• Apart from other adaptations, Dryden also composed a rimed 'opera'

wrought out of Milton’s Paradise Lost and entitled The Age of

Innocence (printed 1677).
• Some other writers of Heroic play along with Dryden are Elkanah
Settle who wrote Cambyses, King of Persia (1671) and The Empress
of Morocco (1673). Roger Boyle, Earl of Orrery was one of the first
to experiment in the heroic form. If in Mustapha, Son of Solyman the
Magnificent (1665) and in Tryphon (1668) he adopted those Eastern
themes so popular with the heroic writers, in The History of Henry
the Fifth (1664) and in The Black Prince (1667) he took up the
chronicle-history tradition.
• Nathaniel Lee first appeared on the dramatic horizon with his Nero,
Emperor of Rome (1674) and continued to provide the theatre with
rimed and blank-verse pieces until 1689. His heroic plays were popular
but marred by extravagance. A blank-verse tragedy, The Rival Queens
(1677), made his reputation; Lucius Junius Brutus (1680) was
prohibited for antimonarchical sentiments. Lee collaborated with John
Dryden in Oedipus (1678) and The Duke of Guise (1682).
• Thomas Otway [1652-1685] English dramatist and poet, one of the
forerunners of sentimental drama through his convincing presentation
of human emotions in an age of heroic but artificial tragedies. His
masterpiece, Venice Preserved, was one of the greatest theatrical
successes of his period.
• His first play, a rhyming tragedy Alcibiades, was produced in 1675. His
second play, Don Carlos, produced in June 1676, had an immense
success on the stage and is the best of his rhymed heroic plays.
• He published his powerful, gloomy autobiographical poem, The Poet’s
Complaint of His Muse, in 1680. In 1680 his blank-verse domestic
tragedy The Orphan had great success on the stage.
• Venice Preserved, written in blank verse, was first performed in
1682. John Dryden, who wrote the prologue, praised it highly.
• Jaffeir, a noble Venetian, has secretly married Belvidera, the daughter
of a powerful senator named Priuli. For three years the couple live
blissfully, despite her father’s disapproval. When Jaffier loses his
fortune and goes to his father-in-law for help, Priuli refuses to provide
aid.
Meanwhile, Pierre, a foreign soldier and friend to Jaffeir, is plotting to bring
down the Senate in revenge against Antonio, another senator, who is using his
political standing to court Pierre’s mistress, Aquilina.
Pierre informs Jaffeir of the plot, leading him to joins the conspirators, led by
their brutal leader Renault. In order to prove his loyalty Jaffeir is forced to
offer Belvidera as a hostage. After suffering a near rape by Renault, Belvidera
escapes and runs back to Jaffeir, and begs her husband to inform the Senate
of the plot.
Jaffeir betrays his fellow conspirators, on the condition that they will not be
executed for their planned crime. The conspirators arrested, the senators
decide to torture and execute them.
To spare his friend from the agonising torture of being broken on the wheel,
Jaffeir stabs Pierre, and then stabs himself. Belvidera comes on stage, deluded
and thinking she sees the ghosts of both men, and then dies.
• As tragedy developed after 1679 several marked tendencies become
apparent. The first is pseudo-classicism, leading towards strictness of
form, including the retention of the three unities, and simplification
of plot. The other is the movement towards pathos and pity.
• By the end of the 17th century hardly any tragedy was penned which
did not introduce as a main theme a tale of love. In accordance with
this change of atmosphere went an alteration of tragic plan. In
Elizabethan times tragedy had been predominantly masculine; the
hero formed the centre and keynote of the play. With the entrance of
love into the theatrical arena the heroine rapidly came to take a more
prominent place until towards the end of the century we reach the
‘she-tragedy’ where the hero has almost completely vanished, and a
woman figure dominates the entire action of the drama.
• John Banks, was the writer who started this trend. Starting with a
couple of heroic dramas, The Rival Kings (1677) and The Destruction
of Troy (1678) passed from those to pen a series of pathetic plays on
historical themes, The Unhappy Favourite; or, The Earl of Essex
(1681) Virtue Retray’d: or, Anna Bullen (1682), The Island Queens; or,
The Death ofMary, Queen of Scotland (1684), and The Innocent
Usurper; or, The Death of the Lady Jane Gray (1694).
