The Seventeenth And Eighteenth Century

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

The seventeenth century excludes women from all of the political, religious and social spheres. Women were continuously struggling to participate in public activity as society believed that they were lacking in mental capability; hence, women were believed to not have the ability to carry out the same duties as men. During the seventeenth century, women were progressively trying to get their voice heard, their capabilities noticed and their speaking positions improved. However, this ongoing effort was in vain as the parliament’s response was ‘one of neglect, dismissal and belittlement’. [3] The following are the actual words of the speaker of parliament at the time: ‘That the matter you petition about, is of an higher concernment then you understand, that the House gave an answer to your husbands; and therefore that you are desired to go home, and looke after your owne business and meddle with your housewifery’. [4] According to the parliament’s spokesman, women’s business differed from that of men. Females did not belong in politics as their duties were mainly that of childbearing and taking care of their household. The spokesman added that women were better off ‘washing [their] dishes, and meddle with the Wheele and distaffe’. [5] These mentalities and ideologies are perfectly represented in Dryden’s ‘Absalom and Achitophel’ as this poem describes the political turmoil of seventeenth century England. Therefore, the absence of women in the poem reflects the patriarchal ideology at the time.

In applying the biblical story of Absalom’s rebellion against King David to the Whig campaign for a protestant succession, Dryden was drawing upon a familiar association of Charles II and David along with the comparison of Shaftesbury with Achitophel and Monmouth with Absalom which had been deployed by poets and preachers since 1660. [6] With ‘Absalom and Achitophel’, Dryden became the writer of religious themes and as a spiritual being he was perfectly set against the religious context of his stormy century:

The Jews, a Headstrong, Moody, Murmuring Rrace,

As ever try’d th’ extent and stretch of grace;

God’s pamper’d people whom, debauch’d with ease,

No King could govern, nor no God could please;

(Gods they had tri’d if every shape and size

That God-smiths could produce, or priests devise: [7] 

These heavy allegories to the Bible in Absalom and Achitophel set a patriarchal vision to the poem. The Bible is mostly male-dominated; thus, Absalom and Achitophel is bound to be heavily patriarchal. When women are mentioned in the bible, they are mostly mentioned for their promiscuous tendencies, their duties as a wife or their breeding abilities. When Dryden makes use of allegories from the Bible, the male counterpart is always given the most importance. For example:

These Adam−wits too fortunately free,

Began to dream they wanted libertie;

And when no rule, no precedent was found

Of men, by Laws less circumscrib'd and bound,

They led their wild desires to Woods and Caves,

And thought that all but Savages were Slaves.

They who when Saul was dead, without a blow,

Made foolish Ishbosheth the Crown forgo;

Who banisht David did from Hebron bring,

And with a Generall Shout, proclaim'd him King: [8] 

In the above quotation Eve is completely ignored as Dryden only mentions the rebellion of Adam against God. In addition, by using this allegory, Dryden is hinting at the image of the female as being the temptress of men. Eve is remembered as being the person who forced Adam into sin; hence, because of Eve, Adam rebelled against God.

In addition, Dryden compares Absalom with Milton’s Eve in order to femminise and weaken the enemy. There is similarity between Absalom’s temptation by Achitophel and that of Milton’s Eve. Achitophel becomes the satanic figure who tempts Absalom (Eve in Milton’s Paradise Lost). [9] â€˜Satan, sin and Death are a satanic parody of the trinity and their building of the bridge connecting Chaos and earth parodies God’s Creation’. [10] Thus, the allusion to Milton further emphasises the whole ideology of Eve and Satan corrupting the monarchy which is built by the King as he is God’s anointed and to create disruption and tumult. The femminisation of the enemy is further affirmed through the emphasis of David’s masculinity. David is represented as the absolute patriarchal figure. Dryden uses patriarchy and its sexual and gendered use to emphasise on the idea that the King is man and state. Since Absalom is compared to Eve and Achitophel to Satan, David is considered to be God, the creator of the Eden; hence, both Absalom and Achitophel are his subjects. This further affirms David’s superiority:

But, when to Sin our byast Nature leans,

The carefull Devil is still at hand with means;

And providently Pimps for ill desires:

The Good old Cause reviv'd, a Plot requires.

Plots, true or false, are necessary things,

To raise up Common−wealths, and ruin Kings [11] 

Seventeenth century England believed that the monarch was God’s anointed. The King was considered as ‘godlike’ and ‘sacred’. [12] In fact, Dryden describes Kings as being:

Petty Gods, who Govern men upon Earth as Michael and Gabriel Govern their Angels in Heaven, by immediate delegation from God. Their Soveraignty is an Image of his Soveraignty, their Majesty the figure of his Majesty, and their Empire a similitude of his Empire, they are Supream on Earth as he is in Heaven. [13] 

This whole notion of the King as being the supreme Godlike figure further affirms the patriarchal ideology of the nation. This sacred aura which the King is said to have is passed on to his successor:

The King of England is Immortal; and the young Phoenix stays not to rise from the spicy ashes of the old one, but the Soul of Royalty by a kind of Metempsychosis passes immediately out of one body to another. [14] 

