Satire and the Constitution of Theocracy in "Absalom and Achitophel"

Author(s): Anne K. Krook

Source: Studies in Philology, Vol. 91, No. 3 (Summer, 1994), pp. 339-358
Published by: University of North Carolina Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4174493
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 Satire and the Constitution of
Theocracy in Absalom and Achitophel

byAnne K. Krook

_D ESPITEgeneral agreement that Absalomand Achitopheldoes

something well, there is remarkablylittle agreement on what
or how.' Widely praised as Dryden's finest political poem,
often as his finest poem altogether,it has also provoked extensive dis-
agreement over the nature of its strengths. As A. E. Wallace Maurer
has recently demonstrated, one of the most durabledebates concems
its form, a startlinglybasic aspect of the poem to continue so long
as a matter of consistent dispute.2This debate is in one sense repre-
sentative of most other debates about the poem as well, for amid all
the disagreements, the single term common to almost every critical
descriptionand analysis of AbsalomandAchitophel is satire. Satire'shis-
tory as a so-called mixed genre, one thatoften incorporatesa variety of
diverse elements within a single work, makes it a term broad enough
to encompass not only the many classically satiric moments in the
poem, such as its opening or its portraitof Zimri, but also those ele-
ments, notably the ending, that seem to oppose or detract from its
overall satiric purpose.3Calling Absalomand Achitophela satire there-
I John Dryden, Absalomand Achitophel,TheWorksof JohnDryden: Poems 1681-1684, ed.
H. T. Swedenberg, Jr., vol. 2 of TheWorksof JohnDryden, gen. ed. H. T. Swedenberg, Jr.,
20 vols. to date (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1956-), 2-36, hereafter cited
as Works. Line numbers appear parenthetically in the text of the essay, as do page
references to Dryden's preface and to the editors' notes, both of which are indicated
by "p."
2 For Maurer's useful summary and discussion of the various contradictory opinions
on the form of Absalomand Achitophel,see "The Form of Dryden's Absalomand Achitophel,
Once More," PLL 27 (1991): 321-37.
3A representative example of finding the ending inadequate to the poem's over-
all satiric tone and purpose appears in Robert H. Bell's article, "Metamorphoses of
'Heroic Enterprise' in Dryden and Pope," MassachusettsStudies in English9 (1983): 22-35:
"Dryden's strained reach for the inspirational is evident in his religious poems, odes,

339

? 1994 The University of North Carolina Press

340 SatireandTheocracy
in Absalomand Achitophel
fore makes it possible to entertain piebald, qualified descriptions of
the poem's natureand strengths:it is, for example, a satire, except for
the failed ending; or a satire, except for "serious"defenses of David
and Charles;or a satire, except for the tributeto Barzillai,the Duke of
Ormonde, and the accompanyingelegy for his son, the Earlof Ossory;
or, in short, a satire, except for the parts that aren't.
The difficultywith such descriptionslies not primarilywith their in-
adequacy as descriptionsof Dryden'spoem-after all, three hundred
years of reading the poem haven't produced other generic terms or
descriptionsthat seem any moreadequate.Rather,it lies with theirfail-
ure to acknowledge the radicalextent to which Dryden's satire claims
to create a self-contained hermeneutic, one that gestures toward and
redirects other interpretivepossibilities in order to dismiss them. His
satire does not merely tolerate divagations from its central purpose
but turns them to its own uses, so that its inclusivity is not a pas-
sive characteristicbut an active strategy of appropriation.4Diverse
elements seemingly ill-suited to a single genre might thereby become
well-suited to a single mode.5ThoughMaurer'sargumentthat Dryden
found no single form suited to his poem is persuasive,6it frames the
discussion about the poem's nature in generic terms, a process that
can neglect some of satire'sovert pressure, successful or not, to create

and in Absalom and Achitophel, where Achitophel's temptation speech and the narra-
tor's wonderfully derisive portraits underscore the inadequacy of the king's divinely-
ordained rhetoric. King David's long speech, which abruptly dissolves the threat to his
kingdom by divine fiat, and thus ends the poem, is an inadequate performance" (23).
Frank H. Ellis finds exactly the opposite: citing "the legend of the unsuccessful ending
of the poem," he argues that "structure requires the poem to end in an action rather
than in a story, . . . in drama, in spoken discourse" ("'Legends No Histories' Part the
Second: The Ending of Absalomand Achitophel,"MP 85 1i9881: 393-407; the quotation
appears on p. 401).
4 Laura Brown makes an analogous argument about Dryden's use of the heroic cou-
plet as a device to link two incommensurate or competing terms or figures. See her
article, "The Ideology of Restoration Poetic Form: John Dryden," PMLA 97 (1982): 395-
407.
5 The distinction between mode and genre, and the relation of both to form, has been
extensively developed by Alastair Fowler, in Kinds of Literature:An Introduction to the
Theoryof Genresand Modes (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982). See especially
ch. 7, "Mode and Subgenre," 106-29, for an extended treatment of his contention that
"modal terms never imply a complete extemal form" (107).
6"It displays no form fully or consistently.... Any of the traditional forms could
substantially mislead or distract readers with apparent solutions too pat, however
subtle and profound, for the magnitude of a peril of continually shifting contours in
an unknown congeries of events" ("The Form of Dryden's Absalomand Achitophel,Once
More," 334).
 Anne K. Krook 341
a single logic of interpretation,one that might perhaps replace generic
props as a means of ordering the poem. Dryden deploys satire to
preserve the differencesbetween David and all the other characters,
differences necessary to establish David's sole right to the dominant
human place in the theocratichierarchy,and implicitlyto assert a simi-
larly dominant place for Charles II in the aftermathof the Exclusion
Crisis. Michael McKeon has persuasively argued that "Absalomand
Achitophelhelps inauguratethe distinctively modem conviction that
'politics,' and the aesthetic autonomy of 'poetry,' are by their very
nature incompatible."7Dryden, consummate political propagandist,
who was when he wrote this poem both poet laureateand historiog-
rapherroyal, might well have agreed.8I shall here argue that Dryden's
satire becomes the literarymodal equivalent of monarchicautonomy,
able to construct a world in which David remains both satirized and
finally powerful and from which Charles himself can remain safely
preserved, beyond the reachof any but the flawed interpretivestrate-
gies of David's opponents.
Since the dispute with both kings concerned the succession to the
throne, satire's ability to create a self-sufficient hermeneutic makes
it an appropriatestrategy for orchestratinga defense of David, and
through David, of Charles. In constructing David's monarchic au-
tonomy, Dryden effaces all challenges to the king's essential ability to
interpretand thereforeto rule, while allowing David himself to remain
uninterpretable.He indicates the absolute degree of David's rule by
having David assert the sole right to cut off others' responses by fiat.
Owing to similaritiesbetween rulerand ruled, however, which allow
the satireto proceed, David'sexerciseof that power becomes problem-
atic. Because David does not seem differentin kind from Absalom and
Achitophel, it becomes increasinglydifficultto imagine a given power
being conferredon David, but not on Achitophelor Absalom, for any
reason other than an arbitraryone. By the end of the poem, as David
cuts off opposition and restores order by fiat and with divine appro-
bation, the satiric structure that supports David has also made the
uniqueness of his power appear indistinguishablefrom arbitrariness.

