.gif)
Annus Mirabilis (poem)
Encyclopedia
John Dryden
John Dryden was an influential English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who dominated the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden.Walter Scott called him "Glorious John." He was made Poet...
published in 1667. It commemorated 1665–1666, the "year of miracles" of London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. Despite the poem's name, the year had been one of great tragedy, including the Great Fire of London
Great Fire of London
The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through the central parts of the English city of London, from Sunday, 2 September to Wednesday, 5 September 1666. The fire gutted the medieval City of London inside the old Roman City Wall...
. Johnson writes that Dryden uses the term "year of miracles" for this period of time to suggest that events could have been worse. Dryden wrote the poem while at Charlton
Charlton
-Places:In Australia:* Charlton, Victoria* Division of Charlton, an electoral district in the Australian House of Representatives, in New South WalesIn Canada:* Charlton, Ontario* Charlton Island, NunavutIn England:...
in Wiltshire
Wiltshire
Wiltshire is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It contains the unitary authority of Swindon and covers...
, where he went to escape one of the great events of the year: the Great Plague of London
Great Plague of London
The Great Plague was a massive outbreak of disease in the Kingdom of England that killed an estimated 100,000 people, 20% of London's population. The disease is identified as bubonic plague, an infection by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, transmitted through a flea vector...
.
Historical context
The title of Dryden's poem, used without capitalisation, annus mirabilisAnnus mirabilis
Annus mirabilis is a Latin phrase meaning "wonderful year" or "year of wonders" . It was used originally to refer to the year 1666, but is today also used to refer to different years with events of major importance...
, derives its meaning from its Latin origins and describes a year of particularly notable events. According to the Oxford English Dictionary
Oxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...
, Dryden's use of the term for the title of his poem constitutes the first known written use of the phrase in an English text.
The first event of the miraculous year was the Battle of Lowestoft
Battle of Lowestoft
The naval Battle of Lowestoft took place on 13 June 1665 during the Second Anglo-Dutch War.A fleet of more than a hundred ships of the United Provinces commanded by Lieutenant-Admiral Jacob van Wassenaer Obdam attacked an English fleet of equal size commanded by James Stuart, Duke of York forty...
fought by English
Kingdom of England
The Kingdom of England was, from 927 to 1707, a sovereign state to the northwest of continental Europe. At its height, the Kingdom of England spanned the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain and several smaller outlying islands; what today comprises the legal jurisdiction of England...
and Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
ships in 1665. The second was the Four Days Battle
Four Days Battle
The Four Days Battle was a naval battle of the Second Anglo–Dutch War. Fought from 1 June to 4 June 1666 in the Julian or Old Style calendar then used in England off the Flemish and English coast, it remains one of the longest naval engagements in history.In June 1665 the English had soundly...
of June 1666, and finally the victory of the St. James's Day Battle
St. James's Day Battle
The naval St James' Day Battle , the Battle of the North Foreland and the Battle of Orfordness) took place on 25 July 1666 — St James' day in the Julian calendar then in use in England , during the Second Anglo-Dutch War and was fought between fleets of England, commanded jointly by...
a month later. The second part of the poem deals with the Great Fire of London
Great Fire of London
The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through the central parts of the English city of London, from Sunday, 2 September to Wednesday, 5 September 1666. The fire gutted the medieval City of London inside the old Roman City Wall...
that ran from September 2 – September 7, 1666. The miracle of the Fire was that London was saved, that the fire was stopped, and that the great king (Charles II
Charles II of England
Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...
) would rebuild, for he already announced his plans to improve the streets of London and to begin great projects. Dryden's view is that these disasters were all averted, that God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
had saved England from destruction, and that God had performed miracles for England.
Structure
The poem contains 1216 lines of verse, arranged in 304 quatrainQuatrain
A quatrain is a stanza, or a complete poem, consisting of four lines of verse. Existing in various forms, the quatrain appears in poems from the poetic traditions of various ancient civilizations including Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, and China; and, continues into the 21st century, where it is...
s. Each quatrain follows an ABAB rhyme scheme
Rhyme scheme
A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhyme between lines of a poem or song. It is usually referred to by using letters to indicate which lines rhyme. In other words, it is the pattern of end rhymes or lines...
referred to as a decasyllabic quatrain
Decasyllabic quatrain
Decasyllabic quatrain is a term used for a poetic form in which each stanza consists of four lines of ten syllables each, usually with a rhyme scheme of AABB or ABAB. Examples of the decasyllabic quatrain in heroic couplets appear in some of the earliest texts in the English language, as Geoffrey...
. Rather than write in the heroic couplet
Heroic couplet
A heroic couplet is a traditional form for English poetry, commonly used for epic and narrative poetry; it refers to poems constructed from a sequence of rhyming pairs of iambic pentameter lines. The rhyme is always masculine. Use of the heroic couplet was first pioneered by Geoffrey Chaucer in...
s found in his earlier works, Dryden used the decasyllabic quatrain exemplified in Sir John Davies' poem Nosce Teipsum in 1599. The style was revived by William Davenant
William Davenant
Sir William Davenant , also spelled D'Avenant, was an English poet and playwright. Along with Thomas Killigrew, Davenant was one of the rare figures in English Renaissance theatre whose career spanned both the Caroline and Restoration eras and who was active both before and after the English Civil...
in his poem Gondibert, which was published in 1656 and influenced Dryden's composition of Annus Mirabilis. This particular style dictates that each quatrain should contain a full stop
Full stop
A full stop is the punctuation mark commonly placed at the end of sentences. In American English, the term used for this punctuation is period. In the 21st century, it is often also called a dot by young people...
, which A.W. Ward
Adolphus William Ward
Sir Adolphus William Ward was an English historian and man of letters.He was born at Hampstead, London, and was educated in Germany and at Peterhouse, Cambridge....
believes causes the verse to become "prosy".