Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The literary and professional interests of Elkanah Settle, John Crowne and Nahum Tate intersected or ran parallel at several points during their careers. In the early 1670s, both Settle and Crowne got their starts writing rhymed heroic plays that employed spectacular effects and featured expensive, state-of-the-art scenes. The former's greatest success, The Empress of Morocco, touched off a controversy in which Settle was forced to defend himself against the critical assault of John Dryden, Thomas Shadwell and Crowne. During the Popish Plot and Exclusion Crisis, all three wrote propagandistic drama for their respective factions. And all hoped to parlay their professional success into salaried offices, though only Tate achieved this goal. Settle and Crowne died in poverty and obscurity.But perhaps the closest bond these playwrights share today is the fact that their early twenty-first-century literary reputations reflect hardly at all the success they enjoyed during the late seventeenth century. Indeed, the critical picture that we have inherited presents a severely distorted view of their relative popularity and importance during their own lifetimes, for while Tate is now the most famous, he wrote fewer plays (more than half of which are adaptations) and had a shorter, less distinguished theatrical career than either Settle or Crowne.My goal is to reconstruct the contemporary impact ... log in or subscribe to read full text