7 MichaelMcKeon,"HistoricizingAbsalom andAchitophel,"
in TheNew Eighteenth
Cen-
tury:Theory,Politics,EnglishLiterature,
ed. FelicityNussbaum and LauraBrown (New
York: Methuen, 1987), 28.
8 For Dryden'sappointmentas poet laureatein 1668and as historiographerroyal in
1670, and for the payments attachingto those offices, see JamesAnderson Winn, John
Dryden and His World(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), 191, 208, and 527-28.
342 Satireand Theocracyin Absalom and Achitophel
Furthermore, the rebellion, though finally blamed mostly on Absalom
and Achitophel, appears to have many causes, so that David's focus-
ing on Absalom and Achitophel seems an arbitrary decision, however
appropriate a decision it might also be. When David's word and God's
thunder effect the abrupt close of Absalomand Achitophel, David's fiat
requires satire to sustain it. Rather than being a departure from the
poem's satiric mode, the abrupt closure confirms the extent to which
satire not only preserves but also constitutes David's place in the the-
ocracy.

With Absalomand Achitophel,first published in 168i, Dryden inverts

the process of characterization he used in some of his early poems
about Charles, published just after the Restoration.9 The earlier poems
most often begin with the king and other contemporary public figures
as their subjects, develop them through parallels and comparisons
to classical and biblical figures, and then return to the contemporary
political context.10 In depicting the controversy between Charles and
Parliament over who should control the succession to the throne,"
Dryden needed to walk a fine line between acknowledging potential
criticism of Charles's handling of the Exclusion Crisis, perhaps most
notably his long-standing tolerance for Monmouth, and supporting
the king nonetheless. Partly as a result of the delicacy of that task,
the later poem, unlike the earlier pieces, never directly mentions or
addresses Charles; instead, drawing its explicit subject from an Old
Testament narrative, Absalomand Achitophelorganizes a world to which
Charles and his handling of the Exclusion Crisis might be compared,
a comparison depending for its effect on always implicit analogies be-
tween David's role in the Old Testament narrative and Charles's role

