Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> On Apr 25, 2009, at 6:29 PM, Michael Smith wrote:
>
> > I don't but I can say confidently that it's horribly bad verse.
> > Somebody needed to read their Dryden.
>
> Never could read Dryden, myself. Pope, yes, but Dryden's like getting
> teeth drilled.
I much prefer Pope, but Religio Laici & Macflecknoe, as well as the Virgil translation, are quite wonderful.
He could be awful, however, in a way that Pope couldn't (except when he was anonymously writing couplets to put into Peri Bathous as examples of sinking in poetry. Perhaps it was Annus Mirabilis (sp?) that made you feel your teeth were being pulled.
Carrol