SOURCE: Dryden, John. “The Author's Apology prefixed to The State of Innocence and Fall of Man, an Opera (1677).” In The Prelude to Poetry: The English Poets in Defence and Praise of Their Own Art, edited by Ernest Rhys, pp. 123-34. London: Dent, 1970.

In this essay, Dryden defends the genre of heroic drama from critics who describe it as bombastic and unrealistic.

To satisfy the curiosity of those who will give themselves the trouble of reading the ensuing poem, I think myself obliged to render them a reason why I publish an opera which was never acted. In the first place, I shall not be ashamed to own that my chiefest motive was the ambition which I acknowledged in the Epistle. I was desirous to lay at the feet of so beautiful and excellent a Princess a work which, I confess, was unworthy her, but which, I hope, she...