Character study of Achitophel

Assignment 

Name : Latta J. Baraiya 

Roll no : 12

Paper : The Renaissance Literature 

Semester : M.A sem 1

Topic : Character study of Achitophel in "Absalom and Achitophel"

Submitted to : Smt. S.B. Gardi Department of English MKBU 

Introduction 

Absalom and Achitophel, verse satire by English poet John Dryden published in 1681. The poem, which is written in heroic couplets, is about the Exclusion crisis, a contemporary episode. Dryden based his work on a biblical incident recorded in 2 Samuel 13–19. These chapters relate the story of King David’s favourite son Absalom and his false friend Achitophel, who persuades Absalom to revolt against his father. In his poem, Dryden assigns each figure in the crisis a biblical name; e.g., Absalom is Monmouth, Achitophel is Shaftesbury, and David is Charles II. Despite the strong anti-Catholic tenor of the times, Dryden’s clear and persuasive dissection of the intriguers’ motives helped to preserve the duke of York’s position. 

Absalom and Achitophel 

Dryden writes Absalom and Achitophel by the request of Charles II in order to defend the King and his followers against the Whigs led by the Earl of Shaftesbury. From the history, we know that Charles had no legitimate son who could ascend the throne after his death. Therefore, the King was in a problem and nominated his brother James, the Duke of York, as the legal heir of the throne. But in general the people of England were not in favour of James because he was a Catholic. The Catholics wanted James as their King but the Whigs did not want James. The Whigs were vigorously against the Duke of the York. They now want to succeed the throne the Duke of Monmouth an illegitimate son of Charles. Though the king loved his illegitimate son, he opposes this. At this time, Dryden was Poet Laureate and so he was asked to write a poem in support of the King attacking king’s opponents. Dryden did this ridiculing the opponents depicting a mirror like poem Absalom and Achitophel. According to Hobbes, 

"in every society there is an 

absolute monarch and this monarch governs the society"

In this poem, Achitophel is a treacherous conspirator whose name was cursed not only by the people of his contemporary age but also by the succeeding generations. 

◆Character study of Achitophel◆

Achitophel here is represented as sagacious, bold, a fiery soul, a great wit blessed with wealth and honour. As every man is free in his will, his mind was always busy for making secret plans and for wicked advice. At the same time he was restless and had a lust for power but when he was in power he wasted of it. Outwardly, he appeared to be prudent and courageous, noted for taking risk, but he was mischievous by nature. 

• Earl of Shaftesbury :-

Dryden argued that Shaftesbury had a weak and sickly body but he never cared it and he was always busy in planning intrigues against the King and the Crowd and against Absalom for his personal gain. 

“The Power of man, to take it 

Universally, is his present means to obtain some future apparent Good”

We can connect this with the nature of Shaftesbury. 

• False in Friendship :-

Dryden explains in passage that why Achitophel wanted to use Absalom in the struggle against the King. Achitophel knows that he is unpopular and as such he could not be able to lead the revolt against the King. Moreover, his loyalty was suspected and he was to face the treason. He therefore wanted a suitable person to become the leader and to use him. 

Achitophel knew that Absalom had no legal claims to the throne and would have to depend on the support of the people. Regarding this, Achitophel actually would like to use Absalom as a weapon. So, Achitophel thinks in this way, the authority of the king would be undermined and it may pave the way for the rule of the mob. 

• Religionity :-

As we know that people have blind faith in religion. In this poem Dryden also include this topic as very important fact for fight and rebel. Achitophel is trying to prove the King as a Jebusite or Roman Catholic.

“Of listening Crowds, with jealousies and Fears of 

Arbitary Counsels brought to light, And proves the King himself a Jebusite”

• Achitophel 

(A&A, 212-214)

Thus Achitophel plans to rebel against the royal power with multitude. Achitophel united the discontented people of Israel (England) into a single party which had been working separately, now began to work together to achieve one and the same goal. The best people among them included persons of royal blood who were of the view that the king was exercising too much power. Some of the men were really patriotic but they were misguided. They were not evil minded but they were won over by unholy tricks and intrigues. These people made extraordinary claims on the basis of their property and the result was that the government could not stand this pressure and broke down. the general people treated the Popish plot with contempt and hated to be out done by the Jebusites. These people were lead by hot headed priests. These priests were deprived of their positions by the Act of Uniformity passed in 1662 during the Commonwealth and now they reasserted their false notions with great enthusiasm in order to reestablish the theocratic State established by Cromwell. They wanted to regain the power of the Commonwealth under which the parliament and the priests governed the people and justified their misrule by claiming that their actions were inspired by God. Who could be better qualified to rule the country than the race of priests, if spiritual grace was regarded as a basis of political authority. The Presbyterian priests led the crowd. They were not sure of their goal; they spoke vehemently against the government. They used all their strength to destroy discipline and peace. They did not wish to build anything, but they were out of destroying everything. 