9 See, for example, "Astraea Redux. A Poem on the Restoration of Charles the Sec-
ond" (Works 1:21-31), and "To His Sacred Majesty, A Panegyrick on His Coronation"
(Works1:32-37).
10For a discussion of the typological sources for Dryden's political verse, see Steven
N. Zwicker, Dryden's PoliticalPoetry: the Typologyof King and Nation (Providence: Brown
University Press, 1972), especially ch. i, "The Terms of Metaphorical History," and ch. 3,
"The King and Christ."
11For a discussion of Dryden as Tory satirist and his opposition to contractual theo-
ries of kingship as articulated by Locke, see Winn, John Dryden and His World, ch. 1o,
"The Tory Satirist: 1680-1683" (330-8o), especially p. 333 and p. 359; and Michael A.
Conlon's excellent article, "The Rhetoric of Kairosin Absalomand Achitophel,"in Rheto-
rics of OrderlOrderingRhetoricsin English NeoclassicalLiterature,ed. J. Douglas Canfield
(Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1989), 85-97; the quotation appears on p. 87.
 Anne K. Krook 343
in contemporarypolitics. This is not to claim that the analogies were
therefore less evident to the poem's audience in the i68os (the viru-
lence of many contemporaryresponses indicates how closely Dryden
made his points and how sharplyhis satirestung), only that they were
implicit. Owing to Dryden's encoded approach to depicting Stuart
politics, interpreting Charles's actions depends first on interpreting
David's, so that Charlesremainsat least one hermeneuticremove from
the poem's reach.12
In making David the subject of his "parallelhistory,"Dryden pre-
sents the prototype for monarchyin Israel, a monarchy represented
as both divinely sanctioned and humanly problematic.'3The episode
in 2 Samuel on which Dryden bases his poem is itself part of a much
longer narrativedetailing the rise of kingship in Israel, encompass-
ing Samuel'sanointing of Saul, David's rise to militarypower and the
throne, his subsequent struggles against his enemies, and the transi-
tion to Solomon's rule. In the process of adjusting the political events
and the biblical narrativeto each other, Dryden only partially ren-
ders the biblical text, as he acknowledges in "Tothe Reader"(p. 4).
Fromthe long biblicalhistory he selects a moment in which David has
already become king, delineating the Davidic hierarchyby detailing
a moment of crisis for its previously established order. The narrative
of the Davidic monarchyis likewise part of a much longer typological
narrative,the succession of the royal line that, in Christianmythogra-
phy, leads from AbrahamthroughDavid and the Babyloniancaptivity
to Christ, the three focal points in the chronology used by Matthew
as he detailed, for a Jewish audience, the genealogical links from God
to humankind and back again to God.'4Because Christian typology
provides the Davidic narrativewith a future defined as a successful
typological fulfillmentof an antitype, Dryden'spoem can show David
in a moment of crisis retrospectivelyread as a relativelybrief episode
of chaos in the midst of greaterorder.
12 McKeon notes this distancing effect: "[tihe effect of Dryden's oratory is . . . to
distance us both from its tropes and from biblical history: to disclose the typologi-
cal framework as a trope rather than as a transparent truth, an instrumental use of
religious argument that invites us to make a knowing engagement in its fictionality
without expecting from us a full-scale engagement of belief" ("Historicizing Absalomand
Achitophel,"28).
13 The phrase "parallel history" is J. R. Crider's. See " 'Agag's Murther' as Parallel
History in Absalomand Achitophel,"ELN 21 (1983): 34-42; the quotation appears on p. 39.
14 See Matthew 1: 1-17 for this chronology, which structurally resembles many simi-
lar chronologies in the Old Testament (for example, Genesis 5:1-32), making a formal
as well as asserting a human link between the two kinds of history.
344 Satireand Theocracyin Absalom and Achitophel
The moment of crisis, for which Absalom and Achitophel are largely
held responsible, takes place within a context of satirically utopian,
precarious stability, for which David is largely held responsible. Absa-
lom and Achitophelhas a bifurcated opening, the scope of whose satire
encompasses both the rebels and David. On the one hand, the title
announces a poem based on two well-known biblical figures, lead-
ing the reader to expect, not entirely without reason, that two char-
acters called Absalom and Achitophel will do something to justify
their eponymous status. On the other hand, the opening couplets im-
mediately branch away from the title's announcement, introducing a
framework within which David, no less than Absalom or Achitophel,
initially falls within the scope of the satire:
IN pious times, e'r Priest-craftdid begin,
BeforePolygamywas made a sin;
When man, on many, multiply'dhis kind,
E'rone to one was, cursedly,confind:
When Natureprompted,and no law deny'd
Promiscuoususe of Concubineand Bride;
Then, Israel'sMonarch,afterHeaven'sown heart,
His vigorous warmthdid, variously,impart
ToWives and Slaves:and, wide as his Command,
Scatter'dhis Maker'sImagethroughthe Land.
(1-10)
The explicit opposition of piety to "Priest-craft"establishes a satirically
utopian time for the poem's action, in which piety exists indepen-
dently of the ways of priests. "Nature" 's prompting in "man" replaces
priestly control over behavior. The parallelism of "In . . . When . . .
When ... Then . . ." through the first four couplets makes the pious
state, produced by the absence of either priests or priestly machina-
tion, manifest in David. As a result, the general rubric of the satire
set out in the first three couplets encompasses the specific topic intro-
duced by "Then," David's sexual activity, so that the common, polyga-
mous behavior appropriate in those satirically .pious times appears in
"Israel'sMonarch,"who behaves "after Heaven's own heart."
With this opening, David is partly praised, in locker-room fash-
ion, and partly satirized, establishing the credibility of the satirist,
whose contemporary audience could not very well have missed the
many living, breathing consequences of Charles's sexual profligacy, in-
cluding Monmouth. Indeed, Charles himself acknowledged this trait
 AnneK. Krook 345
(and some of these offspring).'5This satirized admirationof David is
the sign of the statusquoof benevolent licentiousness; it also isolates
David from some kinds of criticism. In these lines, Dryden sidesteps
intervention by priests, the group whose members by definition in-
terpretand manage everyone'srelationto the supreme, divine power.
Prophets likewise have no place in that pious time. By the point in
2 Samuel at which Dryden begins his narrative,the prophet Samuel,
under whose auspices David rose to power against Saul, has long
since died. The prophet Nathan, however, who rebuked David for
committing adultery with Bathsheba, and who prophesied that their
bastard child would die, appearsin the chaptersof 2 Samuel immedi-
ately before the episode with Absalom and Achitophel. By initially
circumventingboth priests and prophets, who ordinarilyplay the role
of criticizing the monarch'sbehavior, Dryden creates a world of uto-
pian sexual license in which David's sexual proficiencyis a matter for
a joke ratherthan a rebuke.David can have no unmediated relation to
"Heav'nsown heart"except in the utopian "pious times" of the poem
that precede priest-craftand that free him from traditionalsources of
criticism. Even though Absalom and Achitophel are the eponymous
objects of Dryden's satire, the opening introduces a poem whose first
moment of satire not only defines the chain of command within the
theocraticstate but also takes David as one of its objects. David's place
at the top of the theocratichuman hierarchyestablishes him as the
standardfromwhich Absalomand Achitophelthereafterdeviate; they
are not satirizeduntil David'srole is firstestablished.Thatrole is itself,
however, encompassed by the satire and independent of traditional
interpreters.
The theocracylimned in the opening lines has other advantages for

