All for Love or, The World Well Lost is John Dryden's 1677 adaptation of the tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra into a neo-classical quintet with supporting voices: After Cleopatra's desertion of Antony at the battle of Actium, not only his wife Octavia but also his general Ventidius and his friend Dolabella strive to win him over to their side. Antony, torn between the claims of duty, friendship, dignity and love, despairs when he hears the rumor of Cleopatra's death, which is not, as in Shakespeare's version, spread by the queen herself but by her deceitful eunuch. This...

Two months before he died, Dryden published a collection of verse translations and original poetry, Fables Ancient and Modern, the work for which he was most admired throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Cedric Reverand argues that Fables, which has for the most part escaped modern scrutiny, embodies a purposeful, subversive strategy, and constitutes a new poetic mode that emerged when the laureate, public spokesman for king and country, lost his official post and became an outcast, a minority voice.

In Dryden's Final Poetic Mode, Reverand focuses...