• Ambition and Power :-

Power and ambition drive the plot of John Dryden’s poem “Absalom and Achitophel.” King David of Israel has all the power in theory, but in practice, he has little ambition. According to Achitophel, the King’s deceitful counselor, David is lacking manly force, and he gives in too easily to the people. The King is mild and hesitant to draw blood, and Achitophel, in his own ambition for increasing power, sees David as weak. But when should people strive their bonds to break, Achitophel says to David’s son Absalom, “If not when kings are negligent or weak?” Dryden's poem suggests that the desire for power is a common one in the hearts of men. Almost all men want it in some fashion or another, and they are easily swayed from their rightful place and beliefs if given the opportunity to amass it. Absalom is generally a good, loving, and moral son, but he cannot help himself when Achitophel comes calling with whispers of the throne. Achitophel also holds a significant position, but it is not enough for him. Whether one is in politics, the law, or religion, one still has these desires. Dryden doesn't condemn ambition outright, but he asserts that one must know his place and that, if it is not moral or legitimate to seek a specific office or position, then the one who occupies it has the right to resist with force. Absalom wants to rule over the country, and if it's not possible then he wants to destroy the authority of the king. 

• Satire :-

The use of typology in the biblical context of the poem suggests a fine distinction between Absalom’s response to the temptation, and to Achitophel’s well-spoken words. By using types to persuade Absalom of his role as savior, Achitophel becomes an ironic Gospel prophet, and Absalom a false messiah. Achitophel is not slow to offer specific examples of his predictions. He first claims that Absalom’s nativity was marked by some royal planet that ruled the southern sky a favorable omen. The astronomical sign, which is one of the messianic allusions of the temptation scene, is not the correct nativity sign ! The star of the real Messiah rises in the east, not the south.

Next, Achitophel calls Absalom the country’s cloudy pillar, guardian fire, and second Moses. All three are familiar biblical signs; and the pillar and fire are promised in Isaiah as signs of god’s renewed presence among the Israelites. The typical signs that Achitophel mentions have general biblical meaning and would have been persuasive for Absalom, the biblical prince. There is a great deal of irony in this, warning of Achitophel’s deceptive persuasion. Hoping to convince Absalom of the practicality of a “pleasing rape upon the crown”, Achitophel associates David’s old age with his supposed political impotence. Achitophel attempts to remove the kingship and the question of secession from the authority of Heaven and the law of God by falsifying the account of David’s return from exile. According to Achitophel, David was called from Gath by fortune; according to the Bible, he was called from exile by god and anointed by Heaven. Achitophel’s argument makes the sanctity of heaven dependent on the arbitrary role of fortune’s wheel, whose prizes must be grabbed. In the context of biblical history, that ethic obviously contradicts the moral code and world order implied by God’s written law. The association between God and David is made through the clever comparison of divine and human fertility. There is some irony in seeing God’s abundant creation reflected in the king’s sexual extravagances, but the irony doesn’t reduce the status of the king. It serves, at the beginning of the poem, to separate the person of the king from the office of the king. 

• Portrayal of David by Achitophel :-

The opening scenes emphasize David as an indulgent father, not as head of the country. David’s pleasure in Absalom parallels God’s attitude toward Adam in the Garden, but there are two ways of reading this allusion back into Achitophel’s portrait of David. The most obvious is that Achitophel unknowingly predicts the final triumph of David as a Samson figure who wreaks havoc on his enemies and asserts the force of God’s law.

But, in describing David, Achitophel is also appealing to David’s relationship to Christ, especially Christ among enemies and false friends. That relationship also suggests the final victory of God over Satan and all antichrists. Moreover, David as paralleled with Samson, given the typical relationship that both Old Testament figures bear to Christ, plays off nicely against David’s own reference to Absalom as a false Samson. 

• Political sense :-

Achitophel know that how other characters are useful for him. The plans are always made in his mind. Some of the rebel leaders belonged to the aristocracy. The most important among them was Zimri who is the Duke of Buckingham. He had so many qualities that he seemed to be a symbol of all mankind. He was rigid and inflexible in his opinions but unfortunately he held the wrong opinions. He tried his hand at everything but did not stick to any activity for any length of time. Within a month, he would perform the duties of a chemist, fiddler, statesman and a verses and drinking. Besides this, he had numerous other fancies and ideas which he had never put into practice. And Achitophel know that how to use this type of person for his personal benefit. 

• Achitophel of Today's Generation :-

We have lot many Achitophels in and around our town and us. Who looking for their personal desire and advantages. Some of them are also our relatives and our trustful persons. For their personal revenge they use us as weapon like Absalom and provoke us against our near and dear one. But it's our responsibility to be awake with this type of situations. 

Conclusion 

To wind up we can say that the combination of exceptional intellectual caliber and stupendous moral bankruptcy is too rare which we see in Achitophel. It is true that it is not to be found in the character of every politician. Such men as Achitophel, pursuing their ambitious and selfish political goal with extraordinary brilliance through devious means, do exist. There may be few persons of such brilliant intellect who put their intelligence to such devious schemes, but they certainly linger in all lands and in all times. It is true to some extent that, the Earl of Shaftesbury cannot be removed from the context in which Dryden puts him, for we cannot have the same political situation as existed in England at that time. But most of the features presented in Achitophel are to be found universally among politicians hypocrisy, lack of integrity, ambition, etc. When an acutely intelligent man turns his mind to a lust for power, he makes use of his intellectual ability to gain his ends unscrupulously. Such men are to be found in increasing numbers in the modern world of power politics. It proves the universality of Dryden’s portraiture of the Earl of Shaftsbury.