"Arms, and the Man I sing . . ."

This study-referred to as a "preface" is given this designation because its aim is not to offer an up-to-date overall assessment Dryden's translation of Virgil's Æneid, but rather to provide a valid basis for such an assessment. In this it seeks to provide a comprehensive analysis of relevant areas (i.e. the "conditions of expression") forming the very basis of the genesis of Dryden's translation, and thus a valid understanding of the poetry (cf. R.A.Brower, Alexander Pope: The Poetry of Allusio