 OPERA AND SPECTACLE
These heroic, pathetic, and other movements all combined with a
general operatic tendency. The first approach towards the opera in the
Restoration period proper was in the direction of Shakespearian
adaptation. The Tempest, after a considerable amount of alteration and
addition, was made operatic by Dryden and Shadwell.
That popularity led towards the composition of original operas. Dryden
penned Albion and Albanius (1685) and King Arthur; or, The British
Worthy (1691).
 Comedy of Humours
• Among Jonson's disciples Thomas Shadwell is without doubt the
chief. Of his eighteen dramas a few stand forward as deserving of
particular attention: Sullen Lovers (1668), The Humorists (1670),
Epsom Wells (1672), The Virtuoso (1676), and Bury Fair (1689).
• In each of these we meet with a lively story of contemporary life, an
array of eccentric and extravagant humours, and a somewhat loose
love-plot.
• Sir Robert Howard, brother-in-law of Dryden, won success with The
Committee (1662), a good-humoured attack upon Puritan hypocrisy.
• These comedies of 'humours’ and similar works of dramatists like
Lacy were a trifle out of date.
 Comedy of Intrigue
Aphra Behn [1640-1689]
• one of the most influential dramatists of the late 17th century, was
also a celebrated poet and novelist. She was the first Englishwoman
known to earn her living by writing thus breaking cultural barriers
and serving as a role model for later generations of women authors.
• Charles II employed her as a spy in Antwerp. Upon her return to
London and a brief stay in debtors' prison, she began writing for the
stage.
• Behn’s early works were tragicomedies in verse. In 1670 her first play,
The Forc’d Marriage, was produced, and The Amorous Prince
followed a year later. Her sole tragedy, Abdelazer, was staged in 1676.
• However, she turned increasingly to light comedy and farce over the
course of the 1670s. The Dutch Lover [1673] a comedic play came
out during the Third Anglo-Dutch War and is an example of wartime
propaganda. When critics tried to sabotage the play Behn tackled the
critics head on in Epistle to the Reader. She argued that women had
been held back by their unjust exclusion from education, not their
lack of ability.
• The Town Fop or, Sir Timothy Tawdry[1676] deals with an unhappy
marriage and its dissolution. Her most popular work is The Rover or
The Banish'd Cavaliers [1677,1681] a play in two parts. It is a revision
of Thomas Killigrew's play Thomaso, or The Wanderer (1664), and
features multiple plot lines, dealing with the amorous adventures of a
group of Englishmen and women in Naples at Carnival time.
• The titular character is a naval captain, Willmore. He falls in love with a
wealthy noble Spanish woman named Hellena, who is determined to
experience love before her brother, Pedro, sends her to a convent. Hellena falls
in love with Willmore, but difficulties arise when a famous courtesan,
Angellica Bianca, also falls in love with Willmore.
• Hellena's older sister, Florinda, attempts to avoid an arranged marriage to her
brother's best friend, and devises a plan to marry her true love, Colonel Belvile.
• The third major plot of the play concerns English countryman Blunt, a naive
and vengeful man who becomes convinced that a girl, Lucetta, has fallen in
love with him. When she turns out to be a prostitute, he is humiliated and
attempts to rape Florinda as revenge against all women for the pain and
damage that Lucetta has caused him.
• In the end, Florinda and Belvile are married, and Hellena and Willmore
commit to marry one another.
• Sir Patient Fancy: A Comedy[1678] is Behn's first overtly political
play. The play's epilogue, spoken by the character Mrs. Gwin, has received
significant attention from feminist writers. In it, Behn criticises those who
damn her play because she is a woman.
• The City Heiress, or, Sir Timothy Treat-all[1682] reflects Behn's
own highly Royalist political point of view.
• The Emperor of the Moon [1687] was Behn's second most successful
play. It presaged the harlequinade, a form of comic theatre that evolved into
the English pantomime.
