Ruth Mariana Ramrez Adame

Argentina Felicia Rodrguez lvarez

Literatura en Ingls IV

October 24, 2017

The concept of harmony as order is one that can define, at least to some extent, the Augustan

Ages way of thinking even more so in the context of the poem A Song for St. Cecilias

Day, by John Dryden. In this work, the word harmony stands as a symbol of both the origin

and ruler of life and the world, in order to serve as a model of conduct and inspiration for the

people of the seventeenth century. It is especially throughout the first two stanzas of Drydens

poem that the reader can notice the relevance of said word, and in the following paragraphs

its use and significance will be further discussed.

First, harmony appears at the beginning of the poem as conductor of sorts, whose duty

is to control the music which will reconstruct Natures disorder, and, in doing, so bring life

out of it. The poems introductory lines read as follows: From harmony, from heavenly

harmony / This universal frame began: / When Nature underneath a heap / Of jarring atoms

lay, / And could not heave her head [] (Dryden 1-6). This first image shows a world where

Nature exists in its primordial chaos, a Nature very different from the Augustan notion, which

is nature as derived from classical theory: a rational and comprehensible moral order in the

universe, demonstrating God's providential design (Nestvold), and therefore, a Nature

unable to create life. However, the poem continues with the following: The tuneful voice

was heard from high: / Arise ye, more than dead. / Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry,

/ In order to their stations leap, / and Musics power obey (Dryden 6-10). In these lines, the
 Ramrez 2

force which begins and shapes everything, as mentioned at the beginning of the poem, is

revealed: the voice of God the voice heard from high is the order the harmony that

musical notes need to create music, and, in that way, this new harmonic music rearranges

Nature into its true Augustan, ordered, life-creating form. And so, harmony becomes the

force which impulses the creation of life by providing order to the chaos.

On the other hand, harmony is also that which must rule the same world it created, an

image seen at the end of the first stanza, and the throughout the second. The last line of the

first stanza reads The diapason closing full in man (Dryden 15), and is followed by What

passion cannot music raise and quell (Dryden 16). The first of these lines convey that man,

too, was created by the same harmonious music which birthed the world; the second, that its

power is so great, that it can rule over mens feelings their passions. Therefore, men must

live under the power of harmony, for it commands and controls their emotions, and elevates

them the way it does with Nature. This thought is reinforced by the following lines: When

Jubal struck the corded shell, / His listening brethren stood around, / And, wondering, on

their faces fell / To worship that celestial sound (Dryden 17-20). The image is that of men

rendering admiration and devotion to music like they would to a god. In that way, like men

would do with God, they must devote themselves to the musics harmony, and live by its

rules of order so that they, like Nature, can also become better.

Drydens poem, then, serves not only as a celebratory song for St. Cecilias festivity,

but also as a small picture of the Augustan society, their thinking, their values, what they

aspired to be, and harmony seems to be constant presence in all of them. In both this work

and society, harmony represents that with which good things are born, such as music and life;

it also is the correct even heavenly way to think and to act: with order. Maybe even more
 Ramrez 3

importantly, harmony represents the way of self-betterment: in the same way that harmony

transformed Natures chaos into order and life, men and women through harmony can

become finer, greater versions of themselves.

Works Cited

Dryden, John. A Song for St. Cecilias Day. The Norton Anthology of English Literature:

The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century, edited by Stephen Greenblatt, W.W.

Norton & Company, 2012, pp. 2243-2245.

Nestvold, Ruth. The Augustan Age. Its A Writers Life: The Homepage of SSF and

Hyperfiction Author Ruth Nestvold, 2001, www.ruthnestvold.com/Augustan.htm.

Accessed 23 Oct. 2017.