15On being called fatherof his people, Charlessupposedly once responded, "Well,I
believe that I am, of a good numberof them!"See TheRoxburghe Ballads,ed. J.Woodfall
Ebsworth, 8 vols. (Hertford:Stephen Austin and Sons, 1883;New York:AMS Press,
1966), 4:597. Lines from a sixteen-linecoda to a ballad dated 2 February1679/80 and
entitled "The Good Old Cause Revived"provide a closely contemporaryexample of
language describingCharlesas father:
This People, commonFather,hold on still
To do them good, althoughagainsttheir will.
Whatreal Prudencedictates, that pursue,
But slight the Murmursof a giddy crew.
This had thy Fatherdone, we ne're had known
A Tyrantsitting on the RoyalThrone.
(RoxburgheBallads4:602)
346 SatireandTheocracy
in Absalomand Achitophel
isolating David from his critics. First, since the poem's utopian chain
of command gives power in descending order to God and David,
neatly bypassing priests and prophets, every Israelite, including but
not limited to Absalomand Achitophel,is held directlyresponsible for
rebelling. Though never explicitly mentioned in the poem, Dryden's
desire to make the multitudes at least partly responsible for the re-
bellion explains a great deal of his vituperation against them, and
partly explains the scorn of phrases like "The Jews, a Headstrong,
Moody, Murmuringrace" (45), "PopularlyMad" (336), and "Adam-
wits, too fortunatelyfree"(51), which last likens the multitudes to the
first man who willingly disobeyed a clear command and suffered for
it. This strategy, like many others in the poem, distributes blame for
the rebellion widely,-giving David and Absalom as much company
as possible as satiric targets, so that neither Charles nor his favorite,
Monmouth, comes in for exclusive blame. In this poem, blame can go
almost everywhere, while the power to punish the rebels remains in
David's hands.
A second and related advantage of Dryden's system for the pur-
poses of the title's satire is that it establishes David as the public ex-
emplar, albeit a satirized one, of the proper relation to God, a point
Dryden reinforces throughout the poem. David, who from the first
is said to behave "afterHeaven's own heart"in begetting his numer-
ous offspring, is consistently referred to by other Israelites, not by
the priests, as exemplifying godly-not just kingly-behavior. In at-
tempting to make himself seem reasonableand devoted to the state's
welfare, Achitophelcraftilygrantsdivine approvalof David's position
and power as king as the startingpoint of his own attemptto convince
Absalom to rebel (262 ff.). Likewise, Absalomacknowledges both the
power of the hierarchywithin which Davidrules and the justice of that
rule as ensconced in the hierarchy,giving a long, willy-nilly panegyric
of David as he debates whether to join Achitophel's rebellion (315-
72). In this respect, the thunder of divine approbationat the poem's
end merely confirms what others, including and especially David's
enemies, acknowledge all along.
Having established David as the exemplarof divinely appointed be-
havior and preserved him from the opinions of those in the theocracy
who might think otherwise, Dryden makes Absalom and Achitophel
appearwithin the contextdefined in termsof Davidat the opening, but
to which David himself does not returnuntil the poem's end. David's
 AnneK. Krook 347
absence from the long middle section of the poem in which Dryden
details the causes for the rebellion contributes to preserving his status
as uninterpreted, godly monarch, a condition requiring that David be
safely removed from the reach of the rebels' attempt to interpret his
behavior, as he was initially kept safe from the prophets' and priests'
reach. As a result, while the actions and motivations of Absalom and
Achitophel are explained to the reader at length, David's behavior
receives no such elucidation. Indeed, Dryden gives attempts at elu-
cidation the status of ill-motivated, obfuscating guesswork, making
Achitophel remark to Absalom, "And who can sound the depth of
David's Soul? / Perhaps his fear, his kindness may Controul" (467-68).
David himself disdains the inaccuracy of others' attempts to interpret
his behavior: "How ill my Fear they by my Mercy scan, / Beware the
Fury of a PatientMan"(1004-5). From David's point of view, none of
the rebels, whether priest, son, or subject, adequately interprets his
relation to God, the key to his power.
When Absalom and Achitophel do enter this poem, they appear as
characters whom Dryden satirizes and whom David punishes because
they have deviated from their proper places in the theocratic hierarchy.
Absalom and Achitophel have meaning in this poem largely as they
are defined against David, by whose authority they initially go about
their business, against whom first one and then the other rebels, and
to whom they almost compulsively refer as they continue the plot,
looking over their shoulders, as it were, waiting to see what will hap-
pen as they invoke his name. In this poem they could be, and once
were, properly derivative of and dependent on David. Dryden care-
fully, though briefly, links Absalom's exceptional beauty, strength, and
ability to please to his illustrious father's "vigourous warmth" and dot-
ing care (8, 17-30). Achitophel's role as rebel derives politically from
David's role as king: he plots against David's power, taking advantage
of the Jebusites' rebellion in order to further his own political aims
(200-215). Achitophel'slegitimate politicalrole likewise depended on
David, in whose government he used to be a judge, a role in which he
found and might have continued to find propriety of place and praise,
had he been content to remain in it:
Oh, had he been content to serve the Crown,
With vertues only properto the Gown;
Or, had the ranknessof the Soyl been freed
FromCockle, that opprest the Noble seed:
348 Satireand Theocracyin Absalom and Achitophel
David,for him his tunefull Harphad strung,
And Heaven had wanted one Immortalsong.
(192-97)
Propriety of place and praise means place as specified by David and
praise as sung and spoken by David. In his long psalm-like pronounce-
ment at the end of the poem, David, taking up the role of judge and
punisher sometimes given to God in the Psalms, declares Absalom
and Achitophel's deviation from their proper roles, and his judgment
suffices to condemn them and thereby to conclude the poem. The blis-
tering satire that Dryden employs in his first description of Achitophel
indicates that Achitophel will bear much of the blame for initiating
the rebellion, and though Absalom receives less stinging invective for
his role, even the favorite son cannot escape his father's judgment,
as David says, "If my Young Samson will pretend a Call / To shake the
Column, let him share the Fall" (955-56).
Though David's place at the top of the theocratic hierarchy seems
absolute, some details indicate that David's position as the uninter-
pretable source of earthly power is neither unique nor perfect. Among
the earliest indications is an ambiguous physiognomic detail of Absa-
lom: "And Paradisewas open'd in his face" (30). Prelapsarian beauty
as a description of Absalom's postlapsarian appearance points to com-
pany, if not competition, for David as visible public exemplar of man's
relation to God, for though David rules alone at the head of a utopian,
postlapsarian order, Absalom nonetheless also provides a vision of
the beauty and power of the prelapsarian world of Lucifer, the bril-
liant son of the morning, whose "count'nance, as the Morning Starr
that guides / The starrie flock, allur'd them" (ParadiseLost V.7o8-9).'6
Further Miltonic allusions link Absalom with Adam, as Dryden's line
also recalls the prelapsarian state of Adam and Eve, in whose "looks
Divine / The image of thir glorious Maker shon" (PL IV.291-92).
Though the allusions to a prelapsarian world in each case refer to
an eventually fallen being, not to mention the fallen Republican (and
not yet ascendant poet) Milton, they also thereby allude to an un-
mediated relationship between an individual and God. In identifying
Absalom with the unfallen state of Lucifer and Adam, Dryden places
Absalom in the position of having to make a choice about the power
at the head of the hierarchy. The choices Lucifer and Adam make,

