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- Title
'ADAM-WITS' IN ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL.
- Authors
Walls, Kathryn
- Abstract
The article focuses on the use of term Adam-Wits in the book "Absalom and Achitophel," by John Dryden. In his characterization of the English people (the Jews) in the book, Dryden identifies their anarchic yearnings for a republic with their waywardness as the people of God. It is probably in order to justify this association that, when bringing out the religious side of the equation, Dryden chose to focus on the experimentation and the sectarianism. The term Adam-wits is crucial. Evidently coined by Dryden, it has until now been interpreted as a reference to those who, like Adam, were not satisfied with their God-given freedom, and rebelled against their imagined constraints.
- Subjects
DRYDEN, John, 1631-1700; ABSALOM &; Achitophel (Poem : Dryden); JEWS; SECTARIANISM; ATTITUDE (Psychology); PEOPLE of God
- Publication
Notes & Queries, 2005, Vol 52, Issue 3, p337
- ISSN
0029-3970
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1093/notesj/gji315