This species of comedy of intrigue, made popular by the Spanish
tastes of the Court, was adopted by a few other writers, such as
John Crowne in Sir Courtly Nice; or, It Cannot Be (1685).
• She also wrote poetry, the bulk of which was collected in Poems upon
Several Occasions, with A Voyage to the Island of Love (1684)
and Lycidus; or, The Lover in Fashion (1688).
• Her fiction today draws more interest. The Fair Jilt: or, the
Amours of Prince Tarquin and Miranda [1688], a short
novella is the first English novel written by a female writer.
• Agnes de Castro; or, The Force of Generous Love (also
known as The History of Agnes de Castro), is a tragic novel published
posthumously in 1688.
• She is also credited with Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His
Sister , an anonymously published three-volume roman à clef about the events of
the Monmouth Rebellion and exploring the genre of the epistolary novel.
• Her short novel Oroonoko (1688) tells the story of an enslaved African
prince whom Behn claimed to have known in South America.
• Oroonoko’s tale is told from the perspective of a female narrator, possibly
Aphra Behn herself. The narrator claims to have known Oroonoko during his
captivity in Suriname, South America. Suriname is a British colony at the time
the narrative takes place (the 1660s). Oroonoko is not just any old slave—he is
the prince of an African country called Coramantien.
• Oroonoko has grown up and been trained to be a great military leader by
Imoinda’s father. One day, during an intense battle, Imoinda’s father takes a
fatal arrow in the eye and saves Oroonoko’s life. The seventeen-year-old
Oroonoko returns to court an elegant and intelligent young man. The narrator
describes Oroonoko’s noble characteristics, and his exceedingly fine physical
beauty, which is a blend of Roman and African traits.
• While at court, Oroonoko visits the beautiful Imoinda. They fall in love at first
sight. Oroonoko has to ask his grandfather, the King, for his blessing, however,
the king, a lecherous old man, decides to make her his concubines. He sends
her the royal veil, a sign of invitation to come to court. Imoinda is duty-bound
to obey. Separated from her love, Imoinda is kept cloistered at the Otan, the
King’s pleasure palace. She refuses, as much as she can, the King’s advances.
Due to the strict laws, Oroonoko is prevented from seeing Imoinda until the
King invites him.
• Oroonoko confirms Imoinda’s longing to return to him from Onahal, one of
the King’s old wives. Before Oroonoko leaves for war, he is determined to
consummate his marriage to Imoinda. With the help of his friend, Aboan, he
concocts a plan. Aboan seduces Onahal, who agrees to help the lovers, and
Oroonoko and Imoinda spend the night together.
• The King, who had been suspicious sends his guard to confront Oroonoko, but
Oroonoko flees to the battlefront. As punishment for her perfidy, the King sells
Imoinda into slavery, but tells Oroonoko he has executed her.
• Oroonoko gives up fightretiring to his tent. When they are about to lose,
however, Oroonoko rouses from his lovesickness and leads his army to victory.
An English sea captain comes to Coramantien, and Oroonoko receives him as a
royal guest. The Captain double-crosses Oroonoko, however, inviting him
onboard his ship and then kidnapping him, along with a hundred of
Oroonoko’s attendants.
• The Captain brings Oroonoko across the Atlantic to Suriname, where he sells
him to an intelligent and kind-hearted slave-owner named Trefry. Trefry gives
Oroonoko the name “Caesar,” and promises to help free him one day. Trefry
also unwittingly reunites Caesar with Imoinda, whom Trefry knows as
“Clemene.”
• “Caesar” and “Clemene” conceive a child and as Imoinda’s pregnancy
develops, Caesar becomes restless and wants to take his new family back
home. He feels that he will once again be tricked and will remain in slavery.
Indeed, this is the plan of Deputy Governor Byam, who is part of the
colonial government in Suriname. Led by Caesar, the slaves manage to
escape, but their journey ends in disaster when the white colonists come
after them.