16 John Milton, Paradise Lost, vol. 2 of The Worksof John Milton, ed. Frank Allen
Patterson et al. i8 vols. (New York:Columbia University Press, 1931-38).
 AnneK. Krook 349
however, address the authorityof an absolutely powerful divine ruler,
whereas Absalom faces a choice about a human king. This vital dif-
ference between the Edenic world on the one hand and the Davidic
and English worlds on the other reveals the central difficulty with
Dryden's defining David'srule as divinely sanctionedand finally proof
against rebellion. If Absalom is satirized, by association with Adam,
as a potentially rebellious, powerful, and erring subject, then David
takes the place in the hierarchyagainst which the Adam-figureAbsa-
lom rebels, the place analogous to that of either the Fatheror the Son.
But unlike the scripturaland Miltonicversions of the divine hierarchy,
which allow for and indeed require that God differ in nature from
everyone else, Dryden'sversion, existing wholly within a human, sati-
rized world, cannot show David as different in kind from Absalom,
only different in the power he wields when he has the last word. If
the Miltonicallusions show Absalom as soon-to-be fallen and always
to be pitied, like Adam and Eve, and if they show Achitophel as once
brilliantand now twisted, like the Luciferwho became Satan, those
allusions also recallthe independence of their choices.
Just as Absalom is linked more closely to the divine power with
which David must claimthe nearest relation,so David becomes linked
more closely with Absalom. David himself remainsinextricablybound
in the same satirized world to which Absalom belongs, for in his
beauty Absalom not only resembles Adam but David, who "view'd /
His Youthfull Image in his Son renew'd" (31-32). Furthermore, Absa-
lom's "YouthfullImage"and body "Toofull of Angells Metal" (310)
are the visible signs of Absalom'srelationto his father.In showing the
signs of his fatherin himself, he resembles not only Luciferand Adam
but the Son of ParadiseLost,in whom "allhis Fathershone / Substan-
tially express'd, and in his face / Divine compassion visibly appear'd"
(PLIII.139-41). Beautifullike Lucifer,Adam, and the Son, and in his
beauty revealing his origins as they all do, Absalom is also tempted
like Lucifer and like Adam, though the narratorstresses the resem-
blances to Adam over those to Lucifer.While Dryden's Absalom may
be associated with the sin of Adam, he is also his father's son, bear-
ing a resemblance to him that his father recognizes and enjoys. The
differencesbetween David the king and his rebel son begin to blur.
Despite various uncanny family resemblances,the angel-faced Ab-
salom initially causes David no undue politicalembarrassment:"Thus
Prais'd, and Lov'd, the Noble Youth remain'd, / While David, undis-
turb'd, in Sion raign'd" (41-42). Unlike Absalom, however, Achitophel
350 Satireand Theocracyin Absalom and Achitophel
has already at that early stage in the poem fallen out of his proper
political relationship with David. He has, in short, already made the
choice that Absalom will also make, but the reasons for that choice
remain unclear. Locating the responsibility for Achitophel's rebellion
from David is complicated by the pivotal word "or" in the lines de-
scribing the causes for his rebellion: "had he been content to serve
the Crown, . . . Or, had the rankness of the Soyl been freed / Of
Cockle" (192, 194-95). Though these lines purport to offer the reader a
choice between two causes of Achitophel's behavior, or between two
explanations for one effect, the "or"makes it impossible to choose cor-
rectly, to tell why Achitophel rebels, and implies that there is no way
of precisely pinpointing the cause. If it was owing to excess "Cockle,"
the possibility remains that Achitophel's human nature, rather than
pure malice aforethought, partially causes his rebellion, since presum-
ably soil liable to infestation stems from Achitophel's natural, gen-
eral human condition rather than from circumstances unique to him.
Though spoken in a contrary-to-fact mood that renders them purely
speculative, these possibilities tend once again to diffuse blame for the
rebellion rather than focus it, as the passive voice of "been freed / Of
Cockle" obscures the agent that could have left Achitophel not a rebel.
The satire that depends on defining David as different from the
rebels attempts also to excuse Absalom and even, to some degree,
Achitophel, as Dryden notes in "To the Reader" (p. 4). As a result,
the natures of Absalom and, to a lesser extent, Achitophel manifest
more and more similarities to David's as the poem progresses, simi-
larities without which the poem's action cannot go forward. Absalom
may have an unacknowledged or de-emphasized link to God; Absa-
lom resembles David physically, a consideration that helps induce
Achitophel to pick him for the rebellion; Achitophel may have rebelled
against David not because of differences in kind but because of dif-
ferences in development and circumstance. Such ambiguous relation-
ships to David's position continue on another level in the reappearance
of the satirically banished priests. Though the satire initially posits a
world free from priests, or at least free from priestly machination, the
priests and their machinations persistently reappear. They are both
absent and present to perfect the satire, absent to consolidate David's
power and uninterpreted status, present to foment rebellion and them-
selves be objects of the satire. Though the opportunity to rebel that
Achitophel seizes initially results from restlessness among the Jebusite
priesthood, which can be explained away, as, after all, a heathen and
 Anne K. Krook 351
therefore false hierarchy, Dryden claims that "Priests of all Religions
are the same" (99), so that the Jebusitic priests in fact behave no worse
than their Jewish counterparts. Within the context of a poem based
on 2 Samuel, the Jewish priests cannot be dismissed as heathen, by
definition erring and external, and they represent another access to
divine power. In order for David to rule alone, the priests, like Absa-
lom's beauty, must be disregarded, but in order for the poem's action
to proceed, they, like Absalom's beauty, must be present for all to see.
If the rebels resemble David, David in his role as a ruler reveals him-
self inextricably bound up with Absalom, Achitophel, and the priests
in the causes and responsibility for rebellion. Though Dryden claims
that, with respect to David's allies, "Naming is to praise" (8i6), almost
every mention of David reveals yet another problematic aspect of his
character. As the poem progresses, he comes to seem less like a natural
ruler in a position properly his than a man having trouble with a job
someone gave him. From the beginning, when it is unclear what David
had to do with the exceptional energy, talent, and potentially danger-
ous beauty of Absalom (19-20) through the rebellion itself, Dryden
describes David's authority in terms that implicate David in the causes
of the unrest stirring in Absalom, Achitophel, and the other rebellious
Israelites. Like the cause of Achitophel's flaw, the source of Absalom's
particular beauty is described as essentially unknowable, the various
possible reasons linked by "or":
Whether,inspir'dby some diviner Lust,
His Fathergot him with a greaterGust;
Or that his Conscious destiny made way
By manly beauty to Imperiallsway.
(19-22)

