Absalom and Achitophel is a celebrated satirical poem by John Dryden, written in heroic couplets and first published in 1681.

[3][4] In the prologue, "To the Reader", Dryden states that "the true end of satire is the amendment of vices by correction".

And he for whom it was intended, was too witty to resent it as an injury … And thus, my lord, you see I have preferred the manner of Horace, and of your Lordship, in this kind of satire, to that of Juvenal.

[8]The story of Absalom's rebellion against his father, King David, is told in the Old Testament of the Bible, in the Second Book of Samuel (chapters 14 to 18).

A second allegory in the poem, beginning on line 425, is the Parable of the Prodigal Son, which can be found in the New Testament in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 15, verse 11–32.

It is the tale of a son who asks for his birthright early, loses it, and returns to his father, who then takes pity on him and shares with him his remaining fortune.

Charles had no legitimate child to be his heir, and his brother, the future King James II, was openly a Roman Catholic.

[9] When Charles's health suffered, there was a panic in the House of Commons over the potential for the nation being ruled by a Roman Catholic king.

Monmouth was caught preparing to rebel and seek the throne, and Shaftesbury was suspected of fostering this rebellion.

[13] Dryden's poem tells the story of the first foment by making Monmouth into Absalom, the beloved boy, Charles into David (who also had done some philandering), and Shaftesbury into Achitophel.

The poem places most of the blame for the rebellion on Shaftesbury, and makes Charles a very reluctant and loving man who has to be king before father.

Susan Greenfield proposes that the mentions of maternity and women are an important part of the poem's royalist resolution.

Dryden declined the suggestion, but his friend Nahum Tate took it up and wrote a second part, publishing it the following year, 1682.