Blackwell Reference Online

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To understand Restoration tragedy, one must first understand what the playwrights and audiences meant by the term as well as the many diverse influences that shaped the serious drama of the later seventeenth century. For writers such as Dryden and Lee, Otway and Rowe, tragedy was an inclusive concept that implied a certain gravitas of action although not necessarily a tragic ending. While fatal endings still dominated and were viewed as a higher form of drama, the umbrella term ‘tragedy’ applied to almost any form of serious drama, so much so that John Dryden made a distinction which would be easily recognizable to his contemporaries when he referred in ‘The Grounds of Criticism in Tragedy’ (1679) to ‘that inferior sort of Tragedies which end with a prosperous event’ (1984: 233). To Restoration writers, tragedy was the most exalted form of drama, and it was also the subject of the hottest critical debates. Although comedies outnumbered tragedies on the stage, tragedy stirred more critical debate, first because writers deemed it more worthy of discussion, and second, because of the implications of its subject matter. With its depiction of the struggles of kings and princes, tragedy allowed for significant political commentary, which at times made it a dangerous literary pastime.Writing after an eighteen-year hiatus during the Civil Wars, Restoration playwrights sought to establish ... log in or subscribe to read full text