True, Dryden did not translate literally, that is word for word.
He paraphrased rather, and in doing so he Drydenized the
originals, often adding whole lines of his own. Among his
translations was Virgil's Aeneid, which long before, you remember,
Surrey had begun in blank verse. But blank verse was not what
the age in which Dryden lived desired, and he knew it. So he
wrote in rimed couplets. Long before this he had turned Milton's
Paradise Lost into rimed couplets, making it into an opera, which
he called The State of Innocence. An opera is a play set to
music, but this opera was never set to music, and never sung or
acted. Dryden, we know, admired Milton's poetry greatly. "This
man cuts us all out," he had said. Yet he thought he could make
the poem still better, and asked Milton's leave to turn it into
rime. "Ay, you may tag my verses if you will," replied the great
blind man.
It is interesting to compare the two poems, and when you come to
read The State of Innocence you will find that not all the verses
are "tagged.
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