John Dryden in the context of "Shakespeare's reputation"

Metaphrase is a term referring to literal translation, i.e., "word by word and line by line" translation. In everyday usage, metaphrase means literalism; however, metaphrase is also the translation of poetry into prose. Unlike "paraphrase," which has an ordinary use in literature theory, the term "metaphrase" is only used in translation theory.

Metaphrase is one of the three ways of transferring, along with paraphrase and imitation, according to John Dryden. Dryden considers paraphrase preferable to metaphrase (as literal translation) and imitation.

This is a list of translations of Beowulf, one of the best-known Old English heroic epic poems. Beowulf has been translated many times in verse and in prose. By 2020, the Beowulf's Afterlives Bibliographic Database listed some 688 translations and other versions of the poem, from Thorkelin's 1787 transcription of the text, and in at least 38 languages.

The poet John Dryden's categories of translation have influenced how scholars discuss variation between translations and adaptations. In the Preface to Ovid's Epistles (1680) Dryden proposed three different types of translation:

Jacob Tonson, sometimes referred to as Jacob Tonson the Elder (12 November 1655 – 17 March 1736), was an eighteenth-century English bookseller and publisher.

Tonson published editions of John Dryden and John Milton, and is best known for having obtained a copyright on the plays of William Shakespeare by buying up the rights of the heirs of the publisher of the Fourth Folio after the Statute of Anne went into effect. He was also the founder of the famous Kit-Cat Club. His nephew, Jacob Tonson the Younger (1682–1735), was his business partner. The business was continued by the younger Tonson's son, Jacob Tonson (1714–1767).

Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish writer, essayist, satirist, and Anglican cleric. He was the author of the satirical prose novel Gulliver's Travels (1726) and the creator of the fictional island of Lilliput, and he is regarded by many as the greatest satirist of the Georgian era and one of the foremost prose satirists in both English and world literature.

Swift also authored works such as A Tale of a Tub (1704) and An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity (1712). He originally published all of his works under pseudonyms—including Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff, M. B. Drapier—or anonymously. He was a master of two styles of satire, the Horatian and Juvenalian styles. In 1713, he was appointed the dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, and was given the sobriquet "Dean Swift". His trademark deadpan and ironic style of writing, particularly in later works such as A Modest Proposal (1729), has led to such satire being subsequently termed as "Swiftian". During the early part of his career, he travelled extensively in Ireland and Great Britain, and these trips helped develop his understanding of human nature and social conditions, which he would later depict in his satirical works. Swift was also very active in clerical circles, due to his affiliations to St Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin. He had supported the Glorious Revolution and joined the Whigs party early on. Swift was related to many prominent figures of his time, including John Temple, John Dryden, William Davenant, and Francis Godwin.

The British poet laureate is an honorary position appointed by the monarch of the United Kingdom on the advice of the prime minister. The role does not entail any specific duties, but there is an expectation that the holder will write verse for significant national occasions. The laureateship dates to 1616 when a pension was provided to Ben Jonson, but the first official laureate was John Dryden, appointed in 1668 by Charles II. On the death of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, who held the post between November 1850 and October 1892, there was a break of four years as a mark of respect; Tennyson's laureate poems "Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington" and "The Charge of the Light Brigade" were particularly cherished by the Victorian public. Four poets—Thomas Gray, Samuel Rogers, Walter Scott and Philip Larkin—turned down the laureateship. Historically appointed for an unfixed term and typically held for life, since 1999 the term has been ten years. The holder of the position as at 2025 is Simon Armitage who succeeded Carol Ann Duffy in May 2019 after her ten years in office.

Juvenilia are literary, musical or artistic works produced by authors during their youth. Written juvenilia, if published at all, usually appear as retrospective publications, some time after the author has become well known for later works.

The term was first recorded in 1622 in George Wither's poetry collection Ivvenilia. Later, other notable poets, such as John Dryden and Alfred, Lord Tennyson, came to use the term for collections of their early poetry. The stories and poems which novelist Jane Austen wrote before the age of eighteen are called her Juvenilia.

A heroic couplet is a traditional form for English poetry, commonly used in epic and narrative poetry, and consisting of a rhyming pair of lines in iambic pentameter. Use of the heroic couplet was pioneered by Geoffrey Chaucer in the Legend of Good Women and the Canterbury Tales, and generally considered to have been perfected by John Dryden and Alexander Pope in the Restoration Age and early 18th century respectively.

A poet laureate (plural: poets laureate) is a poet officially appointed by a government or conferring institution, typically expected to compose poems for special events and occasions. Albertino Mussato of Padua and Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) of Arezzo were the first to be crowned poets laureate after the classical age, respectively in 1315 and 1342. In Britain, the term dates from the appointment of Bernard André by Henry VII of England. The royal office of Poet Laureate in England dates from the appointment of John Dryden in 1668.

In modern times a poet laureate title may be conferred by an organization such as the Poetry Foundation, which designates a Young People's Poet Laureate, unconnected with the National Youth Poet Laureate and the United States Poet Laureate.

Restoration literature is the English literature written during the historical period commonly referred to as the English Restoration (1660–1688), which corresponds to the last years of Stuart reign in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. In general, the term is used to denote roughly homogeneous styles of literature that centre on a celebration of or reaction to the restored court of Charles II. It is a literature that includes extremes, for it encompasses both Paradise Lost and the Earl of Rochester's Sodom, the high-spirited sexual comedy of The Country Wife and the moral wisdom of The Pilgrim's Progress. It saw Locke's Treatises of Government, the founding of the Royal Society, the experiments and holy meditations of Robert Boyle, the hysterical attacks on theatres from Jeremy Collier, and the pioneering of literary criticism from John Dryden and John Dennis. The period witnessed news becoming a commodity, the essay developing into a periodical art form, and the beginnings of textual criticism.

The dates for Restoration literature are a matter of convention, and they differ markedly from genre to genre. Thus, the "Restoration" in drama may last until 1700, while in poetry it may last only until 1666 (see 1666 in poetry) and the annus mirabilis; and in prose it might end in 1688, with the increasing tensions over succession and the corresponding rise in journalism and periodicals, or not until 1700, when those periodicals grew more stabilized. In general, scholars use the term "Restoration" to denote the literature that began and flourished under Charles II, whether that literature was the laudatory ode that gained a new life with restored aristocracy, the eschatological literature that showed an increasing despair among Puritans, or the literature of rapid communication and trade that followed in the wake of England's mercantile empire.