• With the exception of Caesar’s friend Tuscan, most of the slaves flee the
group, leaving Caesar and a heavily pregnant Imoinda to confront the
plantation owners. They all fight bravely and Imoinda wounds Byam in the
shoulder with a poisoned arrow. With the help of Trefry, Byam convinces
Caesar to surrender peacefully and promises to fulfill all his demands.
• Byam sequesters Imoinda and brutally whips Tuscan and Caesar. Now that
he is fully awakened to Byam’s treachery, Caesar vows revenge.
• He murders Imoinda and their child, with Imoinda’s permission and
blessing, to save them from prolonged suffering. Caesar then fails to
enact his revenge against Byam, however, when he succumbs to a
debilitating grief beside his wife’s corpse.
• When the colonists come looking for Caesar, he is rescued against his
will by his friends. Sick and dying, he tells them of his plan to kill Byam.
They try to encourage him to abandon this idea and focus on recovery.
One day, the ruthless Irishman Banister kidnaps Caesar at Byam’s behest.
Caesar is again tied to the stake, where he is slowly dismembered, dying
without making a sound.
Virginia Woolf wrote about Aphra Behn, in A Room of One's
Own:

All women together, ought to let flowers fall upon the grave of
Aphra Behn... for it was she who earned them the right to speak
their minds... Behn proved that money could be made by writing
at the sacrifice, perhaps, of certain agreeable qualities; and so by
degrees writing became not merely a sign of folly and a
distracted mind but was of practical importance
• It was parallel to the Comedy of intrigue that farce evolved as an
independent dramatic type. The earliest farcical experiments were
derived from Italian commedia dell’arte.
• In the year 1676 Thomas Otway produced a tragedy called Titus and
Berenice and, when this was published, it appeared along "with a
Farce call’d The Cheats of Scapin“
• Nahum Tate produced A Duke and No Duke (1684) which was
immensely popular. Some other popular farces of the period are Edward
Ravenscroft's Scaramouch a Philosopher, Harlequin a School
boy, Bravo, Merchant and Magician (1677) and Tate's Cuckold's
Haven; or, An Alderman No Conjuror (1685)
 Comedy of Manners
• In 1653, Molière brought out L’Étourdi in Paris; and, from that date
onward to his death, just twenty years later, he remained the master
and the example of the most brilliant comedy of modern times.
Molière satirized the hypocrisy and pretension of 17th-century
French society in such plays as L’École des femmes (1662; The School
for Wives) and Le Misanthrope (1666; The Misanthrope). D’Avenant,
Dryden, Sedley, Wycherley, Vanbrugh, Crowne and Shadwell all owe
debts of plot, character, design and dialogue to French comedy.
• The plot of Comedy of Manners, usually concerned with an illicit
love affair or similarly scandalous matter, is subordinate to the play’s
atmosphere, witty dialogue, and pungent commentary on human
foibles.
• The comedy of manners, as its name implies, concentrates
upon the depiction of men and women living in a social world
ruled by convention. Its 'manners' are not simply the behaviour
of humanity in general but the affectations and cultured veneer
of a highly developed and self-conscious group.
• In the Whitehall which was ruled over by Charles n, intellectual
refinement, epigrammatic wit, and easy dalliance had been
made the prime qualities sought after by the gallants and their
mistresses, and it is these qualities which are reflected in the
'manners' comedy.
• Where the earlier playwrights created powerful and original
characters, the Restoration writers were content to portray repeatedly
a few artificial types. It had polish, a perfection in its own field; but
both its perfection and its naughtiness now seem unreal.
• The heroes of the Restoration comedies were lively gentlemen of the
city, profligates, with a strong tendency to make love to their
neighbours’ wives. Husbands and fathers were dull, stupid creatures.
• The heroines, for the most part, were lovely, too frail for any purpose
beyond the glittering tinsel in which they were clothed. Their
companions were busybodies and gossips, amorous widows or jealous
wives. Over all the action is the gloss of superficial good breeding and
social ease.
• These plays scrutinise and ridicule upper-class society’s manners and
rules of behaviour, providing an up-to-the-minute commentary on
class, desire and the marriage market.