Therefore, hereditary succession is guaranteed by God and it cannot be changed. David is described as being ‘Godlike’ by Dryden. At first it strikes as a formal heroic epithet, and only at the end do we get the full force of identification. [15] However, an urgent political concern with the problem of succession in the state echoes a larger problem of constituting a future from a damaged past. [16] This problem was Charles’ day to day sexual life, which was both promiscuous and rather public. Dryden faces this embarrassment partly by casting Charles as David and also by representing the King’s active sexuality as an excess of patriarchal zeal; thus, playfully reinforcing the official image of Charles as father of his people. [17] This whole tendency of Dryden’s adaptation of traditional mythic material in this poem is to obscure the orthodox distinctions between the divine Maker and the secular Master and to assert the God-like authority of King Charles [18] ; therefore, reaffirming the patriarchal method.

Charles II creates the imperial hubris and chaos in England because of his promiscuous affairs. The empire and the whole monarchy are at stake because of his lustful encounters and his continuous seeking of ‘ingenuity and ardor to possess the objects of [his] sexual desires’. [19] Dryden’s gendered notion of imperial power is enacted on yet another plane as Charles II seeks to appropriate these sexual benefits from women. Dryden presents the ideology of the dashing and irresistible Englishmen into whose arms women are happy to leap. Charles II is depicted as having charming appetites which are a ‘natural rightness in the Englishman’s spirit’. [20] On the other hand, women are portrayed like ‘imperial goods [which] are to be taken as one can, from whoever posses[ess] them’. [21] Women are needed in order to maintain the monarchy as they were the only means through which an heir could be produced. Absalom and Achitophel is proof to the importance the English monarchy gave to having a legitimate heir. Throughout history, England was believed to have an immensely traditional and ‘escapably retrospective and cyclical’ political cosmos which ‘dreads anarchy above all things and, next to anarchy innovation’. [22] Jurgen Moltmann captures this whole idea in the statement below:

If … we examine the historical movements of political and social renewal, we will find that the ‘myth of the eternal return’ was operative here as well. Ironically enough, all known movements for a new future were initiated under the banner of the category’re’. We speak of renaissance, reformation, revolution, of revival, renewal, and restoration, etc. In all these movements men sought not the new of the future but ‘paradise lost’ or the ‘golden age’, the primitive natural condition of man or the original order of things. They sought their future in the past. They connected the renewal of the present with a ‘dream turned backward’. [23] 

As seventeenth century England truly believed in this whole notion, women were faced with the difficulty of breaking the norm against tradition. The involvement of women in the public sphere was considered dangerous because it ‘put them where they were not supposed to be… doing what they were not supposed to do [:] taking on religious or political authority’. [24] During the English revolution, women were considered to have their own roles which they could play inside and outside the family, Churches, and in politics. [25] Political innovativeness was one of the reasons why women were not given opportunities in the political sphere. In fact, in Dryden’s political poems such as Astraea Redux and Absalom and Achitophel there is a continuous renewal of myth and restoration which followed the civil war. Events are always presented by means ‘of analogues usually drawn from classical mythology, Roman history, or the Old Testament’. [26] Thus, no contemporary event or issue is seen as unique and the participants in these dramas are generally reduced to types. [27] Dryden’s ‘good’ characters in his political poetry often lack individuality. Individuality is often associated with Dryden’s villains, rebels, dreamers, informers and plotters. [28] â€˜Wickedness is conceived as eccentric and egocentric. Each villain is wicked in a special way, while the good are all good in the same way’. [29] Since in Absalom and Achitophel Dryden describes innovation as something abhorrent, he may be hinting at a certain level of anti-intellectualism. [30] Since the presence of females in the political and the public sphere was considered innovative, as discussed earlier in this paragraph, Dryden is hinting at the evilness and wickedness of women. This is because ‘the conservative does not ordinarily entertain large hopes (sometimes, perhaps, because he already has much of what other people hope for). The cyclical view of history feels itself threatened by radical change, even if the innovator is God himself’. [31] â€˜The essence of Dryden’s profound mistrust of political alteration is conveyed in one of the most powerful couplets in Absalom and Achitophel:

All other Errors but disturb a State,

But Innovation is the Blow of Fate. [32] 

Female presence in the political sphere was also considered to be a threat in and of itself as women were considered to have ‘strange visions on their backs’. [33] Furthermore, the threat that these women were posing was considered as a threat that could infiltrate ordinary society.

According to Simone De Beauvoir, these roles which women had to perform in society were pre-ascribed to them at birth. She believes that unlike women, men, are born with a ‘privilege’. [34] This ‘privilege bestows unjustifiable benefits [to men] by virtue of excluding [women]’. [35] Ascribing anatomical sex to an individual at birth, like ‘ascription of noble or servile blood at birth, instantly confers a situation of privilege on some and of concomitant exclusion or subordination on others’. [36] Thus, De Beauvoir describes the young girl who discovers in her femininity a ready-made destiny as a person who necessarily lives an ascribed status. That is, ‘she finds her lot in life preconstituted for her in much the same way as it was for a medieval vassal’. [37] This ascribed status is also evident in Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel through the way Dryden uses his language and describes the power of the King and the monarchy. In fact, when the Queen did not manage to produce an heir, ‘there was a considerable debate whether Charles II’s marriage … might be annulled; whether a divorce on the grounds of infertility was permissible; and even whether polygamy was legal under ecclesiastical law’. [38] 

Despite the fact that Absalom’s rebellion was David’s fault, Dryden manages to find an apology for the King. Instead the blame is laid on the infertility of the Queen:

Scatter'd his Maker's Image through the Land.

