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BY MEG SULLIVAN
UCLA Today
It took 18 English scholars 53 years to complete what is the longest-running
research project in the humanities at UCLA to date. Now that the
12,217th — and last — page of “The Works of
John Dryden” was published last month, completing the 20-volume
set, the last members of the California Dryden Project —
all three — can finally sign off with pride.
What they and their colleagues have produced is
the most complete overhaul of the oeuvre of this 17th-century
English poet, playwright and essayist since Sir Walter Scott produced
a complete edition in 1808. The UC Press set presents a definitive
version of each of Dryden’s works, followed by commentary
and footnotes that detail significant variations in editions published
before 1700.
“It’s a purely scholarly affair, but
it’s been bought by probably every major library in the
world,” said Geneva Phillips, the project’s now-retired
managing editor. One indication of Dryden’s loyal following:
About a third of the press run for the last volume was spoken
for six months ago, according to press officials.
The completion of the project, headquartered at
UCLA’s William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, comes none
too soon. Producing the definitive Dryden has taken almost as
long as it took the author to write and publish his own works.
Today only one member of the Dryden team — Jeanette Gilkison,
now the English Department’s office supervisor — remains
on UCLA’s payroll. The two UCLA professors who launched
the project in 1949, Edward Niles Hooker and H.T. Swedenberg Jr.,
are deceased.
And Dryden’s own fame is fading. Born 15
years after William Shakespeare’s death, he is a familiar
name today only among English majors and scholars. But at the
time of his death in 1700, Dryden, named Poet Laureate of England
in 1670, was the most famous English writer of his generation.
Dryden’s best known work is the satirical
poem “Absalom and Achitophel,” but “All for
Love,” a play based on Mark Antony and Cleopatra, is considered
to be his masterpiece, rivaling Shakespeare’s own play,
some say.
Dryden’s most lasting imprint, however,
is in the realm of prose. While writers of his day felt formal
English should be more like Latin prose, with verbs at the end
of clauses and sentences, Dryden persuaded them that writing should
be like talking, with the subject coming first, followed by verb
and object.
“He was the foremost poet, dramatist and
writer of prose of his day. He was tremendously versatile,”
said Vinton Dearing, a professor emeritus of English, who joined
the project in 1949 when he was 28 years old and went on to become
editor-in-chief. Dearing said he never suspected then that the
project would “take on a life of its own.”
The project’s 18 scholars — half of
them from UCLA — spent five decades searching for Dryden’s
ultimate intentions in hundreds of editions of his works. They
not only corrected printers’ errors and incorporated changes
Dryden later made himself, but also tried to read all the books
that he would have read in order to better understand his era
and explain his language, style, techniques and allusions.
“We wanted the collection to reflect what
Dryden would want us to read if he could look over our shoulders,”
Dearing said. “I’m really satisfied with the results.
Everything was done very carefully by first-rate thinkers all
along the line.”
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