Abstract
Any discussion of John Dryden’s prose style necessitates a knowledge and understanding of his literary heritage and environment. For Dryden not only helped produce his own age hut was produced by it, and by the forces that made it what it was. Moreover, Dryden threw his shadow over the future, and his prose has been a strong and vital impetus in the molding of modern English prose. To treat extensively and thoroughly of the men, the ideas, and the events that did so much toward making Dryden what he ultimately became is not here possible. Such a task is matter for another and separate study.