Michal, of Royal blood, the Crown did wear,

A Soyl ungratefull to the Tiller's care;

Not so the rest; for several Mothers bore

To Godlike David, several Sons before.

But since like slaves his bed they did ascend,

No True Succession could their seed attend.

Of all this Numerous Progeny was none [39] 

and on the revolutionaries who are constantly feminised throughout the whole poem:

Like one of Vertues Fools that feeds on Praise;

Till thy fresh Glories, which now shine so bright,

Grow Stale and Tarnish with our daily sight.

Believe me, Royal Youth, thy Fruit must be,

Or gather'd Ripe, or rot upon the Tree.

Heav'n has to all alloted, soon or late,

Some lucky Revolution of their Fate;

Whose Motions, if we watch and guide with Skill, [40] 

The poem is void of all feminine power. The hierarchy that Dryden is presenting through his poem is one of masculine superiority where there can be no motherly influence, but only that of the father, who is King and God. [41] Since David is considered to be God’s anointed and God is considered to be sinless, blame cannot be attributed to the King. [42] Therefore, in order to defend the system, Dryden is subverting the system’s morality and judgment. [43] The comparison between God and David is made through the juxtaposition of the divine and human fertility. This comparison of divine and human fertility further justifies Charles II’s promiscuity as it emphasises on David’s masculinity:

In pious times, e'r Priest−craft did begin,

Before Polygamy was made a sin;

When man, on many, multiply'd his kind,

E'r one to one was, cursedly, confind:

When Nature prompted, and no law deny'd

Promiscuous use of Concubine and Bride; [44] 

Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel, clearly portrays the ‘Protestant ideal of marriage’. [45] In addition, it further affirms that ‘the Royalist political position was to justify social order by patriarchy [and] any disruption in the family was perceived as a threat to the state’. [46] Women in politics and religious institutions were often regarded as a disruption in the social norm. Seventeenth century radical political and religious movements also refused women’s involvement in the public sphere. They allowed ‘no emancipation of women from traditional structures of authority, allowing them no leadership in separatist churches’. [47] Absalom and Achitophel clearly shows the traditional elements of the patriarchal structures in both religion and politics. The ‘infallibility which Dryden ascribes to tradition in his marginal rubric is conferred by the church which propounds it’. [48] In the poem, the scripture is ‘sufficiently interpret[ing] itself, that is, is plain to all capacities, in things necessary to be believed and practiced’. [49] Since ‘politics and religion were more closely intertwined in the seventeenth century than in most other periods in English history’ [50] , the element of tradition was immensely felt as the ‘movement of influence was usually from religion to politics, and seldom in the Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel, clearly portrays the ‘Protestant ideal of marriage’. [51] In addition, it further affirms that ‘the Royalist political position was to justify social order by patriarchy [and] any disruption in the family was perceived as a threat to the state’. [52] Women in politics and religious institutions were often regarded as a disruption in the social norm. Seventeenth century radical political and religious movements also refused women’s involvement in the public sphere. They allowed ‘no emancipation of women from traditional structures of authority, allowing them no leadership in separatist churches’. [53] Absalom and Achitophel clearly shows the traditional elements of the patriarchal structures in both religion and politics. The ‘infallibility which Dryden ascribes to tradition in his marginal rubric is conferred by the church which propounds it’. [54] In the poem, the scripture is ‘sufficiently interpret[ing] itself, that is, is plain to all capacities, in things necessary to be believed and practiced’. [55] Since ‘politics and religion were more closely intertwined in the seventeenth century than in most other periods in English history’ [56] , the element of tradition was immensely felt as the ‘movement of influence was usually from religion to politics, and seldom in the

Dryden’s ‘Absalom and Achitophel’ lacks some tinge of feminine touch. As it was discussed throughout the whole chapter, Absalom and Achitophel is highly patriarchal and females in the poem are barely mentioned. When they are mentioned, they are described through satanic and monstrous imagery. In addition, evilness is constantly described and compared to feminine imagery. Contrastingly, women are also voiced in negative connotations because of their inability to carry out their assigned duties. Particularly, the description of Queen Michal and her inability to provide an heir, hints a sense of passiveness and indifference. Therefore, the few times women are mentioned in Absalom and Achitophel are for the poet to shed a negative light on them. Since Dryden is using this poem to show the realities of seventeenth and sixteenth century England, one can conclude that at the time, women were considered to be the lesser and the least valued sex. Hence, they did not have any kind of respect or appreciation for whatever they did from the general public; especially males themselves.