is also often referred to as the “Age of Dryden”. Indeed his poetic career almost completely corresponds to this historical period, his first mature poems dating from 1658 and 1660 and his last great publication, Fables Ancient and Modern, coming out in 1700, the year of his death. Moreover, his poetic career is also very closely linked to the major political, historical events of his time: the London plague of 1665, the Great Fire of London (1666), the second Anglo-Dutch wars of 1665-67, the Exclusion Bill crisis of 1679-81, James II’s accession (1685) and the Glorious Revolution (1689). These events played a major role in his personal as well as professional life. His characteristic poetry was not written in the lyrical mode that we usually associate poetry with today; most of it is public poetry, written on a particular occasion, with a particular political or other public purpose. In almost all of his best writing, he mobilized his poetic powers to serve didactic (political, ecclesiastical, or philosophical) ends, taking part in the public debates and power struggles of his day. In other words, Dryden was – perhaps more than any other English poet – a poet of his age.