• The tone is cynical and satirical, while the language and actions are
sexually explicit. Characters are driven by lust, greed, and their goals
are limited: fraud, courtship, gulling, cuckoldry. The intricate plots
add much to the atmosphere of deceit and moral confusion.
• The rake was an invention of Restoration comedy. Seductive, witty
and arrogant, he represented male prowess and drive, much admired
in court circles. Through the rake, the plays explore the possibility of
a sexual freedom which was simply not possible in London society at
large, but was more than tolerated at court.
English diplomat and credited to be the creator of the Restoration-era
comedy of manners. Etherege’s first comedy, The Comical Revenge;
or, Love in a Tub, was presented at Lincoln’s Inn Fields in 1664.
Etherege employs two separate language styles in a unique way. The love and
honour plot, which has two couples, Beaufort and Graciana, Bruce and Aurelia,
mistaking each other's feelings and becoming embroiled in intrigue, duels, sword
playandsentimentalaphorisms,iswritteninrhymingcouplets.
The second plot is low farcical comedy. The servant, Dufoy, looks pale and
unhealthy, and claims it is because of unrequited love for Betty, a waiting woman.
Actually, he is languishing from a venereal disease. Betty, highly indignant when
shediscoversthathehasbeenpretendingtoloveher,lockshimupinawashtub.
The third plot involves Sir Nicholas Cully, a gull waiting to be swindled.
He falls into the clutches of Wheadle and Palmer, two con artists;
thinking all the time that he is the one who is doing the swindling.
She wou’d if she cou’d, his second comedy (1668) was the first comedy
of manners to attain unity of tone by shedding the incongruous
romantic verse element.
Sir Oliver Cockwood and his wife, Sir Joslin Jolley and his young
kinswomen Ariana and Gatty, come to London to divert themselves, Sir
Oliver and Sir Joslin with dissipation, Lady Cockwood, with an affair,
and the two young ladies with innocent flirtations.
Lady Cockwood pursues Mr Courtal, a gentleman of the town, with her
unwelcome attentions. Mr Courtal and his friend Mr Freeman strike up
acquaintance with the young ladies.
They take them and Lady Cockwood to Drury Lane for a dance, where
Joslin and Oliver also arrive there. Sir Oliver gets drunk, dances with his
wife, supposing her to be someone quite different, and confusion ensues.
The ladies go home. Freeman arrives to console Lady Cockwood.
Courtal arrives and Freeman is concealed in a cupboard. Sir Oliver arrives
and Courtal is hidden under the table. The two men are discovered, the
young ladies are awarded to them, and Lady Cockwood resolves to 'give
over the great business of the town' and confine herself hereafter to the
affairs of her own family.
From 1668 to 1671 Etherege was in Turkey as secretary to the English
ambassador, Sir Daniel Harvey. After his return he wrote his last and
wittiest comedy, The Man of Mode; or, Sir Fopling Flutter[1676].
There are two main plots, neatly interwoven. Dorimant rids himself of his
mistress Mrs Loveit, with the aid of Bellinda whom he seduces in the
process. In doing so he meets the heiress Harriet Woodvil, with whom he
appears to fall in love. She is wise enough to keep him at arm's length until
he proposes marriage, and even then requires him to follow her into the
country, there to receive her answer after the play is ended.
In counterpoint, Young Bellair has been ordered by his father to marry
Harriet; but he loves Emilia, who with the help of his aunt Lady Towneley
enables him to outwit the old man, who has fallen for Emilia. The revelation
of his own dotage induces Old Bellair to give his blessing to his son’s
marriage.
The play features Sir Fopling Flutter, ‘the prince of fops’ who is inordinately
concerned with his dress and appearance and is a man of “acquired follies.”
The closest immediate follower of Etherege in comedy is Sir Charles
Sedley, whose earliest comedy, The Mulberry Garden, 1668, is based, in
part, on Molière’s L’École des Maris and is written in mixture of prose and
heroic couplets.

English dramatist who attempted to reconcile in his plays a personal

conflict between deep-seated puritanism and an ardent physical nature.