David may or may not have something to do with the particular beauty
of Absalom that not only aided his son in his rebellion but also showed
that uncanny link to a prelapsarian time, with its attendant choices.
Dryden likewise describes the king's indulgence toward his son by
balancing willful blindness and innocent blindness on either side of
an "or," rendering the question finally unanswerable: "What faults he
had (for who from faults is free?) / His Father could not, or he would
not see" (35-36). If his bastard son is weak-willed enough to listen to
Achitophel, David is indulgent, perhaps excessively so (31-36); he is
mild, though hitherto effective in controlling dissent (77-78); during
the height of the rebellion, the moment at which a clear expression of
352 Satireand Theocracyin Absalom and Achitophel
David's will might prevent crisis, Achitophel can convince Absalom
that David's reactions will remain difficult to gauge (467-68). Charles
was, as his contemporaries noted, well-known for each of these char-
acteristics. Echoing an earlier comment about the king's "fatall mercy"
(146), Dryden goes so far as explicitly to grant that David's leniency
contributes to the unfortunate unrest: "How Fatall 'tis to be too good
a King!" (812) . David's advisors certainly think so, telling him firmly
"[t]hat no Concession from the Throne woud please, / But Lenitives
fomented the Disease" (937-38). Hesitating as long as possible to take
on the authority of the role for which he was anointed, David laments
the necessity of exercising the power of his position (941-42, 957-60,
1000-1003), as Absalomhesitatedbefore exercisinghis own talents on
behalf of the rebelling Achitophel. Repeated references to David as
the rebellion unfolds reveal how he resembles his son and continue
Dryden's initial implication of the king that began with the open-
ing lines.
One quality of David particularly begs the question of his authority
and its relation to the rebellion. As Absalom asks himself whether he
will obey his father or join Achitophel, he remarks on the power of
David that could potentially prevent the question: "His Favour leaves
me nothing to require; / Prevents my Wishes, and outruns Desire" (43-
44). Despite this admission, Absalom joins the rebellion, as evidently
David's power to fulfill desire cannot entirely efface Absalom's urge to
change the hierarchy so that he, rather than David, may rule. Dryden
does not specify what kindles Absalom's desire and ultimately causes
him to give in to Achitophel, failing to localize the stimulus for Absa-
lom's vision of a new hierarchy because, for the narrator on the side
of David, Charles, and the status quo, it is undesirable to locate it pre-
cisely. A precise cause for Absalom's rebellion must implicate either

