Will it be justified to describe Absalom and Achitophel as a passionate plea for healthy politics and a healthy society?

 John Dryden claimed that Absalom and Achitophel was carefully planned to promote political reform. To gain this end, Dryden used satire, the true aim of which he defined as "the amendment of vices by correction." The particular vices he wanted to correct were those of the Whigs of his day, who were seeking to secure the succession of the duke of Monmouth, illegitimate son of Charles II, to his father's throne. Second, realizing that direct satire might defeat its purpose by incurring resentment, Dryden chose to attack the Whigs by casting them as characters in the biblical story of Absalom's revolt against David. Third, to increase his satire's effectiveness, he cast it in verse, "for there's sweetness in good verse, which tickles even while it hurts." 3:0 Absalom and Achitophel is a political satire which is a form of literature. Its proclaimed purpose is the reform of human weaknesses or vices through laughter or disgust. Satire is different from scolding and sheer abuse, though it is prompted by indignation. Its aim is generally constructive, and need not arise from cynicism or misanthropy. 

The satirist applies the test of certain ethical, intellectual and social standards to men and women, and determines their degree of criminality or culpability. Satire naturally has a wide range; it can involve an attack on the vices of an age, or the defects of an individual or the follies common to the very species of mankind. Absalom and Achitophel is a landmark political satire by John Dryden. Dryden marks his satire with a concentrated and convincing poetic style. His satiric verse is majestic. John Dryden used the biblical story in his poem Absalom and Achitophel to warn his people of the schemes that the false religious men and politicians used to fulfil their goals against the English monarchy. Dryden was never a neutral person; he was likely to be a royalist poet, and a defender of King Charles II. 

He even left his position as a poet laureate after the Glorious Revolution because he seemed to have some grudge towards the Whiggish policy. Dryden adapted the Biblical story to defend the King by earning people's favour and support. He presented the King as a sacred guard of people, and the country. He is placed as a king by the consent of God. Dryden indirectly told people if they rebel against the king, they are rebelling against God's will. 

They will be cursed, and doomed in the end. Dryden uses the image of King David to exemplify King Charles It's silence, and lack of action. Written in heroic couplets, Absalom and Achitophel is often called Dryden's best poem for a healthy society. Its direct literary influence reaches from Dryden's contemporaries to Alexander Pope and Charles Churchill in the eighteenth century and to Lord Byron in the nineteenth century. In the poem, Dryden indicates similarities between the Biblical story, which tells how the wicked Achitophel urged King David's illegitimate son Absalom to rise up against his father, and events in England between 1678 and 1681, when Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury, a leader of the Whiggish opposition to the king, was accused of persuading James Scott, Duke of Monmouth and illegitimate son of Charles II, to rebel against his father. 

Considering the above discussion, we can say that John Dryden wrote Absalom and Achitophel as a satire to encourage political reform of fashion.