Four Restoration Marriage Plays

Otway was probably the best writer of tragedies during the Restoration period. His Venice Preserved (1682) is rivaled only by Dryden's All for Love. As the Royal Shakespeare Company's production so well demonstrated, Venice Preserved is still a dark and passionate play. The love versus honor conflict echoes the heroic drama, but Jaffier's vacillation between the demands of a friend and a wife reflects the somberness of a world in chaos, a Jacobean tragic theme. Otway's The Orphan (1680) set the fashion for a serious play based on pathos, if not actual tears. Otway had an unrequited passion for Mrs. Elizabeth Barry, the actress who appeared in most of his dramas. Penniless at the end of his life, he died while in a London tavern

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