Restoration Tragedy
Bonamy Dobrée
Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1929
Ferrick Gray
The Yellowed Page
Volume 3, Issue 5 (March 30)
Prefatory Remarks
⠀ I have written about Dobrée's work before, with his Restoration Comedy (Snippets, Vol. 1, Issue 4). He keeps his study within the restoration period of 1660 to 1720 for both the comedy and tragedy expositions. I have found both of Dobrée's books to be easy reading with a somewhat lighthearted tone. What modern readers will find difficult are the writers he mentions. For many people, the bulk of his references will be unfamiliar and will require more research to understand the significance of what he is writing about.
⠀ Dobrée sets out the object of his study in his introduction.⠀ He gives us three main areas:
- Why Restoration tragedy took the form known as heroic, and explaining what the word meant at this time.
- Consider the distinguished characteristics of great writers from the period, and what objects they created.
- He discusses what can be learnt from this period for the writing of tragedy today.
⠀ We need to note that, in his third point, the use of the word "today" refers to his time when his book was published in 1929. Close to a century has passed since he wrote this, and I suppose there are not a lot of playwrights who take up the tragedy genre. If they do, there is likely to be a different interpretation of the word "tragedy".
⠀ The first three chapters are of significance in explaining the necessity, criticism, and makeup of the restoration tragedy itself. These being:
- The Necessity for Heroism
- Restoration Criticism and the Trend of Writing
- Blank Verse and the Heroic Couplet
⠀ The remaining six chapters look at specific writers of the period. These are: John Dryden (August 19, 1631—May 12, 1700), Nat Lee (1653—May 6, 1692), Thomas Otway (March 3, 1652—April 14, 1685), and Nicholas Rowe (June 20, 1674—December 5, 1718). Specific works are considered in two of these chapters: Cleopatra, The Mourning Bride, and Cato.
⠀ The entire book is full of gems from the Restoration period, along with many quotes from the works of several playwrights of that time.
Heroism and Admiration
⠀ The aspect that many readers find astonishing about Restoration tragedy is the lack of reality. Saying this, it is not the plot or any specific detail in the play, but more the unreality of emotions.
⠀ One of the pressing questions is how a whole generation comes to accept the fantastic ideas of valor and the absurd notions of love that we find in Restoration tragedy.
⠀ Thomas Hobbes (April 5, 1588—December 4. 1679) has supplied an answer:
The work of a(n) heroic poem is to raise admiration, principally for three virtues: valour, beauty, and love.
⠀ One point to note is that plays did not need to be written in heroic couplets to be called heroic. However, heroic couplets were in popular use.
⠀ Restoration tragedy was mainly a courtly art, written for the King's or the Duke of York's players. Audiences were those of the fashionable, and the plays were not meant for the Phoenix or the Globe. Thus, we could expect something different.
⠀ You may say that this type of play had elevated themes, or at least elevated itself; the emphasis, or elevation, was with respect to art and virtues.
⠀ Hobbes again
The delight of an Epic Poem consisteth not in mirth, but in admiration.
⠀ Admiration in Restoration tragedy had interest in terms of its effect, and took the place of terror and pity. The number of happier or delightful endings can gauge this. As a result, passionate love became a necessary part of tragedy. For the Restoration work, it was not terror and pity, but terror-admiration and love-pity. Heroic love became a law unto itself, being an excuse for any failing of self or with others, and virtuous to the point that all other virtues gave way to it. Essential tragedy was different at this time, and attempted in no way to cure what people saw in humanity by presenting something more exalted. In other words, we may say, to make them feel better about themselves and life in general.
⠀ The tragedy itself was spurred on by the development of the theater stage. The move was toward more complex scenery and other contraptions. As a result, this complexity added a somewhat masque element to the tragedy, and although words needed to compete more, the audience loved it.
Romanticism
⠀ During this period, there was a move from poetry to plays, and Restoration drama became the literary center. However, critics of the time were more concerned with poetry, but active discussion arose regarding plays and their poetic content. As the excitement of the theater increased, the number of critics multiplied, and these critical ideas of the day became paramount in guiding poets and playwrights.
⠀ For many writers, their argument at this time is concerned with classical versus modern, focusing on the point of form. A partial problem was that critics could not see that content and form were interdependent, and they did not realize that one form may not be suitable for other purposes.
⠀ Tragedy failed because dramatists were trying to express romantic ideas in a form that had evolved from the classical approach. As a result, much of Restoration tragedy conformed to classical notions, but the expressed passions were nearly always romantic. It was commonly believed that the poet's job was to make the impossible appear likely. Thus, Restoration heroes were not men as they really are, but as men writers would have liked them to be.
Common Sense
⠀ When it comes to the content and activities of the characters, one may think that common sense would prevail. In other words, would the audience be prepared to accept somewhat fanciful happenings? Yet we must realize that in certain instances, the excitement of the drama may allow us to accept things that at other times we would not. Is it possible for the audience to be persuaded? Naturally, this comes back to the dramatists and their poetic skill.
⠀ A point put forward by Thomas Rymer (1643—December 14, 1713) was concerning what he called poetic justice.
A poet must, of necessity, see justice exactly administered if he intends to please.
This meant rewarding virtue and punishing vice in an appropriate manner.
The Plot
⠀ The concept of poetic justice affected the plot since men no longer tested themselves against life as in the Elizabethan days. They had now ceased to invent horrors to stand against.
⠀ There was a difference between the fable and the plot. The fable is the story, and the plot is the structure. Tragedy itself is not concerned with what men are nor with how they behaved. It was chiefly concerned with what happens to mankind. Restoration writers regarded the plot as the soul of tragedy, and the object of the plot was to make the fable pleasing and to endow it with verisimilitude.