17 In his Characterof King Charles the Second, Halifax mentions Charles's easiness of
temper toward all matters nearly as often as Dryden mentions David's. See Marquess of
Halifax (George Savile), A Characterof KingCharlesthe Second,TheCompleteWorksof George
Savile, Marquess of Halifax, ed. Walter Raleigh (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1912), 187-
208 passim. One of Dryden's biographers, Sir Walter Scott, refers to Charles as Dryden's
"good-humoured, selfish, and thoughtless patron," Scott, ed., The Worksof John Dryden,
18 vols. (London: William Miller, 18o8) 1:291; in his prose tract His Majesties Declaration
Defended, Dryden notes the king's "natural love to Peace and Quiet" (Works 17:197).
Phillip Harth notes that the qualities that had become problematic had been described as
virtues in Dryden's early poems about Charles; see his article, "Dryden's Public Voices,"
New Homageto JohnDryden:PapersReadat a ClarkLibraryConference,February13-14, 1981,
ed. Phillip Harth, Alan Fisher, and Ralph Cohen (Los Angeles: William Andrews Clark
Memorial Library, 1982, 1-28), 22.
 Anne K. Krook 353
David or Absalom, as Dryden has structured Absalom's desire, but
locating the cause in the figure who represents Charles or the figure
who representshis brothercould not have pleased the king. Not local-
izing the cause for Absalom'srebellionalso has its problems, however,
for if desire recursin Absalom despite the demonstratedlack of iden-
tifiablestimulus for it within the confines of David's all-powerfulrule,
then some impetus remainsbeyond the reachof a king whom Dryden
wants to portrayas fully able to satisfy such desires. Dryden is caught
in this unresolvabledilemmabecause David is not qualitativelydiffer-
ent from Absalom-he cannot completely fulfill Absalom's desire for
power without giving up his own, cannot allow Absalom to change
his place in the hierarchywithout endangering his own. Absalom ap-
pears flawed by virtue of his admission, for he acknowledges that
he rebels despite David's generosity towards him. He also, however,
focuses attention on the need for David's power to be differentiated
from everyone else's, if it is to be able to quash desire such as Absa-
lom's and thereby to sustain the king's position. As a consequence of
not localizingblame for the rebellionon the king or the chief rebels, the
blame appears in more dubious but politically more palatableplaces,
at least from Dryden's point of view:
govern'dby the Moon,thegiddyJews
Treadthe same trackwhen she the Primerenews:
And once in twenty Years,their ScribesRecord,
By naturalInstinctthey change their Lord.
(215-18)
Though the Miltonicallusions in Dryden's satire emphasize Absa-
lom's resemblanceto Adam, allusions to Absalomas an Adamic figure
also recall the Son and Lucifer,because all three prelapsarianbeings
share and revealqualitiesthatdefine them primarilyas createdbeings.
All three are less than the God in whose hierarchythey participate,
alike in their subordinate identity within the hierarchy, different in
their degree of closeness to that divine power. Distinguishing David
from Absalom and Achitophel as having access to the divine power
and approval that they lack would require showing in what that dif-
ference consists, but except for the abrupt closure the poem shows
more how David resembles Absalom than how he differs from him.
Recurrentdesire in Absalomindicatesthe ineradicablepresence of the
unsurprising urge to escape the rigid hierarchyin which David safely
resides at the top. Absalom'sdesire persists as he seeks to alter his role
in a hierarchythat shows David with no exclusive visible relationship
354 Satireand Theocracyin Absalom and Achitophel
to divine power, that admits the recurrent though satirized possibility
of another institutional route to God's power via the priests, banished
though they are, and that repeatedly reveals the resemblance between
David's own nature and the rebels'. The essential singleness of the link
between David and God as the assurance of and justification for his
absolute power is questioned on all sides, failing decisively to distin-
guish David's relation to God from any other while allowing Absalom's
desire to continue.
Dryden's satire attempts to accomplish two incompatible tasks. On
the one hand, it acknowledges Charles's part in allowing, or at least
not preventing, Monmouth's bid for the succession. Charles's sympa-
thy for his son becomes understandable, even admirable, because he
so much resembles him. On the other hand, the satire needs to focus
responsibility for the rebellion so that it does not fall wholly on the king
or on his favorite son. The satire needs, in other words, both to diffuse
and focus blame: diffuse it to reach everyone, including the king, and
focus it on anybody but the king. Dryden's attempt to achieve both of
these two goals begins, I have argued, with the bifurcation of the satire
at the poem's beginning, showing David as king of a satirically uto-
pian state. The title "points" the satire-it is what Dryden offers as an
initial expression of the poem's purpose. By entitling the satire "Absa-
lom and Achitophel," Dryden reveals both the assumption on which
he proceeds and the end for which he fashions the poem, for the title
first exemplifies the concept that the ruling monarch's power consists
at least in part in focusing responsibility on someone or something
by fiat. Within limits, that concept of David's rule works, allowing
the narrator to admit certain likenesses between Absalom and David
and some extenuating circumstances pertaining to Absalom's rebel-
lion while still supporting David against his bastard son and, more
readily, against Achitophel. As the title begins the defense against
doubts that David's distinctiveness entitles him to power, so the con-
clusion reinforces his distinctive power by divine approbation. After
the poem's satiric examination of the title characters, the conclusion
reasserts David's power over them, granting David the power to con-
demn, to locate responsibility, and to decree judgment, thereby using
the title's same focusing of the satire, which pinpoints responsibility,
to contain and master the political chaos surrounding David.
David's own speech, his first and last in the poem, contains the ex-
pected defensive assertions about his relationship to the rebels and
his power, assertions in which he replies to every one of the objec-
 Anne K. Krook 355
tions against his rule posed in the rest of the poem.'8 The few lines
that follow David's speech, however, have historically given rise to
the suspicion that David's power consists simply in having the last
word, not in differing in any other respect from Absalom or Achito-
phel. The structure of the poem allows David to remain aloof from the
rebellion's progress by not bringing him in to speak until the action
is over and by preserving him from needing to answer or even hear
further criticism, once he delivers his decision, just as Charles had
done when he abruptly dismissed the Oxford parliament in March.
Dryden's attempt to counter the force that incites rebellion functions
by giving David the power of restoring order by fiat, by naming David
"Godlike" and by naming God himself as the source of approbation
for David's final speech, just as the narrator's method in discussing
those loyal to David is to oppose number with number, a list of loyal
subjects and their service to the crown to counterbalance the list of
traitors: "Yet some there were, ev'n in the worst of days; / Some let
me name, and Naming is to praise" (815-16). Naming David and God
in the last six lines of the poem, however, brings the poem to an ex-
traordinarily abrupt and unconvincing halt, as the chaos caused by a
thousand lines of debate and development swiftly resolves into the
dubious decisiveness of a couplet: "Once more the Godlike David was
Restor'd, / And willing Nations knew their Lawfull Lord" (1030-31).
However resonant the echoes of Restoration as the relatively peaceful
end to a period characterized by civil war, the allusion rings false in
this poem.'9 For whereas Charles was restored in 166o from a foreign
country to one where he had never ruled, in Absalom and Achitophel
David has been implicated, and present, from the first.
The formal structure of the satiric narrative and above all of its end-
ing highlights the monarch's fiat and consequent absolute power as
an arbitrary creation of the poem's satire. Dryden's ending deviates
markedly from its biblical parallel in 2 Samuel, in which the outcome
of Absalom's rebellion is decided, as are most disputes in David's
reign, by warfare. David's line rose to power in military confrontation
with Saul's line (see especially 2 Sam. 3:1), and David continues simi-
18For an account of David as classical orator, whose principal goal is oratory "in
an attempt to sustain the state" (71), see W. Gerald Marshall, "Classical Oratory and
the Major Addresses in Dryden's Absalomand Achitophel,"Restoration:Studies in English
Literary Culture, i66o-1700 4 (1980): 71-80.
19Conlon persuasively shows how at the ending the narrator "select[s] those aspects
of events bewraying conspiracy and a nation on the verge of revolution" ("The Rhetoric
of Kairosin Dryden's Absalomand Achitophel,"89).
356 Satireand Theocracyin Absalom and Achitophel
lar dealings with his other adversaries. In choosing to close his poem
with a verbal proclamation rather than a military encounter, Dryden
temporarily suppresses one of the dominant qualities of the biblical
David's power, rendering his David either much more or much less
powerful than the biblical one. Unlike the biblical David, the David of
Absalom and Achitopheleither does not need physical, military force,
since his mere word restores political order, or is incapable of exer-
cising it; in any case, David doesn't.20 Not only does the poem end
with the same abruptness as Charles used in dismissing the Oxford
Parliament, it echoes the language of fiat from the Lord Chancellor's
enactment of the king's dismissal, which itself echoes the language
of divine creation from the opening chapters of Genesis: "it is His
Majesty's Royal Pleasure and Will, that this Parliament be dissolved:
And this Parliament is dissolved.""2 Of course, Dryden may well have
been right to prefer what Charles might say to what he might do,
a common opinion about Charles embodied in a quatrain frequently
attributed to Rochester:
God bless our good and graciousKing,
Whose promisenone relies on;
Who never said a foolish thing,
Nor ever did a wise one.22

