ABSTRACT
Bottkol notes that people cannot know which of the Latin editions of Lucretius that Dryden might have read, though both Creechs and Evelyns English editions were important sources for him when he did his own translation in Sylvae. This interest shaped his complicated treatment of the female libertine, a sexually assertive, politically dangerous, and sometimes philosophical figure in his works. Bottkol Dryden's Latin Scholarship for Dryden's interest in translating the classics. Dryden's interest in Lucretius resonates on several levels. Charles and his court followed what Lucretius describes as kinetic pleasure, which gratifies the body, but often disturbs the spirit, disrupting the necessary equipoise that indicates the achievement of a state of ataraxia. Canfield argues that words become as interchangeable and meaningless as the obscured ideals of constancy, duty, and loyalty, and Robert D. Hume reminds readers that Dryden's audience misunderstood the plays subplot by reacting only to its sexual focus.