His first play, Love in a Wood; or, St. James’s Park[1671] brought its
author instant acclaim.
The Gentleman Dancing-Master [1671] shows Moliere's influence.
The 14 year old daughter, Hippolita, of a strict, though absentee father, is
betrothed against her will to her cousin, an outrageous, frenchified dandy,
Monsieur de Paris.
Her father, having lived in Spain and now calling himself Don Diego,
affects the dress and manner of Spain. She prefers young Gerrard, and
persuades him to present himself as her dancing-master, with Monsieur's
gullible connivance. The deception works despite Hippolita's aunt, Mrs.
Caution, who, true to her name, desperately attempts to reveal the lovers'
machinations, which she sees through.
Gerrard's incompetence in this role is many times on the point of
betraying him, and in the final confusion he and Hippolita contrive to get
themselves married by the parson who had intended to marry her to
Monsieur. The moral of the play appears to be contained in the final verse
of Act II:
Our Parents who restrain our liberty / But take the course to make us sooner free,
Though all we gain be but new slavery; / We leave our Fathers, and to Husbands fly.
The Country-Wife[1675] reflects an aristocratic and anti-Puritan
ideology, and was controversial for its sexual explicitness.
Harry Horner, a notorious womanizer, spreads a rumor that while being
treated by a French surgeon, he has accidentally been made impotent
hoping that gullible men will leave their wives, sisters, and daughters with
Horner without suspicion that he might seduce them.
Mr Pinchwife, who comes to London for the marriage of his sister Alithea,
bringing with him his artless young wife Margery; his excessive warnings
against wrongdoing put ideas into her head, and she is eventually seduced
by Horner, innocently protesting the while that she is merely behaving as
town ladies do.
Alithea's suitor Sparkish loses her to a new lover, Harcourt, through the
opposite fault of excessive credulity.
The Plain Dealer [1676] is based on Molière's Le Misanthrope. Manly
is a captain who prides himself on his “plain dealing” with other people.
However, he doesn’t see that what he prizes as honesty strikes others as
rudeness, brashness, and cruelty. Manly is in pursuit of the beautiful Olivia,
a wealthy woman who is just as misanthropic as he is.
Manly, returned from the Dutch wars, has lost faith in all but Olivia, to
whom he has confided his money, and his friend Vernish: he finds Olivia
married to Vernish, and faithless even to him. Manly is beloved by Fidelia, a
young woman who has followed him to sea in man's clothes; she intercedes
with Olivia on his behalf and is discovered by Vernish, who attempts to
rape her, and is finally wounded in an attempt to defend Manly from
Vernish. Manly forswears Olivia and pledges himself to Fidelia.
• There is a sub-plot in which the litigious widow Blackacre, who has a
passion for legal jargon, trains up her son Jerry in her footsteps. Voltaire,
considered her ‘the most comical character that was ever brought upon
the stage’ .
• In 1682 the more successful Duke's Company absorbed the struggling
King's Company, and the United Company was formed. The production of
new plays dropped off sharply in the 1680s, affected by both the monopoly
and the political situation.
• There was a swing away from comedy to serious political drama, reflecting
preoccupations following the Popish Plot (1678) and the Exclusion Crisis
(1682). The few comedies produced also tended to be political , the Whig
dramatist Thomas Shadwell sparring with the Tories John Dryden and
Aphra Behn.
• Christopher Rich took over the management of the United Company in
1693, and his methods caused a split between the players in 1694. The
senior actors including Elizabeth Barry, Thomas Betterton and Anne
Bracegirdle, with twelve other players left to form their own collaborative
company which opened at Lincoln's Inn Fields with the smash hit of
Congreve's Love For Love in 1695.
• London again had two competing companies. This War of the theatres,
1695–1700 briefly revitalized Restoration drama. but also set it on a fatal
downhill slope. If Rich's company offered attractions – jugglers,
ropedancers, performing animals –the co-operating actors, even as they
proclaim themselves up as the only legitimate theatre company in London,
were not above retaliating with "prologues recited by boys of five, and
epilogues declaimed by ladies on horseback"