He began to write plays for King's Theatre. In 1665, the Plague caused 75,000 deaths in London, only to be followed the next year by the Fire of London, which left 2/3 of the population homeless. The theatres closed from May 1665 until the end of 1666. Dryden retired and spent the time writing at home. When the theatres reopened he went back to work. He had a contract to provide three plays a year and in return he received a share and a quarter out of the twelve shares and three quarters held by the whole company (Stephen 65). He failed to hold up his end of the bargain, but he still received his share of the profit. In 1672, King's Theatre burned and Dryden's profits were diminished. Some of his most famous plays include The Rival Ladies, Ladies a la Mode, Mock Astrologer, and An Evening's Love. His play Mr. Limberham was banned because some thought it to be i!.
ndecent. His early plays were written in rhymed couplet and his later work in blank verse. .
Dryden was appointed poet laureate and royal historiographer in 1668, a position he retained for twenty years. His poetry is "public" in nature, not private or sentimental. His poems are based on true people and events, which according to Stanley Archer, "sometimes causes modern readers to have a difficult time understanding the many parallels and analogies of his work" (1223). He is known for presenting many viewpoints and ideas, then either defending one as ideal or providing a middle ground. .
His most important prose work is the already mentioned, An Essay of Dramatic Poesy. Written in 1688, this work is a dialogue between Neander (Dryden) and others in which Neander defends the English drama of generations before. He argues that the English drama has much to gain by observing the exact methods of construction without completely abandoning the freedom that English writers had always been so proud of (Magill 534).
In 1681, he wrote his first and some say, greatest poem of his career.
