The Works of John Dryden, Now First Collected in Eighteen Volumes. Volume 10

This volume captures Dryden at the height of his intellectual powers, wrestling with the most volatile question of his age: what does a reasonable person believe in a world fractured by sectarian violence? "Religio Laici" stands as a masterful epistolary poem where Dryden, writing as an English layman, navigates the treacherous waters between Anglican orthodoxy and Catholic mystery, between revealed truth and rational inquiry. The year is 1682, and England stands exhausted by decades of religious war, trembling on the edge of another succession crisis. Dryden's argument is both intimate and audacious: he advocates for a faith that honors both reason and tradition, that neither capitulates to sectarian enthusiasm nor dismisses the claims of natural theology. This is not dry theology but a poet's desperate attempt to find solid ground in shifting times. For readers interested in the intellectual foundations of modern religious thought, in the emergence of rationalist philosophy, or simply in one of the finest writers in English, this volume offers essential access to Dryden's mind at its most searching.