「앤 킬리그루양을 추모하며」와 드라이든의 이상적 시인관

Abstract

This essay is designed to view Anne Killigrew not as an elegy but as expressing his view of an ideal poet. Traditionally Anne Killigrew has been read as an elegy mourning Killigrew's early death. But this essay attempts to focus on the fact that Dryden uses Killigrew to define his view of an ideal public poet. In Anne Killigrew, Killigrew is portrayed as an ideal poet. Dryden wants to define his view of the ideal poet and his art by presenting his fellow poet, Killigrew as the ideal poet. In the past Dryden saw the poet as a public orator empowered with authority to speak to the whole nation, comment on public problems and criticize them. In this poem, however, he shows the changes in his view of the ideal poet. Firstly, he sees Killigrew's moral purity as the first quality of the ideal poet, and tries to criticize his past immoral plays by that standard. Secondly, he says that when she paints James II, she catches virtues in James II that are not there until she puts them there. He praises her for creating an image of an ideal king in James II. Here Dryden seems to insist that the public poet's important role is to educate the prince by calling forth ideal virtues in him; he rebukes himself for not fulfilling this role more faithfully. Finally, Dryden shows Killigrew leading mankind to the heaven at the Last Judgment at the end of the poem. In other words, Dryden sees the role of the public poet as a priest leading mankind to the heaven. This can be interpreted as a too extravagant claim for the poet's power. But we can see it as an expression of Dryden's idealistic view of the public poet. In conclusion, Dryden's Anne Killigrew shows his changed view of the ideal poet. Dryden insists that the public poet ought to value moral purity above all, educate the prince by providing the ideal pattern for imitation, and lead mankind to the heaven in lie of priests.