Religio Laici: The Preface
It remains that I acquaint the reader, that these verses were writtenfor an ingenious young gentleman, my friend, upon his translation of"The Critical History of the Old Testament," composed by the learnedFather Simon: the verses, therefore, are addressed to the translator ofthat work, and the style of them is, what it ought to be, epistolary.
Words in this poem
- acquaint v. t.
- To furnish or give experimental knowledge of; to make (one) to know; to make familiar; -- followed by with. [OE. aqueinten, acointen, OF. acointier, LL. adcognitare, fr. L. ad + cognitus, p. p. of cognoscere to know; con- + noscere to know. See Quaint, Know.]
- translator n.
- One who translates; esp., one who renders into another language; one who expresses the sense of words in one language by equivalent words in another. [L. translator: cf. F. translateur.]
- ought p. p.
- Was or were under obligation to pay; owed. [Orig. the preterit of the verb to owe. OE. oughte, aughte, ahte, AS. ahte. sq. root110. See Owe.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Religio Laici: The Preface is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Volume 1 With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes, Project Gutenberg ebook #11488; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: John Dryden, Religio Laici: The Preface, in Absalom and Achitophel, and Other Poems (1660–1700), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #11488, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dryden-poems/religio-laici-the-preface.html, id L26095.
Form and metre
Religio Laici: The Preface is 5 lines in a single stanza. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter.
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 -A-A- written · ofA · learned · ofA · epistolary
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| It remains that I acquaint the reader, that these verses were written | 17 | ·˘/··˘/·/˘··/˘·/˘ |
| for an ingenious young gentleman, my friend, upon his translation of | 17 | ··˘/˘·/˘·····˘/˘· |
| "The Critical History of the Old Testament," composed by the learned | 15 | ·/˘/˘···/˘˘/··· |
| Father Simon: the verses, therefore, are addressed to the translator of | 18 | /˘/˘·/˘···˘/··˘/˘· |
| that work, and the style of them is, what it ought to be, epistolary. | 18 | ·············˘/˘·˘ |
Notes from the edition 1
George Gilfillan's notes to the Poetical Works of John Dryden (1855; Project Gutenberg #11488).
- Line 2 The son of the celebrated John Hampden. He was in the Ryehouse Plot, and fined £15,000, which was remitted at the Revolution.
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.