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
The Bronze Horseman (poem) concerned with the profoundest issues which confront humanity”. He concludes that if the poem is to be labeled a national epic, it is a "highly idiosyncratic" one. Several critics have suggested that the immediate inspiration for "The Bronze Horseman" was the work of the Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz. Before beginning work on "The Bronze Horseman", Pushkin had read Mickiewicz's "Forefathers' Eve" (1823–32), which contains a poem entitled "To My Muscovite Friends", a thinly-veiled attack on Pushkin and Vasily Zhukovsky for their failure to join the radical Decembrist revolt of 1825. "Forefather's Eve" contains poems where Peter I is described as