20 Perhaps Dryden does not mention force because he does not want to associate
Charles with military measures at home, a fresh memory from the Civil War period.
In his preface, Dryden claims to have exercised mercy by "rebating the Satyre, (where
Justice would allow it) from carrying too sharp an Edge. They, who can Criticize so
weakly, as to imagine I have done my Worst, may be convinc'd, at their own Cost, that I
can write Severely, with more ease, than I can Gently" (p. 3). Steven Zwicker and Derek
Hirst have argued, however, that "moderation masks vengeance" in the poem (41); that
the "poem emerges not from moderately held truisms but from vigorously held parti-
san politics" (55); and that the poem makes "eventual sweeping recommendation of the
sword" (50). See their article, "Rhetoric and Disguise: Political Language and Political
Argument in Absalomand Achitophel,"Journalof British Studies 21 (1981): 39-55.
21 The dismissal is recorded, among other places, in the Journalsof the House of Lords
XIII: 1675-1680, 757 [Monday, March 28, 1680/81]:
His Majesty,sitting in His RoyalThrone,adornedwith His Crownand other RegalOrnaments
(the PeerssittingwithouttheirRobes),commandedthe GentlemanUsherof the BlackRod, to signify
His Majesty'sPleasureto the House of Commons,"Thatthey presentlyattendHis Majesty."
Who being come, His Majestymade a shortSpeech, to this Effect:
"My Lords and Gentlemen, That all the World may see to what a Point we are come, that we
are not like to have a good End, when the Divisions at the Beginning are such: Therefore, my Lord
Chancellor, do as I have commanded you."
Then the Lord Chancellor said,
"My Lords and Gentlemen, His Majesty has commanded me to say, That it is His Majesty's Royal
Pleasure and Will, that this Parliament be dissolved: And this Parliament is dissolved."
22 The text, entitled "Impromptu on Charles II," and discussion of its attribution ap-
 Anne K. Krook 357

The counterpartto invoking God and naming David at the poem's

end, entitling the poem "Absalomand Achitophel,"provides a conve-
nient, though deceptive, point for the satire,both as an encapsulation
of its origin and as a final word about who bears the blame for the re-
bellion. This summaryfocusing of blamebelies the reader'sperception
of both the multiple causes of the rebellion and some essential simi-
larities between ruler and ruled. The satire focuses blame for political
turmoil on Absalom and Achitophel by granting David the status of
uninterpretable,unanswerablemonarch. Dryden locates final power
to explicate and justify their roles in David as the head of a theocratic
hierarchy,a hierarchythat provides closure and stabilityby asserting
an absolute distinction between David and the rest and that asserts
its order as the only integral political system available. At the end
of the poem, Dryden re-establishes David's control over the political
hierarchy of the Israelites by the fiat of satire when Absalom and
Achitophel prove that controlunacceptablyvulnerableto internal un-
rest by effacing the differencesbetween themselves and David, if not
entirely then at least enough to provoke rebellion. David's power re-
quires closureby fiat, the device of the voice of authoritythat functions
by pointing the satire in its title and invoking God in its conclusion
to bolster David's pronouncements.The thunder at the end echoes
an earlier line that also acknowledges divine approbation of David:
"And Heav'n by Wondershas Espous'd his Cause" (20). The thunder
is also meant to confirmthe greateranger that lies behind his mercy,
anger that David has already invoked: "How ill my Fear they by my
Mercy scan, / Beware the Fury of a PatientMan"(1004-5). That com-
ment echoes Dryden'sremarkabout his own relationto his critics and
opponents in the preface to the poem: "They, who can Criticize so
weakly, as to imagine I have done my Worst, may be Convinc'd, at
their own Cost, that I can write Severely, with more ease, than I can
Gently"(p. 3). Indeed, if Zwickerand Hirst are right, Dryden's poem
urges Charles to carry out his vengeance with much greater force
than he has previously used (see note 20 above). Cutting off further
interpretive challenges, the conclusion prevents the poem's disorder
from exploding David's kingdom, making the thunder an approba-
tion, not a threat, just as the title helps prevent the poem's disorder
from imploding upon the theocraticstructure it would protect, dis-
pear in David Vieth, ed., TheCompletePoemsof JohnWilmot, Earlof Rochester(New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1968), 134, 209-10.
358 in Absalomand Achitophel
SatireandTheocracy
order that threatens to take David to destructionalong with Absalom
and Achitophel.
Precariouslybalancedbetween explosion and implosion lies a theo-
cratichierarchyconstitutedand preservedby satire.David'speculiarly
powerful position cannot exist without the utopian, satiric exclusion
of priests in the first line, nor can he continue as uniquely powerful
without the heavy-handedclosure of the end. The satire of this poem
does not derive fromits stories but constitutes and sustains them, en-
abling the chain of commandto exist and preventingthe desired chain
leading fromGod to David frombecominga series of chains fromGod
to David, God to priests, God to Absalom, God to Achitophel, God to
God-knows-whom. The poetic cost of preventing God from directly
addressing and empoweringGod-knows-whomis a hierarchythat re-
veals both the arbitraryquality of its coherence and the absence of
any mechanism other than satire to preserve and reproduceit. In the
preface to the poem, Dryden repeats a criticalcliche about the pur-
pose of satire, a comment sounding more facile and closed than the
rhymes generated in any of the poem's rhymed couplets: "[t]he true
end of Satyre, is the amendment of Vices by correction"(p. 5).23 It is a
gesture of explicit nondirectioncharacteristicof this poem, a gesture
that makes its satire seem derivativewhere it is originary,generically
tired where it is thematicallyvital. KevinCope has directed readers to
"watchfor the purpose of satire"at "thejudgment of the relationship
between ideal and experience"(22).24 In this poem, the only possible
hermetically sealed and thereforeideal power for Charles is the her-
meneutically sealed power of David. Absalomand Achitophelindeed
struggle against "Formand Order,"but against the form and order of
the fiat both made possible and exposed by satire.

University of Michigan

23 Dryden's much more extensive, later (1692) treatise on satire, the Discourseconcern-
ing the Original and Progressof Satire(Works4: 3-90), most often shies away from precise
definition, thereby sometimes producing similarly flat generalizations about the nature
of satire: it should treat one subject or theme (79) and give the reader "some one Precept
of Moral Virtue; and . . . caution him against some one particular Vice or Folly" (8o).
24 Kevin L. Cope, "The Conquest of Truth: Wycherley, Rochester, Butler, and Dryden
and the Restoration Critique of Satire," Restoration:Studies in English LiteraryCulture,
1660-1700 10 (1986): 19-40; the quotation appears on p. 22.