The Unities
⠀ The three dramatic unities are action, time, and place, each derived from Aristotle's Poetics, for a play to have one main plot, occur within twenty-four hours, and stay in one location. These are the classical unities to heighten concentration, realism, and intensity. All of these were famously rejected by Shakespeare.
⠀ Time and place were the two that caused the greatest difficulty and disagreement, and it was thought that time should be more selective in preference to being compressed into a period of about three hours.
The Heroic Couplet
⠀ The term heroic was not used solely for those plays written in riming couplets, but at one stage did count for the heroic play. There was much controversy regarding the use of the heroic couplet in drama as there is today. It was thought that the couplets may fatigue the ear, and it was far removed from life. In other words, was it an instrument of speech as something apart from poetry, and meant to be read?
⠀ It was known that the antithetical couplet perfected by Pope could not be tolerated on stage, as the attention given to a written poem is not the same as that given to a speech in the theater. It is far more concentrated. A speech on stage does not need to be as intense. Hence, it was thought that the couplet in its extreme form was not suitable for the stage. The medium came across as being very stilted under certain circumstances and difficult to carry on a natural exchange on the stage. Out of all Shakespeare's plays, there is only one example of heroic couplets being used, and that was in Othello.
She that could think, and ne'er disclosed her mind;
See suitors following, and not look behind;
She was a wight, if ever such wights were,
To suckle fools, and chronicle small beer.
⠀ However, there is little use of this form of the heroic couplet in Restoration tragedy. Stage speech is not pure literature; it is a form of oratory meant to move an audience as well as to imitate conversation. The major problem was that both the antithetical and dramatic couplets were expected to do things outside of their scope. Dryden was very much aware of the defects of the couplet and used variations to overcome them, to a point. These variations included
- leaving certain lines incomplete, and outside the rime system,
- using the occasional alexandrine.
⠀ In short, the heroic couplet used in drama is not that of the one perfected by Pope due to the known effects of meter and rime.
The Controversy
⠀ Even though the point of heroic couplets and their construction was often discussed, it was the battle of rime that enlivened criticism. This carried on for quite some time, particularly between Dryden and Sir Robert Howard (January 1626—September 3, 1698), the beginnings of which were Dryden’s Essay of Dramatick Poesie.
⠀ Howard argued that the people in Dryden's plays must be born poets to be able to respond in wit and rime so quickly. Dryden maintained that a good writer might make a rime sound as natural as anything else or possibly like blank verse. Of course, all of this is in a serious play. The objection to prose is that it is too life-like and is too weak for serious plays. It was believed that serious plays should not imitate conversation too closely.
The Quatrain
⠀ As one may concede, it was difficult to avoid the monotony of the couplet in dramatic verse. There were a number of ways to avoid this, but they were not always successful. Those considered were:
- inserting a triplet,
- using an imperfect verse,
- drop into an alexandrine.
⠀ However, there was also the possibility of the quatrain. We might also note that the quatrain was basically absent from the Shakespearean plays.
⠀ The quatrain was not altogether successful with the Restoration tragedy. It tended to sentimentalize the tragedy itself. However, it did allow a change, perhaps so slight, in the tempo, as in slowing the atmosphere of the situation that the couplet did not allow.
⠀ Again, with its shortcomings, the quatrain could be used quite effectively in shorter stretches in a play.
Blank Verse
⠀ The main objection to blank verse was that it was considered too luxuriant in that it could run to many lines. This, in turn, could make the speech of the character quite dull and uninteresting or lose the audience’s attention.
⠀ What was needed was a different variation of blank verse for the stage. Something that would not be so jerky with end-stopping. It would also require that the stress be on the right word. Things such as complete rimes and verse padding also needed to be addressed. It was also discovered that blank verse could slide into couplet formation without any great notice. Although not common, the couplet may indeed follow after a quatrain.
⠀ We have to realize that something needs to give way to make the verse in Restoration tragedy successful. If we consider that it is only emotions that make poetry, there will be a lack of inspiring verses, which ultimately will become weak verses.
⠀ We may deceive the ear by writing in a rimed measure without rimes, and possibly the rimes may be introduced later, or toward the ends of the stanza, but what can happen is that the verses will lack thought and need to be padded with irrelevant description and emotion. Although poetry is the medium to express emotion, thought must be taken into account. Poetry can not be made out of emotions alone. Thus, the Restoration tragedy began to flicker out.
What We Have Learnt
⠀ The reason that Restoration tragedy has in some way failed is not always by its form, but the choice of material laid upon the form. The error was in limiting elements of human nature that were suitable for the purposes of art. The moment we take a didactic approach, we begin to lose the realism of the situation. As a result, tragedy will fail.
⠀ The failure of Restoration tragedy was that the content was not creating a proper form, and passions were made to flow into a classical mold, which is what is seen with most, but not all, of these plays.
⠀ Dobrée states:
One or two are superbly successful; here and there, we find some adequate ones, but there is no large body of good work simply because the form does not correspond with the emotion.
⠀ There may have been other causes, including the confusion between tragedy and the epic, their content and means of expression. Admiration by exclusion led to distortion, and along with the treatment of love, contributed to the failure of tragedy.
⠀ Dobrée's final statement
For as far as writing is concerned, you can always pour new wine into old bottles; but if you continually pour old wine into any bottles at all it grows musty. This is exactly what has happened to this drama. But it is well to be able to distinguish between the vintage in its prime and when it has reached the stage of being undrinkable.
It should make all poets and playwrights think carefully about form and emotion in writing.