This is the first lecture on Absalom and Achitophel, given on September 7. I just managed to recover it. It's largely about the meaning of and the political views evidenced by Dryden's claim that history repeats itself -- first in Biblical days, then in the late seventeenth century. Some context for the poem is given. We spend a fair amount of time exploring the anti-perfectibilian implications of historical repetition.
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