The State of Innocence The State of Innocence The State of Innocence was intended to be performed as an opera, with the libretto written in 1674, (first published in 1677) by John Dryden. It is basically a musical stage adaptation of John Milton's epic poem "Paradise Lost", a tribute to Milton rather than a satire of the poem. That Dryden was an admirer of Milton's is surprising as the two men were politically opposed. Milton was against the restoration of the British monarchy, while the royalist Dryden was created England’s first Poet Laureate by the restored Charles II. So great an admirer of Milton
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (poem) Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (poem) "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" is an ecphrastic poem by the 20th-century American poet William Carlos Williams that was written in response to "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus", traditionally attributed to Pieter Bruegel. Williams first published the poem as part of a sequence in "The Hudson Review" in 1960, subsequently using the sequence as the basis for his final book, "Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems", published in 1962. The poem, as indicated by the title, touches upon the Greek tragedy of Icarus, the story in which Icarus, the son of