Dryden, who lived from 1631 to 1700, was born in a time when there was much political and religious turmoil in England. The disagreements between those who supported the traditional monarchical English form of government and those who desired a more republican form of government resulted in a series of violent events. These events include the English Civil War, which lasted from 1642 to 1651, and the ruling of England by various republican governments from 1649 to 1660.
In the last half of the 17th century, what little formal criticism or critical theory that had been produced by English writers was scattered and not systematic. Moreover, Restoration writers who were aware of this absence of refined criticism also felt that the insightful poetry produced by the Greeks and Romans had been abandoned by English writers.
In addition to studying a handful of writers of the 17th century, such as William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, Dryden used the work of ancient poets and playwrights to establish and demonstrate the overarching theoretical principles of literature.